Marika
Her eyes fixated in quiet shock as they entered the Erdtree. Within it was an open, cavernous space where the broken Elden Ring up above. Where once, her shackles had been its ring, another lay hanging now in crucifixion across it.
"Godwyn...?" She whispered as her golden child lay there, still as the grave yet flesh as alive as the day she had lost him.
"Godwyn?" Luna echoed as his arms began to move. Her knight began to turn, looking excited for a moment. "Mother?" Her excitement shifted to horror in the blink of an eye as Godwyn completely shattered his shackles and landed woth a powerful crash of pale flames.
Just behind her son descended a great figure. She was... unbelievable to witness. Eyes like flowing, veinous gold. Hair as long and flowing as the sea. Skin seemingly carved from the finest dark brown oak, infused with the warmest crimson hue. She had a figure of a motherly goddess, bountiful and rich in her smile, which gleamed like stars. "Welcome to the end of your story, my children."
"Who... are you? Godwyn?" She looked at her son as he silently kneeled, hefting the very hammer left behind by Marika here. Here original hammer with all its imperfections. Yet, it was not gold of any kind that emerged.
It was the palest white flame she had ever seen. It almost crackled ethereally, mesmerizing her for a moment too long.
"Mother!" Luna pulled her aside as Melina dove into them, just before Godwyn's strike tore apart the ground where they had stood.
"This was your journey, my child. You came here to kill her. To grant her wish." The floating figure said as the golden queen watched her son, in horror, march towards them. His peaceful features twisted into stouc intensity, even as tears billowed down his cheeks.
"To die."
...
Luna
She dove ahead, deflecting the hammer blow with a swipe of her cleaver as she drew it from her back. "Mother! She is not who she was! Stop this! What have you done to Godwyn?!"
"I have done nothing but gift him knowledge, and the power to do what must be done, my child." She smiled that sweet, tender smile as the knight shook inside.
"Melina! Get Marika out-"
"No. I do not think she will." With a wave of her hand, Melina was flung from the tree with a scream. A single red streak past through, but the knight doubted whatever spell she slung managed to achieve anything.
"Mother..." She caught Godwyn's swing with her metal arm. "Godwyn! Stop this!"
"You know her sins... the children, Moonlit Knight. The Children she has butchered... The children she has sacrificed."
"That is not the woman who stands before you now! That woman died upon the Shattering with her guilt!" She shoved him away, hammer dancing against cleaver as doubt crept into the golden man's eyes.
"Does that exonerate her?" Mother spoke. "Twas still her hands that spilled blood and reaped horn from infant skull." Godwyn's resolve hardened.
Shit.Heiress growled.
What's the plan shithead? Nahul barked.
'We fight.'
With a growl of ferocity, Luna reached out a hand to Skithistalia. Her face briefly seemed shocked, a gasp bursting as she pulled back the one thing she knew she could grip onto, the one power she would be able to wrench back.
Her beloved blade. Ivalice. It's pale pale formed to life between her fingers, a long edged curved blade with a ribbon of pure white trailing behind. The silver hilt, glistening along the pommel with a simple stamp of her family's crest, the crescent sun. The hilt was wide, with a circular center like a full moon, extending into shifting tides of the sea on each side. The blade itself was aveeage for its type, only around two and a half feet long of silvery metal that held her true name across it's edge, carved in letters few worlds knew. Σειρήνα.
"Pass Judgement, Ivalice!" She stabbed the blade down as a ten meter space burst from around the blade, completely shedding herself and Godwyn of all arms, all armor, and all powers. A perfect ring where nothing can enter and nothing can leave until the combatants finished. Skith was too pompous and arrogant to attack Marika herself. Probably finds it too poetic. Heiress remarked.
And they call us dramatic .
Godwyn breathed slowly as his arms flexed, taking in the change. "What... is happening?"
"My soul blade, Ivalice. She balances all scales and enforces Judgement." She breathed, tying back her hair as the sweats she wore beneath were all that remained, rippi g off a section to tie around her small bust as Godwyn have her a moment of respect. "In here, there is only your skill, and your will." She thanked him briefly as the two slowly watched another again.
"And can we leave?"
"Not until one of us can't on our own."
"You are so small." He approached her, even mortal, he was a towering man. She smirked as her arms slid into a side turned pose. One hand held forward in a fist while the other was cocked to the side. Godwyn's eyes narrowed, slowly raising his own fists.
