Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s weird to think of war on days like these. 

On days where her ears are filled with the sound of little bare feet splashing in the shallow waters of Liurnia. Chime-like giggles rising upon the air like smoke, the buzzing of insects far enough away to not be a concern. The smell of seafood, freshwater, and green dew all around.

It’s weirdly heavenly. 

Even when Big Boggart cuts it all up calling them for lunch with his unique rough tenderness she hopes her daughter would never learn. Not more than she has already, at least. It’s sweet, from him; from her, it’s constant embarrassment as she has to explain to people that no, she’s not a heretic, she just heard someone cursing and no, she won't use Marika’s name in vain again, so sorry . 

“Girls, come with hands clean and bellies ready cause you’ll lose your wits and your tits over these prawn!”

The tiny girl giggles and runs to the cabin gleefully chanting wits and tits! Wits and tits! and Gwenn can feel her face redden with the promise of further humiliation the second they go back to Raya Lucaria, or any not so desolate place for that matter. 

She sighs as Abigail’s little pat pat pat run flies by her. The lithe girl is a maelstrom of energy and mischief. A live reproduction of her father. Even when her hazel eyes and auburn-chocolate hair, often made browner with mud and dirt and whatever she ends up covered with digging for bugs or hidden treasure, make her look like a smaller version of herself.

“Gonna run out of food by the time you get out of your own damn head, lass!” He calls for Gwenn again and this time she answers, shaking her head free from the memories. The phantom touch on her skin, still burning like the first day he ever dared touch her, delicate and fearful as if she was a crystal figurine he might break, still hot after years of so many other touches, different, confident, knowing, lovingly intense, and so many more of nothing but quiet. 

The grey hairs threading along her long braids hanging on her back tell of a life lived in so many stories untold. The dark circles under her still soft gaze, despite the horrors around her, say how those stories still keep her up at night. 

And her little beacon of light, with all her raging whirlwind of energy. “Mom, I’m hungry!”

“Going, my little demon, hold up!” She calls before crossing the doorway, her host and her daughter already sitting on the floor around the low table, him filling up the plates for them. 

There’s so much on the little girl’s plate, may Grace have mercy. 

“Boggart, she’s a child, she’s gonna explode full of shellfish!” She signals at him to stop and he chuckles, low and full; she can swear she hears the birds startled away by him. 

It’s endearing, somehow. 

“Little missy knows when to stop, it’s fine, Dolly,” he waves her off. “I’ll eat off her plate, don’t you worry. You should put some more meat on your bones, before you leave again,” he emphasises passing her a piled up plate of food.

He’s a big man with a big heart and not a lot of understanding of the sizes of other people’s stomachs. It’s sweet. 

She has been going on emissary missions, all across Limgrave to settle with Fort Haight, expecting allyship with their Lord. She found him, a lost nobleman asking for help over some ruined pillar, out of his own land. There was nothing else to do but to take his fort back, ridding it of misbegottens and soldier invaders from the Stormveil castle. 

She expected little resistance but her Moonveil cleaned a pathway for her anyways, the wind whistled around her as it stained red and tasted coppery on her tongue. 

It made her stomach churn, the mindless killing, but there was nothing else she could do. 

The blood had fertilized these lands more times than anyone could ever count, and it will keep doing so until someone does something different, until…

She has done her best to quench the thirst for bloodlust, for extermination, and still she avoided the Shardbearers like the Plague, only taking in the protection of the Carian family. 

The Queen was but sweet to her girl, teaching her how to read and keeping her entertained; Abigail would light up with excitement at the idea of sharing more little games and full afternoons with her little cousins, as she would call Rennala’s half made, condemned creations. 

The woman was too tender for the corruption plaguing the lands; the poor thing deserved nothing but peace. Her daughter tried her best to keep her peaceful, happy. 

Ranni the Witch. 

A sharp name for a being powerful enough to have destroyed her the moment she'd found her sobbing in the Windmill Village, a fire alight in her eyes and hands mooring into the bloodied dirt beneath her. Her blade had been upright a few paces away, pierced through the still-bleeding, still-twitching body of her lover and the damp earth beneath him. It had run through his very heart.

She would have sworn that day she could’ve felt her heart stop with his. 

The witch’s first words died in her throat when she moved back onto her hands, and her round belly became apparent, the angst and grief and that fucking burn in her soul trying to consume her, making her body twitch and curl into itself.

She had been there to have her child in a safe place, before she noticed where he had taken them. She wanted nothing but for her to not be born in such damned land. 

