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“We need to stop meeting this way.” Varré manages to say. “Though, I must admit, my lambkin, that it is a bit exciting.”
The only reply that comes is another push against the bedrock and the snow.
Of course, his lambkin is angry. A gentle soul like hers has seen so much, and the blood in her hands and in her heart does weigh heavy.
She is becoming the champion the Luminary Mohg needs.
But Varré knows that the news he brings her will please her.
Even if he stops for a moment, realizing he was… Yes, holding his breath for some reason. Some reason that did not certainly have to do with the fact that she was straddling him. Or that she did, indeed, look particularly arresting with the blood staining her face.
His hand goes to touch her cheek.
She does not stop him, for some reason.
Instead, she leans in his touch, closing her eyes for a moment. At peace.
How beautiful she is when she has that expression. Close to divine, even.
What a pity that he has to end this moment.
But he retires his hand, and Muniadona looks again at him.
There is no anger in her gaze, not anymore.
There is only sadness.
“I don’t even know why I…”
And she releases him, and stands up, defeated, walking for a moment and then letting herself plop on the ground away from him.
There is silence.
A silence heavy enough that for the first time, it is almost as if the words that usually do come so easily to him that left him.
He can only watch her, defeated as he has never seen her before.
”It is over, isn’t it?”
”What, my lambkin?”
”Everything.” She says. ”I cannot. I cannot do this.”
There is a part of him that wishes he could be tender towards her. That he could comfort her, and yet…
That is something long lost for him.
Even more now.
How dare her. Just…
How dare her.
“Well, then I guess I was right at the beginning.”
She looks at him as if he had two heads.
It is working, then.
“Does that surprise you so?” He tilts his head, in feigned amusement. “After all, you are still a little, maidenless runt, even if I did bestow you with the blood of the Luminary Mohg, I pushed you too much.”
He brushes the back of his hand against her cheek.
“It is a pity, really.”
He wanted her so… so badly to be the champion. He still wants her to be.
But Muniadona does not react.
There is only the faint sign of breathing.
And the sensation of the flesh of his heart being torn by hooks.
Until the silence is broken by the sound of laughter. It starts quiet, but grows so loud that Varré is afraid to be found and mauled by some any sort of beast.
“Maidenless runt?” She asks, between fits of laughter. “Really?”
Now it is the time for him to look at her as of she had two heads.
“Aren’t you?”
“Aye, it is just…” She seems to calm down, still looking all kinds of amused at herself.
It is irritating, to say the least.
“What?”
“That you do seem to have an obsession with my lack of a Finger Maiden.”
And the way she looks at him makes him…
It makes him freeze on the spot.
He doesn’t know why. And yet, he is there.
Watching her stand up and approach him until they are too close. Close enough that she could kiss him or slit his throat with no way for him to stop her doing either.
And maybe he does not want to.
Why is he standing there like a fool?
Why isn’t he saying anything? Any of his usual spiel?
Muniadona takes it as the answer she had been looking for.
The answer that she already knows too well. But well, if Varré thought he could toy with her, in the state that she is only barely managing to recover from now? She can give him a bit of his own medicine.
There is a strange pleasure in seeing a man like him uneasy, after all. Even if there is a part of her screaming to let this be.
Not only for him, but for herself. For them both.
For what could have been.
She rests two of her fingers under his chin, and gets even closer, enough that her lips could brush the ones of his mask of alabaster.
“You know, many a time I did wonder if that was an offer from your part.”
Her fingers move to his neck. His pulse is so accelerated that she can feel it even with the layers of clothing that separate them.
“An offer?” Varré asks, slightly nervous. “But I did make you one. To be your friend, your guide…”
“My shining ray of hope.” Her fingers descend to his chest, just to feel his heartbeat, letting her whole palm touch him now.
In any other situation, this could have been romantic, and yet…
And yet Muniadona knows she is angry with him. And angry at herself for thinking that she could trust him, that even if he was at the service of who he was, she had found a friend in him.
Someone who she… Who she could share the heavy load she carries.
And yet, she cannot even tell him of her dreams, and the boy who she now knows she worshipped a long time ago.
And yet, she knows. She has seen him many times, following her, spying on her while he thinks she doesn’t know.
“But you know, you could have called me many things.” She says, retiring her hand quite deliberately. “There is a plethora of insults you could hurl my way. Marika knows I use them towards myself. And yet you insist on calling me maidenless.”
And she takes a step backwards.
“It’s almost as if you wanted to become my maiden.” She says, teasingly, beginning to turn to make her way away from him.
Leaving Varré to rot with whatever he wanted to tell her.
And herself to drown in the blood that she has spilled in the way towards here.
She takes a deep breath and realizes, for the first time since the fight ended, that her whole body hurts.
She tries to take a step and her legs falter.
Of course, the rush is wearing off.
Muniadona accepts with surprising ease the fact that she is going to fall yet again.
But something stops her.
Someone.
Varré.
“Took you long enough to understand, my lambkin.” He whispers to her ear, and then touches her cheek to make her look at him. “My champion.”
She feels the touch of his lips, the alabaster ones against her brow.
“Do you still have the medal I gave you?” He asks.
For some reason, she says yes, taking it and giving it to him.
They hold it together.
And the next thing she sees is that they are someplace else.
It is not Nokron. Or Nokstella.
But it is underground too.
A sort of Mausoleum. Empty, save for Varré and her, and what looks like a sort of cocoon by the opposite side of it.
Muniadona knows that she has seen this place before, even if this is the first time she has set foot in it.
And when she realizes, she wants to scream, even if there is a knot in her throat that will not let any word come out of it.
The child.
Lord Miquella.
He is there.
“This was my surprise, my lambkin.” Varré says, so tender that it only adds to the horror.
“The Luminary Mohg has requested your presence.”