"Gods you call that a stance?" She muttered. He growled, taking a swing as she deflected it along her forearm, stomping on his front toe to force an overextension as he began to tumble forward, before slamming her palm up across his jaw with a forceful crack. He caught her arm as he started falling, turning and slamming his entire weight into her chest through his fist as she coughed and crashed against the ground.
"Slippery...!" He picked her up by the arm, slamming her again on the otherside with a growl. He rose her again, only for his hand to find only her shoe between his fingers when he swung down. A moment later, a painful crack hit along his back, her foot slamming down in a dropping axe kick right down on the top of his spine. He nearly crumbled, the sound of shattering bone down his back a choir of suffering as she spun around to kick his neck, only for his arm to catch her foot and launch her against the dome's bubble like wall.
"T'ka...mah...!" She spay out bloodily, falling down as Godwyn shakily fell to his knees. "Not as fun, without..." She coughed. "All your fancy healing, is it?" She wiped her lip, standing as the pain ins her ankle was forceably ignored, alongside her hips and at least a cracked rib.
"Why... are you fighting for her?" He coughed painfully."
"Why are you trying to kill her?!" She shouted back.
"She... she..."
"Has suffered for her crimes long enough... Godwyn." She breathed out shakily as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I do not understand why Mother is doing this... but do not let her persuade you."
The man stared at her for a long time as she hoped to see her words ring true. Her hand gripped onto Ivalice's hilt, ripping it from the ground as her dome dispelled.
Is it still lying if we didn't mention that?
No.
"Choose a new way, Godwyn. Choose to believe in change." She offered a hand, smiling warmly as he considered it. He began to reach as Luna's hand began to twitch.
"I am sorry, my child, but you have forced my hand."
...
Marika
She watched the brief yet bloody fight for a long while, panting in confusion as everything around her began to shriek and scream. Why was she attacking them? Wasn't she Luna's mother? What had she done to Godwyn?
Relief began to swell as the battle turned to words, words turned to an open hand. The dome around them faded before she noticed panic enter her knight's eyes. "I am sorry, my child, but you have forced my hand."
"NO!" As Luna's blade tore into Godwyn's chest. Her knight's face twisted in horror as Godwyn slowly looked down at the blade, then up at the supposed mother of her knight.
"Lady... Skoth...why...." He muttered as his body began to fall apart, stone and rock masquerading as flesh finally succumbing to death.
"GODWYN!!!" She wailed painfully. Her mind reeled in absolute agony. She had finally had him.back, he was but a moment away and now...!
"My daughter has forgotten her mission. I am afraid that means I must act." Her fingers began to dance like a puppeteer. Luna grunted, shaking and struggling as her body began to change.
"No...! S stop... stop...!!!" She dropped jer blade, clutching her head as that mark began to burn as bright as the sun. Her hands pilsed, throbbed, then tore as powerful claws ripped free and turned her hands into the malicious weapons of a beast. Her back erupted, massive wings of bone emerging as her eyes began to all open. Six storming blues screaming in unison with her throat as Marika began to stand quietly.
"You really were sent to kill me... and yet..." She watched her lover become a monstrous puppet of this cruel mother. She saw her own self dancing across her memories as her hand gripped tightly, summoning her hammer. "I..."
"I am sorry, my child, but your story is over."
"No, it isn't." A voice called as a familiar spear stabbed through the sudden charging claw. Her son rose, wearing only a shroud of the Erdtree covering chainmail he had plucked off the abandoned streets of Leyndell. For a moment, her heart truly hammered with the kind of pride he had always deserved.
...
Messmer
He stood with a shaking hand as the serpent inside wailed. It wasn't just angry, it was hateful now. "You dare." He growled, stepping toward the feral knight as she rwitched and struggled, before leaping away as her clawed hand tore apart the ground itself.
"Stop... me...!" She hissed weakly as her body spasmed against the power. That was more than enough to assure the red prince this was not some devious scheme, but the backstabbing of a twisted parent.
"We will free you!" He exclaimed as he leaped over a swipe, striking back with a flurry of spear strikes that forced back the feral knight. He considered things, before nodding to himself as his hand went to the false eye.
"Forgive me... Mother." With a pluck of his hand, the gift of false grace was ripped free.
"Messmer??"
It was... cold. Just a moment or two of strange coolness. Then, the heat. His veins became as hellfire. His mind began to burn and blister with countless whirling thoughts. His eye hurt and nled as his headwrap fell, and the serpent crawled from his body and wrapped itself around his shoulders for a moment. His body began to exude this... darkened red flame. A mirage of heat so deep and resentful itself that it refused to illuminate, only burn. It was his power, his hatred, his contempt for all things.