Ranni encouraged her, soothed her until she could call for Torrent, ran off into greener pastures and further down south, where where the towers and spires of Raya Lucaria stabbed the skies, where her mother the Queen took one glimpse at her and fell onto her feet, cooing for her unborn child, promising the heavens. And heavens they tried to bring, in lustrous halls and closed walls from the horror of life behind them: Abigail is a quick witted child, swiftly learning which books not to read and going for them first, too grown for her short years and her short stature, and somehow still so innocent, so bright. 

Gwenn wishes to keep that light forevermore, as long as she might nurture it. 

They both owe the Carian family so immensely she doesn’t even think twice when they ask to seek allies, to protect the Queen from other Tarnished. She protects the house as if it was her own, because it is, even when more often than not she’s not there to claim her place in it. 

And for that, she must leave for the Roundtable Hold, to know even where to start. 

The atmosphere is always heavy in the too richly adorned halls. It feels like she should be bowing to the portraits of Godfrey and Godwyn at the entrance, leaving some offerings for the vanished King and his miserable son. 

Behind the door no one seems to feel it as such, or at least no one mentions it, which is for some reason even more jarring to her. 

Why would you live complicit of the ghosts upon your walls, sitting on your necks, moving your hands, burning cold fingers around your wrists?

Gwenndolen hears from Roderika, the soft spirit tuner, that the nobleman has left, and the all seeing has sent his daughter away as well in search of some shardbearer’s boon. 

She hasn't seen Nepheli Loux, missing her the very few and far between times she made herself present in this place, but knows her as a kind warrior, with an honorable heart. She wouldn’t mind Nepheli mending the Elden Ring instead of herself; the warrior might even know what to do with it. Gwenn has absolutely no idea what she would do in charge of absolutely anything, much less all of the Lands Between: all she wants is a better world for her daughter to grow up in, to love in, to have all the things that have been stolen from her.

She sometimes wonders why Melina hasn’t left her side all this time. But through her love found and burned to cinders in her hands, to the birth of a child in a nightmarish constant war, to so many obstacles in the way of a quest so foreign to her - Melina never faded, never doubted. Gwenn must be the one new Elden Lord, Melina insists and therefore she stays, aids as much as she can. 

Her presence alone would make baby Abigail stop crying in nights where the cold would seep in between any layer of clothing no matter how she tried to heat the baby up, nights were soft conjured lights and tender singing wouldn't do enough.  

She’s always been grateful for the scarce yet loving people around her. 

“He’s looking for you, I’m afraid.” The spirit tuner says as she walks by, smiling at the jar she places at her feet. “I wish it as good news but -”

“When is it good news with him?” Gwenn laughs and the girl’s shoulders slump and relax; she’s always so tense, so worried. It's always so rewarding to make her forget her nightmares, even if it is through silly jokes and homemade jams. “I’ll be fine, don’t you worry.” She insists, hands on her hips. “There has never been a fall where I didn't land on my own two feet.”

Her laughter quiets her own hummingbird fluttering heart too. Gideon Ofnir is as terrifying as he can be: knowledge is a powerful, dangerous thing and he seems to hold the whole of it. She wouldn’t like to be on his bad side, even when his good side is not ideal to begin with. 

She decides to just walk in and get it over with. 

“Gwenndolen.” He calls as she barges into his study, without even looking up. “All this time, and not a Rune to show off for it?”

“As everyone else here, isn’t that right?” She counters quickly. “Including you, Mr. All Knowing, isn’t it?”

Now he looks up, his fist curling tight over his papers. “You insolent little - “ He huffs before he can continue, not that she cannot guess how that sentence ends. “I have sent aid to the Stormveil Castle; stop Godrick’s reign of terror at once, for your own sake and your… family’s.”

He sounds almost disgusted but also does she at the implications. “Are you threatening my infant daughter, Gideon?” She spits out the words like venom curling at her tongue. 

It doesn’t matter who he is, if someone put one finger on her girl - 

“He’s grafting tarnished, girl. How difficult do you think it is to seize a little child, to wave her in front of her mother for her to surrender?” He speaks with such condescension it takes all her might to not leap behind his desk, to not slap the Grace out of him. She can’t even tell if she could do it but she would certainly love to try. Especially after the images he planted in her head, her little girl crying, held up by the wretched Spider, calling for her… Her insides churn in rage. “He’s hunting for our kind. He needs to be stopped.”

You need to be stopped too. She thinks with no more words than those that cannot be repeated out loud; instead she responds and earns a smile from him as she leaves, refusing to listen to his excessively animated reply. 

Yes, sir. Count me in.

Chapter Text

The path is far too green, far too beautiful, for what it becomes. The patrol camps become more common as she gets close to Stormveil Castle, Godrick the Golden’s colors emblazon themselves on the soldiers’ armor. 

They start far away enough, a small enough distance for her to sneak into the camps, getting rid of only one or two soldiers if any, silent like a shadow. Her light, swift blade is quick with the job, glistening with cool magic in her hand. 

