8.19 Wheel
Things happen, when they happen.
All things considered, my exit is leagues more graceful than it has any right to be, and I find myself lightly touching down back on the material plane.
I am… distantly aware that everything around me is utter chaos, yet it washes over me like water on a duck's back.
Being absolutely certain of your place in the universe fucks with your head like that; 'zen' doesn't even begin to describe how I feel right now.
Now that the fight is over and my heartbeat has ceased to pound into my ears, I can only quietly marvel at my new form of existence.
And I find Royalty heady to say the least.
Everything feels right, because everything is At It Should Be. I instinctively tapped into it while I was busy emptying the Astral Realm from its squatters, but now I truly am aware of the singular source of power slowly pulsing through my Atum and Key both, and spreading through my flesh with each beat of my heart.
A magic, my very own, that is greater than the sum of its parts.
A perfect mirror for this new body of mine, cleansed from every foreign influences bar the one I chose to keep.
An errant gust of wind certainly does the heavy lifting into reminding me that I'm currently going starker by bringing my musings to a halt, and contrary to a certain trollop, I'm not so deluded as to think that my wings alone are an acceptable everyday attire outside of the bedroom.
I ignore a nearby commotion to correct that shameful state of affairs. An exhibitionist, I am not.
A casual flick of my finger and a minute exertion of my Will both bring forth Clothy from my Requip space, and its simple and joyous mind joins with mine once more as soon as it makes contact with my corpse grey skin.
An enthusiastic ripple promptly sees me clothed in a shoulderless black cheongsam – though the symbiote does struggle a little when it reaches the chitinous plates hugging my ribcage and making my breasts pop – and I–
"...Are you an angel?"
I slowly blink, then languidly look up from my not-so figurative bout of navel-gazing.
***
If you had asked Queen Charlotte if any sort of harm could ever befall Falconia the day before, she would have gasped, lightly fanned herself with the help of her hand, and only then softly demurred that she could not see it happening.
Humanity's last bastion in these uncertain times had been a true marvel, protected by the King's troops, each of them chosen by God, and peacefully under the bough of the World Spiral Tree.
Today, though?
The Queen wouldn't answer that query, for anyone with eyes could see that Falconia had fallen.
Nobody knew how it started, but overnight, the ever-shining canopy of the World Spiral Tree had started to wither and rot.
And high in the sky and above the clouds themselves, one by one, the decayed branches fell. She had been woken up in the middle of the night by a thunderous crash that had turned an entire quarter of Falconia into so much rubble, her heart beating madly inside her chest, and her eyes wide with fear.
After the fourth crash had taken out most of the eastern wall encircling humanity's bastion, the grim-faced captain of her personal guard had chosen to break protocol to enter the King's chambers with the intended goal of escorting his Queen away from the ongoing destruction.
Charlotte hadn't wanted to leave. Falconia was Griffith's city, their kingdom, and yet–
And yet the King wasn't here, gone on a mission with most of his troops, and she…
In the end, she had chosen to live, and accepted to flee Falconia's fall with twenty members of her personal guard and four of her maids, all of them undoubtedly just as frightened as she was, though they were better at hiding their own feelings under a mask of duty.
None of them managed to flee the crumbling city as the World Spiral Tree's illness spread further and further, and more branches kept falling, consigning thousands to an early grave with each bone rattling and deafening impacts, and stopping their party from making a clean escape as street after street became barred by putrid obstacles taller than most of Falconia's buildings.
Charlotte had kept a strong front through the entire ordeal.
She said nothing when a branch fell two quarters from her escort, and the impact sent her ass over teakettle.
She said nothing when a cloud of dirt, loose pebbles, and cement dust swallowed them all shortly after.
She said nothing when her home, her castle, broke down after one shockwave too many.
She said nothing when the grim-faced captain of her guard led them back toward the trunk of the World Spiral Tree as a last gamble, to 'wait for the worst of it to pass'.
She had kept a strong front, enduring the loss of her kingdom with a Queen's dignity, even caked in dirt and dust, her robes in tatters, and her knees and hands scraped from when she fell.
Yet, now that Charlotte, her personal guard, and what few survivors they managed to find are all huddled up around the titanic trunk of the World Spiral Tree, the rest of her party fearfully looking heavenward as if it could shield them from another festering branch to fall right on top of them, all she the Queen of the fallen city can do–
–is to pray.
Kneeling in the dust and mud, with her hands joined and her eyes closed, she prays for the salvation of her kingdom, and the survival of her remaining subjects.
She prays for the World Spiral Tree, so that what ills it goes away, and so that mankind can once again find shelter under its bough.
And, beyond anything else, she prays for her King, acutely feeling Griffith's absence in this chaotic carnage, and for him to come back to her soon.
It would be far easier to put on a strong front and pretend that everything will be alright if the man she loves with all her heart was present.
She doesn't know how long she remained kneeling in prayer. All she knows is that, at some point, hushed gasps and tense whispers wrenches her away from her heartfelt plea to god, and her eyes flutter open just in time to see a tall figure parting away the mouldering bark of the World Spiral Tree, and step foot on the dust of her kingdom.