Yet, it did not feel like a shackle anymore. Within the twinkle of the snake's eyes was the smallest glimmer of blue, the focus that gave him control of this power. She had not fixed him, no. She had taught him how to know and care for himself and who he was. A journey he was sure his mother shared, in many ways. A journey he was not finished, but he was far enough along.
"Come, O' Queen above. Face me yourself!" He challenged. The feral knight lunged, only for a massive coiling serpent to catch and bind her against the far wall. He raised a hand as a black-red flame burst from his fingers, slamming against the reformed roots and working with his sister's lovely new blaze to sear a way. Ranni, Fia, Malenia, Blaidd, even the twin friends of the knight and the great General Radahn himself. Even his beloved Rellana rushed in, battle ready and pissed beyond all senses. It was a small army of true warworn folk, ready to finally march home.
Good.
"Rally!" He shouted as the entire group collected like a wall around Marika, Blaidd bolting for his compatriot tied down. The pale figure gave a low sigh, releasing her control as Luna began to turn back to her normal self, shredded down to just her pants now. "We shan't be impeded, foul goddess. Relinquish our way, or face the wrath of the last army of Queen MARIKA!" His serpent let out a roar like a dragon alongside him, as Blaidd echoed it with a howl and various battle cries spread through.
The face of the pale queen twitched ever so slightly as that prestine mask cracked. Another schemer. How fun.
"You are being difficult." She descended quietly, a staff slowly forming in her fingers. "Bad children must be disciplined." She stamped down her staff as the ground shattered beneath them all, erupting into rippling tides of magma while pale fire bit at what slagging cracks remained. Blaidd and Luna took to the walls as Ranni ascended Marika, Fia, and the twin friends above. Radahn rode a piece of slag with his gravity magic, while Melina seemed to form her own ground as magma bit into her feet, then turned into blossoms of red alien life that resisted the flames.
"Your fire. It is not... Fire." Malenia called out observationally, mirroring Messmer's own curiosity to it's failure to eradicate the rot. Fire should cleanse it. Intriguing.
Radahn came at her first, slamming down his massive cleavers and excess slag against the thin pale barrier that shimmered to life around her. The goddess swept her arm as her staff smacked him back, but leaving her distracted as Rellana's blade tore into her shoulder with it's thin, blue lined edge piercing the veil. She turned, catching the blade and breaking it off before stabbing Rellana through the hip with her staff. She winced, gripping the pole before before kicked off by the pale queen angrily flourishing herself around and stomping down on the roaring roots Fia had conjured. Her flames burned through them as the hissing of shredding spirits echoed, raising an arm as Fia was dragged from Ranni's rock with a scream into her gripping fingers. "Things that die should remain, dead." She began to tighten her grip, eyes of a scoling mother before the fist connected with her jaw.
Melina dove under her retaliating swing as she dropped Fia, who rode along a retreating root, her staff causing a terrible bang through the air. Melina felt it graze the edge of her chin before she flipped and twisted, slashing across the pale queen's face with her burning black dagger and riding Ranni's glintblade away from her blasting flames. Messmer dipped between, slashing at her back before leaping from a stamp of her staff that caused the magma pools to turn into rippling geysers, casting three of his titanic serpents at her as the magma did them no harm.
They snapped and charged, mouths pulsing with his cruel fire as she flew between them like a sparrow between the gnashing jaw of hens. She turned suddenly, catching one of the beast with her staff across the jaw and sending it careening through the entire side of the tree like a toy. Another bit downn around her, taking a moment before it's body exploded into a torrent of pale flames. The last had waited, maw open as it's fire coalesced entirely into a single point, before unleashing in an inferno of blackish red flames.
She strode through the flames, her pale fire steadily pushing back before she forced the snake's mouth shut with her bare hands. A second or two later, it exploded into spirit ash as it's own energies tore it apart. "I am getting very sick of these games."
"Funny. So are WE!" Ranni shouted from above, holding Rellana's hip as the two finished their joint spell. A trio of moons, two pale blue and a central third of a navy color, pulsed in unison. "Lunar Tidal Crash!" They shouted together, releasing their hold as the moons crashed on top of her in a rhythm, bombarding her with painful grunts as she was forced to the slaggy surface before the duo slammed both of themselves down in a final crash of magic force. The surge of icy magic was so intense, it flash froze the surface to pure stone all over again.