Slowly, one or two soldiers turn into the whole camp, impossible to avoid. She makes her usual excuses: shows the Carian filigreed crest as an emissary from the family, or plays the part of a lost traveler, but her eyes betray her. The second the word tarnished rise from their throats and weapon aim at her, she crouches and lounges at them, slashing through them like the swift winds, her feet not stopping until the last body hits the ground with a dry thud. 

She’s a good warrior, yes, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. She couldn't say whether or not she would have survived for long enough to have her girl, to raise her, if it wasn’t for the light of Grace…but it’s an expensive bargain. She wipes the blade of her sword along the outer layer of her traveling dress; the worn, once white cloth dyes pink in a second. 

Gwenn sighs. She really likes that outfit. The leather bracers and high boots allow her to move freely in combat without making her look threatening enough to draw attention to her; the simple white and brown colors, the humble belt around her waist, adorned with a carian moon engraved with glintstones one can only see from up close - it is unassuming enough but still shows off the hospitality of the Carian family towards her. After all, the Queen always tries to send her off in her own colors, but Gwenn refuses again and again. It’s more dangerous; it proves an unmovable frame she doesn’t connect with: she’s not traveling to demand from anyone but to listen to them. 

Boc, her shy but sweet seamster that has insisted on following her from the coast caves in Liurnia up to the Academy, where Princess Ranni insisted he be given a study to practice and hone his craft, had given her a blue cloak to cover her head. It makes her appear as just a simple maiden, long twin braids resting against her chest. She slings her bag over her shoulder again, dusting off her skirts. She sighs. 

Godrick the Golden, the king descendant of the First Elden Lord, the Spider. What terrible things power can do, and the ambition that drives someone to seek a power they cannot obtain. To wallow in defeat enough to shed oneself, become bigger, and still lesser, a husk of what one once was. 

She cannot even imagine what awaits her, and still… 

Gwenn finds her way amongst the lines, around old tattered walls and on top of holed out rooftops. She always travels light, and knowingly so. She swings from a balcony of a door that doesn’t budge, up to the edge of the rooftop. She whips her gaze up, pulling herself up to catch the guard by surprise, kicking him off the rampart. She hears the body go down, down, and waits. The thud comes to her ears eventually, then nothing. 

No one heard. 

She presses on. 

The smell is the first thing that hits her. The stench of rotten flesh, still trying to live, makes her insides churn as if they were trying to leave her. She holds her breath, listens. Once she’s in total silence she lets herself fall onto her knees, dry heaving. There’s nothing in her stomach to expel and yet her mouth fills up with bile. 

Gwenn looks upon her provisions to find some rowa fruits, and she carefully lodges a couple in between her teeth and the hollows of her cheeks. Her mouth fills up with such tart nectar; it'll distract her from the foul lingering presence of death all around her. 

It takes her too long to look up. 

In front of her extends what must have been a dining room once, or maybe a kitchen. Long tables filled with fruit and vegetables, even some cookware extends alongside the walls. Every bit of it looks too fresh for the air to smell so, so…

Something moves at the corner of her eye and she finally tilts her head up.

Above her, limbs and torsos and heads hang like butchered meats from the ceiling, turgid by time and buzzing with flies. She spits on the floor and this time, thanks to the sweet relief of the fruit on her mouth, her body gets rid of the burning acid on her tongue. 

It feels like her head might start spinning; her hands search for support on the table behind her, lean on it until her fingers touch the dull blade of a kitchen knife stuck on the chopping board. 

Her mind immediately makes it an accomplice to the abhorrent scene hanging over her. She yanks her hand back as if the blade was made of fire. 

What is this place? What is she even doing here?

She pants, her breathing shallow, and refuses to inhale the stale air; it burns her nostrils, and fills up the corner of her eyes with tears. 

It’s distracting enough for her to not hear the clattering of pans until it becomes too late.

She rolls out of the way the second she hears the noises, the rapid patter of legs on the wooden floors without paying much attention to the cause of it.

A scream dies in her throat when she sees it; she covers her mouth and hides behind the corner of the room, eyes wide. 

It’s not a living thing; it shouldn't be: behind her comes a mass of limbs, legs that spurt legs, arms branching like vines, holding an axe and shield as if that thing could be a soldier. 

Its voice sounds like a wail; its face looks like a child's.

Gwenn wants to run. To come back, to forget everything, to hide under her bedsheets. 

What the fuck is this place?

Her hand trembles but eventually grips around Moonveil, and her legs find enough strength to prop her up. She whips herself out of her hiding spot and the thing screams at her, running towards her. 

She sits, holds, her body stilled out of willpower alone.

