The catastrophe that fell upon Finweald was far more than she expected. Before her eyes is the proof of how sickening the Starcalled had grown. Their overconfidence costed them yet another kingdom. Yet the flames and screams became a distant memory, they faded with every step she made leading her further away from Tragedy, and towards death itself: Vintergard.
Her arm could barely hold up the burning torch yet. The wounds were fresh, but the hermit largely ignored them. Gloved hand brushed the dust off the pillar that stood before her, and magic reacted, forming a tangible barrier. The carving upon her hand reacted just as she expected.
Her gauntlet fell upon the ground once the straps came undone, and her glove offered no resistance once she pulled it apart. Her frown grew deeper the moment she threw the torch into the cavernous path, lighting the road ahead of her. Hesitation had to be put behind, but her index finger hovered over the back of her left hand.
An image flashed through her mind.
It tempered her resolve. Swiping a cross upon the scarred tissue forced the slumbering rune to wake, the amber glow a dangerous omen of what her actions meant before consuming itself back to nothing. By the time she pressed on, there was nothing keeping her from reaching deeper through the narrow hallway,
Where dim sunrays were all the respite she had.
Tight corridors forced her to a crawl, sliding between two walls no claustrophobic would wish to meet. Dust fell on top of her as the earth grumbled in response to the knightess's presence.
Get out of my head.
It didn't reply, despite how it's warm touch spread through her shoulders like that of a concubine. How every step made the last one dark. She knew that, eventually, penumbra would be all that's left around her. Everything but the candles and the stone table. Even now the path felt infinitely longer, as if it didn't want her to reach it.
As if it wanted her to remember first the reason she's here. And that... That she did, the stone felt familiar as if she never left it in the first place for all these months to rot. But she couldn't keep it buried, not like this. Finweald burns, the Magia grow stronger every second, and the only one she cares for is now the one she has to point her balde at. She should know better, as this is the cowardly way Szofrit chose to face them all. But Ronja pulling the trigger on her..?
Betrayal is scarred tissue that never heals, and to see her beloved hurt her like that, in all imaginable ways, went through the knight's stone heart.
The wind whispered through the half-open gates of the inner sanctuary. Even for her, it took effort and sweat to pull them apart, and within it, she found fear-driven memories reawakened within the stone and it's carved walls. She climbed the broken stairs, placing her sword and it's sheath against the table. Her gauntlet fell to the ground, and following that up, the clip of her fur-trimmed cloak, with the garment along with it. Once her sleeves were out of her way, her unnerved eyes fell upon carved runes upon her flesh, like a museum, only the art displayed was endless, half of one obscured by her clothes.
Her hands bailed into fists, clenching hard enough to use her nails as stings over her own bruised palms, all that pressure released in defeat, as both hands pulled Last Hope from it's hilt. Slowly and carefully. Before dropping the scabbard onto the ground.
The knightess expected it to show up today. Just not on this form. Wretched, ghastly, it's own means to agitate her.
A living image of her fears.
There is no hiding from who you are, Starcalled.
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