She simply growled, despite the visibly snapped bones and countless frostbite burns across her, she began to rise. She began to reach out and grab both as they retreated, but Messmer's spear oinned her arm to the ground as he landed beside her. "You are very arrogant. You take blows attempting to intimidate us, even as you stand her bleeding." He gripped his own spear, ripping it from her hand as he stepped on it. "You call us children, when it is you that is so immature." He raised his spear to stab.
She raised her other hand, catching the red knight's own attack. "You all are quite rowdy." She held his spear between two finger tips. He watched in horror as her body broke and snapped itself with ease together, standing up with a brush of her fingers through her hair. "A. Much better." Her gaze fell back on Messmer.
"... What in the gods name are you?" He muttered as she slid forward as ethereally as drifting mist.
"Life. It hurts." She spoke with such condescension.
"MESSMER!!!" He heard Rellana shout, but he felt so very cold all of a sudden. His eye drifted down slowly, seeing an arm imbeded through his chest.
"I am sorry, my child, but bad children must be put in timeout." As her staff swung towards his neck.
There was a moment where the red knight considered his life. His crimes. His duty. His love. His end, so cruel and swift, felt for a moment like all he may have deserved, but it was not his end. Her staff was caught by a pair of large clawed hands as Blaidd struggled to push it back.
"No...more.. losing... Friends...!" He barked angrily as Malenia's blade separated the pale queen's shoulder. She screamed painfully, but Messmer's senses were beginning to fade as he felt the soft arms of his lover embrace him.
...
Luna
She snapped Cinder and Kimi back home. Heiress muttered.
FUCK. Nahul cursed.
'Yeah. This is bad.' Luna conceded.
The knight angrily breathed, trying metally to collect herself as the painful relocking of her nerves to her shoulder joint hit. The limb came to life again, metal fingers properly twitching and moving again.
"Are you alright?" Fia touched her arm as the two watched the ensuing chaos.
"Do I have a choice?"
"...Tragically."
Luna whistled mentally to Ranni. Still got that sword?
I doooo.
Toss it to Blaidd, I got a plan.
How those always go so swimmingly.
Just throw the damn greatsword!
Luna landed right beside her hairy friend as he caught the shiny new blade, eyes aglow at the majesty of it. The two swung as Skith turned on them with her reformed arm and staff, both catching her swing with cleaver and greatsword together.
"Lunaria..." She started to say rather angrily, pushing back on both.
"Mother." She spat back, teeth gnashing through the words as she met her golden glare with one twice as icy.
"You are quite out of line." She swatted Blaidd aside like a toy, the painful whine as he collided with a wall. Thankfully, he was partially caught by Radahn's magic as he lowered him, rallying with the others near Marika as Malenia and Luna stood alone on the plateau against the pale queen.
"So. You are... Life?" Malenia said, circling slowly as Luna stared down her mother in a locked struggle.
"Not now, my child. I have to remind my daughter who is in charge."
"You are as crippled here as I am, aren't you Mother." She said with a smirk. The pale queen scowled angrily. "Gotta love how those divine laws work. I submit to it, so I get to steadily build myself again. You just take the cut," grunting as she began to push back, "and let yourself stay... di... minished!" She roared, forcing her back as Malenia's blade tore at her back. Ranni landed nearby, summoning a sweep of swirling blades and icy winds around the pale queen as Fia's roots pinned her ankles to the floor and began digging under her skin.
"How... dare you...!" Skith furiously intoned as Radahn's gravity slammed down over her, completely pinning her down in waves of crashing purple light. Massive shackles of fire and magic wrapped tight around each arm as Rellana screamed in rage, stood beside her barely living lover whilst she emptied every ounce of her power into that spell.
So glad I had you pass around those books so they could modify their spells.
Malenia dove in front of her, planting her hand and a single bud into her chest before diving away as an aeonia of her rot-like life blossomg and enveloped the pale queen, who shrieked at the blistering across her entire being. Luna raised her arm, blood smeared across it as Radahn slammed down his arms and formed the familiar star pattern for her this time with a surging purple pulse.
"See you back home, Mother." She closed her eyes, only for pain to blitz across her every organ as Skith reached towards her silently.
"I am tired of these tantrums, 013." With a curl of her fingers, Luna's senses all bled away like her very mind had been stripped away, or the mask had been wrent from a doll.
Marika
She stood more easily, fed copious magic by the everfountain dear Fia had become. Her connection to the dead and those living in death gave her a practically endless well of magic to draw on, even if she wasn't able to do so rapidly at any time. She flexed her body, feeling a little easier as she gazed up. Her eyes widened flames billowed away everyone like dust in a storm, save for her love. "Get me up there Fia!"