She unsheaths Moonveil as he’s close enough, channeling her spirit power to the blade, sending a bright wave of magic towards it. She jumps behind the wave, following the cut. 

Her eyes focus on nothing else but the slash; her body presses forward with all her weight. 

It sinks deep but doesn’t stop it. She jumps out of the way, slashes again and again and again. Her eyes focus on small spots, refusing to see the big picture, the pieces falling off, the scream becoming louder, more terrible. 

Her exhaustion at the end of the battle is not physical but its weight is much greater.. 

She can't stop; not right now, not yet. The words of Ofnir still sound too fresh in her mind. 

The bastard knows how to convince her and she’s not entirely sure he wouldn't kidnap her Abigail himself to barter with her. 

The soldiers keep falling but she’s too numb to feel the stiffness in her fingers, the blood covering her. 

She has to get rid of whatever created all of this. 

Gwenn finds herself in a chapel, and her own tiredness presses her down onto her knees. The air here somehow smells like incense, covering the stench of the rest of the castle.

What a wretched place. 

“Excuse me, miss, this is not a palace for travelers-” A voice behind her resonates sweetly and calmly. It feels like a balm upon her skin. The owner of the voice, a sorcerer shadowed by a wide brimmed hat decorated with hanging glintstones, smiles at her as he circles around her. “Oh, my apologies, you must be a warrior then. I sure hope so, this place is bristling with tarnished hunters. They sacrifice our kind, you see, for grafting.”

“Ugh, stop, I’ve- I’ve seen enough of that, now.” Gwenn starts before realising her own disgusted tone, and bows her head to the stranger immediately after. “Oh, sir, I’m sorry! I’m just, sick and disgusted-”

He only chuckles, offering a hand to her. She gladly accepts the help. “I would be scared if you weren’t!” It makes her laugh, too, despite everything around her. “The name’s Rogier. Sorcerer, as you must have guessed.”

“Gwenndolen; Gwenn, really.” She bows again, as a form of respect. “I’ve meddled with a bit of magic; I’m not quite good at it, sadly.”

“Oh!” His eyes seem to shine like gems suddenly, alive with excitement. “What can you do?”

“Well-” She blushes but still sheaths her sword, and joins her hands. From in between them a soft blue light is born, and rises atop of them both as she lets it free. 

The light dances like a star above them.

Rogier laughs. 

“It helped my child sleep when she was a toddler. I- I know a thing or two but not much, not really.” She sounds embarrassed but the man is nothing but comforting, lightheartedly laughing alongside her. 

She’s still waking in a nightmare made flesh, but at least she's not alone in it. 

“Everyone starts somewhere.” He smiles softly. “Just remember to be careful.” 

Gwenn nods and breathes deep; her stomach is still tangled in a tight knot but her body finds some courage again. Anything for her child, to make the world safer for her. 

She lets her hands fall onto the handle of her blade and moves towards the next door; she looks back for just a second to see the sorcerer tip his hat at her. 

She can do this. The Grace is with her. 

There could not be any other explanation for the compulsion she feels after slaying a leonine misbegotten, trained as a guard dog and coming after her the second it saw her. The chains around its legs whipped and clashed against the brickwalls, threatening to lash against her and knock her down until her blade pierced through the bottom of its jaw, digging into its skull in a clean thrust. 

The door calls for her and she follows, sneaking silently into what looks like a side wine storage room or added kitchen, where a woman recites a warrior’s farewell. To her feet lies the body of a soldier, still warm.

Gwenn almost jumps when she finds the stranger’s eyes on her. “Didn’t mean to interrupt!” She holds her hands up as a sign of non aggression but the warrior doesn’t even seem worried. 

“Tarnished, are you?” She says simply, “Me too, tarnished and warrior. I'm here by decree of my father.” She looks away for a second, almost like sniffing the air around her. “How utterly repellent this is, it’s tainted the very winds.”

“I can still feel it in my skin like corruption just for slaying- ah, doesn’t matter.” Gwenn shakes her head and offers the woman her hand. “Gwenndolen is my name.”

“Ah, I believe my adopted father mentioned you, Gwenndolen. My name is Nepheli Loux, daughter of Gideon Ofnir.”

Gwenn swallows hard in order to not show her disgust. She doesn't deserve it; it's her father's stench and not hers to carry. Him adopting Nepheli makes much more sense than for a flower to bloom from such rotten soil. A man like that only sees the utility in people, and that’s a horrible thing to do to anyone. 

“Your reputation precedes you, Nepheli. Nice to meet you, but please, Gwenn is quite enough.” She smiles fondly. It takes a second but the warrior smiles back, slowly, as if it was a strange thing in these lands. “I have heard about Godrick: your father told me to hunt him down.” She has to stop herself, flattening her tongue against the bottom of her mouth to not mention how Gideon had threatened a small child to make her accept the mission. 

