"Gah!"
Beads of sweat trickled down Quies' face, a thin stream of blood flowed down a cut on his right cheek. His muscles strained as he pushed through the shearing friction of movement. Eyes open and ears alert, he swung his zweihander diagonally to the right. He seemingly swung at nothing. However, the momentum of his blade shuddered as it clashed against the dark alloy of a glowing blade.
"Good!"
Quies stepped back, creating distance between him and the relentless edge of Valerie's railblade. He saw Valerie for a moment, where he had predicted she was going to be. He tried to focus in on her song, but doing such a technique for an extended period of time was extremely straining.
Another moment later, she disappeared, sparks of electricity left in her place. A clear chord faintly rang within his ear. Clean, swift, and flowing. He recovered his posture after contact with Valerie's railblade, quickly closing his open stance.
However, he was too slow. A moment later, a clean and shallow cut appeared right above his light cuirass, among others.
He had given up on using bloodrend to close all of his wounds, as it still took a considerable amount of mental capacity to maintain it despite all of his idle practice. His haemophilia caused crimson liquid to pour relentlessly out of his wounds.
He struck the tip of his sword into the pure black surface that was the floor and rested his weight on it, taking a knee. His breathing was labored, and each breath felt sharp and cold. The sound of the song had long faded back into the background, replaced by his strained heartbeat.
"Let's call it here. I can tell you're slowing down."
Quies, despite his pain and sores, shyly smiled in glee.
***
Pale lilacs striped across the endless horizon as layers of pink, oranges, yellows, and flaming reds mixed in the heavens above. Clouds blew over the skies, awash with the mesmerizing colors at its edges. On the other side of the horizon, black creeped into the sky, clawing its way across the distant fog. The cross shaped sun dipped into the depths of the tides, only to return from where it had left.
"Alright, let's go over the plan one more time."
"Yup."
Quies sat cross legged under the shade of hundreds of rustling leaves. His hands were entwined with the blades of grass, now rather dry from the constant exposure to sunlight and little rain. Valerie sat across from him, her thick matte coat halfway on, almost like a blanket over her back.
"We have one goal, and one goal only. That is, to find out more about the lord regent. As you remember from earlier, that blacksmith was a clear example of the effects of that thing's mind veil. Since my last visit, I think I've found a technique that can… coerce… a truthful answer."
The word 'coerce' was stated with heavy quotation marks. Quies knew that Valerie wasn't a soft person by any means.
"Like I've said, I've prepared an amnesiac to administer to the subject after interrogation. I'll be the one retrieving the subject while you can secure an area for the operation. While I'm interrogating them, you do not intervene. Like I said, do NOT intervene."
Quies nodded slowly.
"It should be way past dusk, so we will work along with the cover of night. I have a couple of potions that can enhance your vision, though it's best you don't use them during the day. Don't ask how I found that out…"
"Anyways, once we get sufficient information, and trust me, we will… Once we get sufficient information, I administer the amnesiac while you keep watch. I'll return the guard to his post in time and then we leave."
Valerie shifted her posture slightly and adjusted her matte coat.
"This may be hard for you, Quies, but it's essential to what I'm trying to do here. What… What do you know about the lord regent."
Quies made eye contact with Valerie, the familiar pressure pressing down on him. However, he kept his gaze. He let the pressure of the silence and gaze grow stronger.
"He… that thing killed my father. I…"
He breathed, gathering his composure. His gaze stayed on Valerie's sharp amber eyes. He welcomed the pain. It helped him not remember any of the… bad things.
"I fucking hate that goddamn thing pretending to be some benevolent ruler for his people. Pretending to be some glorious man sent here like some sort of saviour. The worst part is, I believed it."
He glanced away and composed himself.
"And now I'm back. Not that I wanted to. So, I guess while I'm here, why not get some semblance of closure?"
He forced a smile.
"Why not?"
Valerie returned the smile. Both smiles were forced, of course, and both of them could tell that fact. Yet, there was beauty in such a lie. It shared such complex and abstract emotions and thoughts that words cannot truly express. A shared pain. A shared trauma.
Empathy.