"Marika, you aren't as mobile anymore!"
"My lover is fighting for her life, now GET ME UP THERE!"
Fia formed a rapid tendril of roots, catching the falling Malenia as the others crashed around in painful grunts. Radahn seemed to catch several while Fia had imbedded cushioning roots on nearly every floor she could now, ensuring no one had a lethal landing at least. They hopped off onto the plateau just as Skith was stepping out of the cage she had been buried in, casting off magicks and boulders like a mother shedding laundry that had clung to her.
"You forget too often. You belong to me, 013."
"Luna." She shouted. "Her name is Luna!"
"No, it isn't. You know nothing of her. Nothing, Marika. You are not a player in my plans. You are another scar to place upon my daughter. Another wound to put on her soul and harden her heart so she will never forget what she exists for. She is my weapon. My hand to protect all of my children. When someone can not handle this fact, I will do what I must for the better of all. You are a spec in the cosmology of existence. You are not even the only Marika of the Lands Between. You are just a whisper in MY existence, allowed to continue breathing until I see you as too dangerous for my plan." She turned her hand slowly as she watched her lover mimic the motion. There was no feralness, no ferocity, no fight.
She was as silent and unfeeling as a doll now. Her eyes devoid of warmth as the storm became dark, raging in emptiness. She moved with a mechanical grace that was just too smooth to be natural, highlighting perhaps the effort Luna made just to appear like them.
"Luna..." She whispered shakily. Malenia charged, only to be buried under a crashing stalagtite as Skith marched alongside her doll-like creation. Fia rose a hand to strike with her thorns, only for her throat to be forced shut by a pair of pinching fingers before being tossed aside like trash by the pale queen's power and will alone. "Luna...!" She began to back away as her lover stalked towards her, grasping her cleaver from the ground as it snapped open and left sparks along the rocks in its trail.
"It is pointless. Die, and let yourself be another failure. You were never actually meant to change, Marika. Women like you can never change. You are soaked in blood."
"N-no..." She gripped her head as she felt Skith's power burying itself into her mind, tearing at the bars as she screamed and was forced into her twin form.
"Look at you. This... Hideous thing. This twisted image of the beautiful life I craft. You have... defiled it."
"I didn't ask for this!" She flailed, struggling as the pain bit and bled against her every sense while the sound of her lover's blade tore at her heart.
"Yet you wielded it all the same. A tyrant. A victimizer. A child sacrificer."
"I'm sorry!!! We are sorry!" They held up a hand, shakily staring her lover in those voided eyes as they pleaded. "Luna... Please... Don't do this... Don't let her win... Don't let her control you. Please, my lov-" The blade swung up, halted just at her throat as the sharp, saw toothed edge hovered near her neck.
Her eyes widened shakily. "Luna...." Her knight's hand hovered near the trigger as Skithistalia walked closer, gripping Marika by the hair.
"This is all you can ever deserve, now. Kill her." She spoke.
Luna's thumb pressed into the trigger, just as Marika's lips turned to a tearful smile. "I love you."
"I love you, too." Her knight smiled as the blade swung the other blade, slashing Skith across the face as the Knight caught her lover's arm and pulled the gilded queen to her back. "Behind me!"
"HOW!!!" She screamed, twisted features stitching back together as she stomped towards them. "I had you built, made, and created exactly how I planned! How do you continue to DEFY ME!"
"BECAUSE WHAT YOU CALL LOVE IS ONLY CONTROL!"
"Then I shall remind you who is in control, 013." She raised her staff. Her knight raised her cleaver, but the strike did not go where the pale queen had thought.
The tip was buried in her knight's hip, her hand bloodily clutching it asnher cleaver lay broken next to her. The tip sit inches from Marika's stomach as she took a shaking step back.
"Still. You. Struggle."
"Don't you touch them...!" She snarled.
"You are not in control." As a sharp pain rushed through Marika's belly, twisting and buckling as she looked down to see the end of the staff had extended into a spear head, buried in her stomach.
Her mind just .. shut off. The pain became a numb pulse in the back of her thoughts. "No..." She whispered. "N-no...!"
Luna looked back, eyes going quietly as she saw what had been done before the spear was ripped back out of her. She grunted, stumbling as she turned around and embraced Marika. "Love..."
"Aurora..." She held the bleeding wound, eyes shaking in the surging grief as Skith sighed.