“It will be a pleasure to do so with you then, Gwenn.” Nepheli replies, walking to the door to check on the patrols trotting around and checking the fresh bodies. “You should make haste, however. I can follow the hawks and hide close to where Godrick roams his own hall like a phantom of his own lineage, but the route through the palissades is going to take a while to get enough reinforcements to even notice you around. This is the time, warrior.”

Nepheli’s own excitement, the power in her voice, gives Gwenn a strange sense of purpose, and a second wind of strength rolls through her. Fuck it, it’s now or never and she wouldn’t be guided there if she wasn’t meant to end the horror of this castle. 

She can’t say she’s not absolutely terrified, but she would face the Moon itself if it would try to harm her Abigail.

“This is the time, Neph,” she says before even thinking but the woman seems to smile at the nickname. “Just straight down the courtyard?”

“Follow the stairs up and you’ll see the gate.” The hawks start calling into the sky, circling. Nepheli looks up. “I need to be going. I’ll see you there.”

“Be safe, Neph. I’m counting on you.”

“And I, on you.” 

She runs out and climbs up a wall, holding herself on the ledge before hoisting herself up and disappearing over the rooftops. The birds seem to follow her, guarding her path. 

Gwenn finds herself smiling; as repugnant as Gideon is, his daughter seems the stark opposite. Bravery and warmth alike; a leader and a protector at heart. 

She can see the gate from there; it’s only a close walk. Her body starts to feel the exhaustion of adrenaline, of sheer horror, of- 

The room itself seems separate enough to be out of the patrol’s way. She could just hide behind the wine barrels’ shelves, curl up in a nook and rest her weary eyes for just a second. 

What’s the worst that can happen?

Of course, out of every way she could have thought of answering that question, she would have never imagined waking up by sundown, stretching her back and cracking her neck, only to see a terrifying horned figure walking on a cane, clearly looking for intruders. 

She’s only ever heard of them; she’s never seen one in the flesh before. 

What is an omen doing here?

Chapter Text

Gwenn stays put, her shoulder firmly pressed to the side of the barrels, her hood obscuring her hopefully enough for him to pass by. The omen sentinel seems to know she’s there, almost sniffing the air close to the door of the room; she knows better, the subtle humming shine of holy light peeks from where his hand closes around his cane. 

This is not a simple soldier. Not that those were easy to fool either, but her heart seems to drum into her ears, echoing; she could go out there, face him and see what he is capable of, what could happen.

She could die and the grace will bring her body from the dirt, breaking it into light and saving it from decay, hiding it right in this very space. It's so easy, from a planned point of view, but it is still dying. It always is. It is your bones bursting, shattering around the blade that carves your chest, your guts turning into shreds and your blood pooling, filling out every empty space. And the mind numbing pain, the feeling of becoming nothing, swallowed and spat back up again and again, your nerves flaring in searing pain, always remembering. She can’t list every death she suffered but her skin can. The sensation of fire, of sharp metal, of blunt axes and heavy fists and sparking lighting and-

Ugh. Thinking about it alone is exhausting. And the omen looks dangerous enough as he is, holding nothing but a knotted old cane, without even thinking about the holy energy radiating from his palms. He makes her feel small, insignificantly so; her best shot is to be faster, to be almost invisible. 

She breathes hard. Her hands take a moment to stop trembling. If she’s fast enough she might be able to go through the sharpened logs without being noticed; she just needs to be silent as a mouse. 

And she is, she knows she is, and yet. 

“Foul tarnished.” He says and his voice cracks like thunder in her ear; Gwenn suddenly feels nailed to the ground. 

She turns slowly, covering her eyes with her hood, but there’s no point. He turns, his hard gaze falling upon her, and it feels like frozen waters licking up her spine. He can see right through her. She swallows hard and says nothing, afraid of her voice trembling the way her legs are. 

His free hand glistens and envelops a bright golden light that morphs into a dagger. 

Fuck.

Her legs remember how to move just in time for her to roll away from the knife flying at her; it hits one of the palisades, destroying it, and vanishes into shards of light.

Her body could be doing that at any moment.

“Stop!” She tries before yelling as he moves impressively fast, his horned tail flailing behind him as he jumps and produces an enormous hammer from thin air and lands in front of her.

Gwenn fumbles backwards, just far enough for the massive weapon to land a hair's breadth away from her; the earth shakes underneath her. 

“Please, I don’t wish to fight you!” She yelps as she jumps on her feet and barely avoids the reach of his cane as he swiftly lunges at her.

She rolls and jumps and stumbles, running in front of the gates, her eyes desperately searching for an exit. The omen follows too close for her to find a way out.