The woman, for her nakedness leaves very little doubt about it, is easily as tall as a healthy man. Her skin is of a grey the likeness of man who has breathed its last, and her lips and long nails of a darkness that seems to swallow the light. On the top of her head, thick tendrils the color of freshly spilled blood lightly sway with each of her moves and breaths, crowned by an odd halo of blackened light, and parting around a duo of elongated, pointy ears drooping slightly. Between two thin and perfect carmine eyebrows, a black, oval stone sits, right above a button nose peppered with dark freckles that spreads over the high of her cheekbones. Even half-lidded as they are, the warm brown of her eyes remains striking amid their dark sclera. Full, heavy breasts with dark grey areola sit fully exposed above some manner of dark chitinous corset cradling her lower ribcage. Moments before they get hidden from Charlotte's sight, she catches a glimpse of wide hips enshrining scarlet pubic hair.
Lastly, two pairs of massive, black, bat-like wings flutter, before coming to offer the woman some modicum of decency as they join at the front, the upper pair inscribed by with a pair of closed eyelids of the purest white, while the lower one draws a pair of stitched lips of the same color once joined.
Amid the chaos of Falconia's destruction, silence lands thick and heavy on the Queen's party, nobody daring to utter a word as the woman does something, and her nakedness becomes a thing of the past.
Unbidden, and against the barked reprimand of the head of her personal guard, Queen Charlotte of Falconia rises, and steps closer, before asking the question burning at her lips.
"...Are you an angel?" she asks softly, her tone full of hope and awe.
The woman's ears twitch as she slowly blinks, before looking up, and the two of them lock eyes.
"I am the furthest thing from that," she answers, her tone even and her voice a silken caress to the Queen's ears, and Charlotte's heart falls.
"A demon, then," she looks away, her heart full of sorrow and dejection.
"Worse, a human."
A chorus of gasps follows the proclamation, and Charlotte finds herself blinking in surprise as she looks back at the being, who is now casting an intrigued glance at her surroundings.
"Say, what is this place exactly?" she asks, her tone curious.
"...You stand in Falconia," the Queen answers after an hesitant beat, "Or what is left of it anyway."
"I see…" the being trails off as she looks over her shoulder and up at the decaying trunk of the World Spiral Tree.
A pause.
"Things might look grim, but a New Age is upon this world," the being says, and Charlotte gets the rather distinct impression that she's talking at herself rather than addressing her or the last remnants of humanity's bastion, "One of healing, and free from your gods' shadows."
The being turns away, and steps closer to the trunk until one of her hands comes to a rest against it.
"Let me show you," she says, and at her touch, a bright white flame rapidly spreads all over the World Spiral Tree.
"Come tomorrow, once the fire has stopped, the Land will flourish once more," the winged woman explains offhandedly as she takes a step back, "Flowers will easily bloom, and fruits and greens will be plentiful. Spread the fire to the fallen branches, and they will burn just as well."
"...As the Queen of my people, I thank you for this boon, stranger," remembering her etiquette lessons, Charlotte drops into an hesitant curtsy, "It may very well save what's left of my nation."
When she straightens, she finds the being looking at her intently, her eyes piercing.
A beat passes.
"...He is dying," the being says, and Charlotte's heart skips a beat, "Do you want to see him before it is too late?"
A myriad of thoughts tumble through her mind, and she is distantly aware of the yells of her personal guard as they urge caution.
"Please," but there is only one answer the Queen can give as tears start prickling at her eyes, "I beg you."
The being steps closer, one hand extended.
"Then take my hand, Queen of Falconia."
Charlotte does just that–
–and in a flash of dark lightning, they stand elsewhere.
The Queen lets go of the winged woman's hand as she scrambles forward.
She pays no mind to the fallen, monstrous figures burning in misting white fires all over the clearing.
She pays no mind to the fairies fretfully hovering in the air and hushedly whispering.
She pays no mind to the black clad warrior kneeling on the ground with a hand on his neck, a massive slab of metal passing itself as a sword laying down next to him, or at the partly huddled at his back.
All she has eyes for is the fallen form of her King, her love, her white-haired prince charming as he weakly gasps next to a chocolate skinned female, who looks at the misting fires slowly consuming him in horror, guilt, and just a bit of savage glee.
The only thing that matters to Charlotte is that when Griffith breathes his last, she's still tightly holding his hand as he crumbles into white, fresh smelling mist.
When the Queen of Falconia manages to get some of her composure back after shakily drying her tears, the winged-woman is long gone from Elfhelm, leaving in her wake mysteries upon mysteries.
[AN: For the record, Jacky's Realized Crown is of the same color as her Key, vantablack. And I really, really wanted to have her text when she's in full Demiurge mode reflect that, except grey is better for readability.
Now, I answered this question in the comments, but I know people are still going to ask: back in 8.17, I showed Jacky using the White Art to shapeshift into Slan prior to making her way to the Berserk-verse. She can hide every trait she wants if she feels inclined to do so, including the wings, the boneplates, and her new hairdo.
Some people are still going to bitch about it, but let me bring up my counterpoint: consentacles.
Plus, it has kinda been the running gag of the entire story that every power-up/power set she unlocked/stumbled upon always ended up being turbo-edgy. This is just one last for the road. :3