"You have only yourself to blame, Marika. This is the cost of your choices. You are a failu-"
"I KNOW WHAT I AM!" She wailed, clutching to her lover. "I KNOW WHAT A FAILURE I HAVE BEEN!, WHY MUST YOU TAKE AWAY THE SOLE CHANCE I HAD LEFT TO BE BETTER! WHY MUST EVERY CHILD I GIVE LOVE BE DOOMED!!"
"To scar my daughter."
"W.. what?"
"You're entire reality is a simple stepping stone I made eons ago to one day lay another wound upon my perfect weapon to guard all of existence. Every single life here that has ever been has existed to lead up to my plan's culmination. You are a spec, as I said. A single branch in the jour ey my prestine warrior needs to be the perfect protector."
"You are a horrible mother." Marika said quietly, fallen to her knees as Fia landed beside them, attempting to stitch shut what she could. She prayed so deeply that Fia could save their child, but the wound was so deep. Skith's face twisted instantly, nostrils flared and eyes as wide as dinner plates. "You use alll of us like pawns, all for the sole purpose of further harming your own daughter because you have this ... this damaged idea of what a herp is?! This is not how you make a hero! This is how you abuse uour own children! I know...." her fist clench, "Because I was that mother once."
"You know nothing of the grand cosmos at-" Whatever scpheal was about to begin was silenced by a deafening pop. Marika delt it first, the buckle of their world's stability. Her eyes turned to her beloved knight.
Two bleeding red eyes stared back as the woman who turned toward the pale queen was not someone she recognized. Her finhers switched irregularly. Her hair had turned a deep, rich shade of brown and extended down her back in a thick braid, held together only by a bright red ribbon.
"Mother." She whispered in a dark and far more malicious tone than she had ever heard Luna have. She started to walk towards him as Marika felt the fully weight of Luna's divine power coming back.
It was steadily shredding this reality apart.
"Heiress, cease." Skith shouted. Though, there was an undercurrent of fear in the back of her voice now.
The bleeding knight slowly placed both hands into the crook of her elbows. She itched and scratched, her lips struggled with this kdd, cackling giggle in the back of her throat. "Mother... is...!"
"Heiress... Heiress Stop!" She raised her hands to cast her strings, only for them to rip apart the instead they touched. "No....!"
"Mother... is... WICKED!!!" She unleashed a howling laughter as her nails tore long lines across her arms down as far as her wrists. Her lips split open, stretching in a perfectly curved lines ear to ear as her jaw and mouth unhinged. Her mouth was filled with row, after row, after row of these massive, banana sized fangs. Her body had grown slightly larger, her torso had extended ever so subtly as the blood dripping down her arms began to harden and crystallize into thick, vicious claws along each arm. She was... monstrous. Inhuman. Unnatural. Her very bones seemed to snap and shift in odd directions beneath her skin.
"Heiress...!"
"The wicked... must... BLEED!" She let out a laughing wail as she lunged at the pale queen, or at least, Marika assumed she lunged. She moved sl fast that the gilded queen's eyes lost track immediately, crashing against the floor as twinclawed hands crashed right through barriers of fire and began to rip and tear against the pale queen.
"You hurt her...! Hahajahaha...!!" Her eyes bled more crimson tears. "YOU HURT! MY!! MARIKA!!!!!" Her clawed hand reared back in a sudden, stretching motion as the very blood that had spilled arpund the pale queen coalesced into a thousand long spears.
"I... will not... stay... gone...." She croaked out one eye left staring up at Heiress. She gripped her by the collar, growling in a long and vicious rumble as her bleeding maw got dangerously close to her own mother's throat.
"Hehehehe... good. Means I get to bleed you AGAIN!" She opened her jaw entirely, biting down and ripping out the pale queen's throat as a barrage of bleeding spears turned what was left to ribbons. The resounding roar as a soul flew away rang through everyone like a death bell. She arched almost like an animal over it's freshly slaughtered prey.
Marika watched, eyes fixated. Fia's magic had begun to slow, a gentle squeeze reassuring her that their Aurora had not been lost. "The wound was bad, but she is as resilient as her mothers."
Marika looked at Fia, the sheer stress and whiplash of today having made her brain a shaking, rather traumatized, and painful blitz of thoughts she did not want to have. The relief that their child was safe could never be put into words. The tension across her wntire body that had become a cord in every sinewous strand unbuckling in a few moments. However, then it began occur to her precisely all of what Fia had just said. Her head turned slowly, her darkened, stressed eyes beginning to soften into tender, almost eager surprise.
"She?"