It’s impossible. He will kill her.

She grasps the glintstone shard hanging from her wrist, and her words produce a blue light that hangs suspended in the air, forming itself into a dagger that rapidly tries to find him.

It does not hit and she knows it without even turning around. 

“I did believe thou hadst no desire to engage in combat?” He sounds almost mocking if it wasn’t for the strength of his voice, his jaw tight enough to grit his teeth. 

It still gets her. She scoffs. “I don’t!” She shouts back while unsheathing Moonveil, the thin blade bright with magic, sending a wave of energy at him. 

His golden eye opens wide. The slash hits him right in the face, moving him backwards and making him wince, but no more than that. Something inside her is glad she didn’t draw blood, but a move like that is enough of a taunt to be a death sentence on its own. 

She puts her hands in front of her, the sword horizontal in front of her in a defensive position. “I’m not here for you, I- I don't know who you are!” She explains but he keeps coming closer, slowly, sizing her up. 

Only one of his eyes is open, the other one weighed down under the crown of horns on the right of his head. The golden hue makes his penetrating gaze much more intimidating. 

Is she supposed to know him?

“Many of thine ilk hath succumbed to the salient blades of Margit the Fell.” He jumps towards her again and she pushes forward, sliding under a ballista that explodes into splinters as he lands close to her. 

Fuck.

She had heard that name. The nightmare of the Tarnished, albeit not the horror that is the Grafted Lord. 

After what she’s seen inside the castle, a holy light dagger feels like a merciful death. 

Gwenn tries to keep her footing but he’s fast, limber and much, much bigger than her. She dodges, blocks and still it’s not enough. Her clothes start turning scarlet, ripped where her limbs bloom in cuts; her legs lose their strength little by little, every step becoming slower. 

She tries to plead one more time but the sharp white pain opening like a bud from her chest to every inch of her skin turns her voice into a gasped shriek, and the world turns dark, cold, and distant. 

She wakes up next to the warm light of Grace. Her bones feel like molten metal, reforming in a cloud of agony, and her flesh takes shape inside of her as she grits her teeth not to scream. 

Soon enough the pain, the exhaustion of the process feels like a terrible dream. 

She leans to the side of the door, but there’s only common foot soldiers. Despite their numbers and weaponry, not seeing the looming shadow again is a strange comfort. 

Margit the Fell. 

Ofnir surely forgot to mention him, not that he gave her any useful information…only threats and duties.

This is the best chance she’s going to get: even the Lord of the castle sounds much less terrifying than he was, looming over her before the golden tinted skies. 

The thought of him alone makes something tremble inside of her. 

She hurries towards the gates, scurrying past the stone walls as she conceals her movement in the shrubbery, her scabbard scratching against the ground loud enough to make her heart jump to her throat every time any of the soldiers turn her way.

Luckily, it’s her own anxiety sharpening their senses; they quickly shrug and turn back, joking with one another as they get back to their positions. 

It’s too easy, too silent; the security is not put up for the likes of her, she’s sure of it. She’s their favorite victim in any case, a skilled, well-trained tarnished in full health. They would let her go through anyway.

To become a part of the spider.

Still, what awaits her behind the door she could have never imagined.

There’s a drake, at the side of the cobblestone path. Majestic, even when trapped, impaled through its chest and limping on the ground like a hunting trophy. 

Gwenn has seen some before; her daughter knew to admire them from the far. They’re as powerful as they are territorial, majestic reminders of a bygone era that should be cherished, revered with the light it held. 

This poor thing had none of it. 

At its side stands someone, something covered in a beautiful, regal fabric adorned with some sort of sigil. A lion, she thinks at first. If only she were close enough to see too many fingers on his bony hand, too many protuberances under the hump hiding in fair clothing. 

The figure, the Lord, admires it, the poor dying thing, ignoring the tortuous slumber. Thin grey braids hang from his face, turning to her slowly as he holds onto one golden axe, then another…on the same side.

The fabric moves away to reveal a multitude of other arms, some branching from bigger ones like buds, all moving on their own accord, like a crown of wretchedness around the damned thing that was once a man, like a halo.

A golden crown rests atop his head, and it only makes him more repulsive. 

“A lowly tarnished,” he seethes and it’s not the first time she hears that phrase, even that tone, but coming from him it feels like a slap in the face.

That… that abomination has no right to call her anything at all, not after the corruption he brought upon himself, the vice that runs hungrier than scarlet rot through his veins. 

No, there’s nothing graceful, nothing holy about this man, what he brought upon himself.

Nothing golden, despite his own words.

“I command thee, kneel!” He slams his gilded axe against the ground and it creates a shockwave that runs to her. She jumps, her hand on her blade, as she unsheathe Moonveil in the air and a wave of magic pushes forward, hitting him like the edge of the blade itself would. 

He barely steps backwards.

Ah. This might prove itself a problem. 

Gwenn powers through, using her size and speed as a vantage point. His axes are powerful but too heavy to wield that comfortably, his body too contorted to be as swift as he would want to, even when his own skill is surprising. 

She rolls and jumps and moves away, taking every hit as a win. Even with little pebble-like blows, with every scratch of her Moonveil, every flight of her magic glintblades, it adds up. She can see him becoming sluggish, his insults becoming harsher, desperate. She can see the fury in his vacant eyes. 

But still, she could have never guessed his next move. 

The axe pulls up with a scream; she prepares to run, her hand clutching her blade, but he's way too far from him to aim at her. No, the axe goes down onto his own left arm, severing it clean from its joint in a gush of scarlet. 

The smell coming from it is penetrating, unholy.

He limps, bleeding his way into the miserable drake still witnessing the charade. He pleads to it as one would an idol, a champion, before turning his stump into its neck, like a blade, to clutch and rip the head off.

The poor thing doesn’t even make a sound, its tongue hanging loosely from the bloody mouth, before it starts moving again, reanimated by some vile filthy sorcery. 

It spits fire as its brethren would, commanded by the infernal character it’s attached to; a weapon for a powerless man. 

It would be sad if it wasn’t so dangerous. 

She leaps, and hides by the sides. Her blade tries to find the right time but he's fas vaulting over the sides and filling the space in between them with flames. But the stream is long and it makes for a blindspot in between the beast head and the foul body. She runs swiftly, avoiding the axes on one side and the fire on the other to get closer, step by step, slashing at his sides, making his knees buckle as his legs keep turning red, blood pooling underneath him. Staying still feels like hanging her head, waiting for his axe to fall; she can feel the exhaustion creeping into her but he starts to hesitate, to limp and huff

This is her chance. 

She jumps onto his axe and leaps over his head, using her full weight to thread the tip of Moonveil like a needle right in between his vertebrae. A wet snap, and he gurgles, mumbling about golden lands as he chokes on his own blood. 

It's a dreadful sight. It's almost enough to make her stomach revolt, her spine jolting, as she dry heaves. 

The smell of corruption is even in his blood, but still she cannot look away as much as she so desperately wants to. 

Something within his chest shines golden. She can't help but laugh at the irony. 

Still, the pull moves her hand forward, reaching without touching the carcass and feeling the relentless string, as if her veins were turning inside out, trying to leave through the palm of her hand. 

Instead, something bleeds into her pores and breathes life, pure life into her. 

She doesn't stop to figure out what it means; before anything she needs to leave this sinful place. 

Chapter Text

She runs.

As if she’s stolen something precious, cradled into her chest like a scorned child, and pulled it from the mouth of Hell into a light it hasn’t seen in…

It feels like tongues of fire trying to rip out her veins, pushing outwards, wanting to touch it. 

The brightness was beautiful, Gwenn always thought, but it made her recoil, cowering towards the light of the Erdtree.

She pushes away, away from the cursed walls of Stormveil, away from its wriggling corruption. It makes her insides itch like a cloud of insects trying to eat her from the inside and she fights it, she tries to. 

She cannot win.

Running becomes tripping, crawling, before her throat finally opens in an earth shattering scream. 

Her hands fists around the grass, pulling roots and all, as if it could soothe anything.

Whatever that is. 

What is it?

Gwenn is almost tempted to go back. To the Roundtable, to Ofnir, but he’s more than capable of gutting her, to cut her open and pull it right out of her as if she was nothing but the package the treasure has been wrapped in.

No. She doesn’t know anything, doesn’t understand but one thing. This fire was hers alone.

This power.

As soon as it stops trying to consume her.

“Obstinate tarnished.” The words resonate in front of her but she only clutches herself tighter, curled into herself, her forehead pressed against the cool ground. It helps, somehow. 

It takes a while for the voice, velvety smooth if it wasn’t coated for such poison, to come back to her in a shuddering panic.

Margit.

“Hast thou not met thy limit yet?” The cracking of the dirt as his cane buries itself into the ground next to her is deafening; not by the sound but by the meaning.

He’s here to kill her. He probably knows the method, too. Not that she knows if there’s a true method - in any case, she doesn’t enjoy dying. 

“Rise.” He roars and she has to force herself to look up through her eyelashes, still prostrated at his feet. “I will not end thy life whilst thou writhest upon the ground like vermin.”

She rises, to some extent. 

Gwenn takes her time, her body still pulsating in pain,screaming at her; she sits up on her knees, hood down and hands on her lap. Her braids look almost crimson red, caked in the filth of the battlefield; her dress had stopped being fair and light days ago. 

She doesn’t move to her sword. 

“Rise, I say!” He taunts her, the tip of his cane brushing under her chin to force her to look up. 

The Erdtree behind him looks almost like a halo and still he obscures so much of it; his figure was bent over and hidden under rags and still she knows there’s so much life, so much fight hidden beneath his appearance. She has felt it, has died by it. 

She could, again. And still.

“I might be your enemy, Sire, but you are not mine.” She spits back firmly, teeth gritted with pain. If she doesn’t move, back completely straight, if she doesn’t put too much effort she might play it well enough, he might not notice-

“Tarnished are the enemy of the Golden order-”

“I am not .” Gwenn tries again. He frowns. He doesn't like being interrupted; no noble does. But it is necessary. “I am nought but a Carian emissary; I’ve come to free these lands of their…” She can’t find the words, not immediately. “Their sickness.”

Margit makes a sound close to a scoff. It must have been a good enough answer because it makes him put his cane down. 

Why the fuck is that thing so deceptively sharp anyway? She can feel the skin under her chin open and drawing red down her neck. She still doesn’t move. 

“What about his shard, then?” He asks, and this time it is not the cane. 

He moves far too fast for her to react in any way, pliant if not for the stiffness of her limbs still fighting the war inside. His hand finds the edge of her jaw, so massive against her that she feels he could rip her jaw off her face so easily if he so wished to. He pulls her up, and she stifles her protests behind closed lips, grimacing as she is hoisted up to her feet, her eyes fixed on him with the same intensity that she had avoided his gaze with in the first place. 

One side of his head is adorned with messy horns, his almost fully white hair peeking in messy tufts, and his eye is forced closed by the sheer weight of the growths. The horns have been cut to save some of his vision on the other eye, and still nothing in his fighting style would have ever let her know of his impairment. His hair had been the color of straw once, she was certain; his eye still shines with the telling gold of the Tree. 

His scowl feels like a death sentence. 

She swallows hard; her throat barely responds, inflamed and dry like the desert. 

“I can sense it inside thee.” His hand tightens; she wants to believe she didn’t whimper. “It’s calling.”

“It hurts.” She stares into his eye, and feels her vision blur. Is she crying? She hasn’t been in this kind of pain, incessant, buried so deep into her bones there’s no shedding of her flesh that could calm it down. It was clawing at her soul. “Sire, it hurts. I don’t want it. Please.”

Margit’s gaze seems to soften but only for one moment. “Tarnished fool, thou didst not know thine own fate?”

“Fate? Fuck fate!” Gwenn suddenly snaps. The waves of fire grow, threatening to drown her. Every bit of her skin is dull ache, blossoming to the touch; every nerve frayed and ready to jolt a storm awake. She slaps his wrist, pulling his grip off of her and the whiplash of her jaw being set free makes her groan, spitting into the ground in between them. “Fate wants me dead, tortured, over and over for a war that’s not my own; fate made that- that thing! That crowned thing that took innocent people, children even, and ripped them off like ragdolls, made sick creations out of them, of himself-” 

She takes a step back, screaming in pain as her arms hug her middle, bending over herself. When she looks back up, she’s rageful, the flames taking them, pulling, claiming, wanting. 

It’s the sickness, the need for power, the ambition. That man was sick and his rot is trying to consume her too. 

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” The pain comes into her like jolts, as if the dragons were scratching her very soul, setting it aflame with holy lighting. “I couldn’t leave it there, I couldn't- there cannot be another one of them. They shouldn’t be praised with power, with followers, with victims to sink their teeth into like cattle.”

She falls onto her knees again, groaning and biting her lip to stop the sobs. It’s torture worse than any death, it’s fucking torture and it doesn’t stop. 

He reaches for her but this time her body is faster, even when she barely notices it moving. She grabs his wrist before he can get a hold of her, her fingers barely surrounding half of it; still, they dig into his flesh as if they wanted to dig his own veins out. 

“No. This is my fire and my burden. I will not let this shitshow happen again- I will keep my daughter safe. Always.” She talks mostly to herself, her eyes glued to his but looking somewhere behind him, nowhere at all. 

Margit doesn’t respond for the longest of time. 

Hell, he could shake her off, and yet he stays there. Petrified. 

“Daughter?” He finally finds his voice, shocked, almost trembling. “Born of thine own blood?”

“If the dark circles under my eyes have anything to say for it.” She smirks, cold and humorless. 

He lets his hand fall, and she lets go. The silence in between them, interrupted only by the sounds of hawks above them, seems to stretch for an eternity. 

He presses his palm suddenly against her forehead, covering half her face in a motion that would have been funny if it wasn’t mostly disconcerting. She can barely see his face now but is still certain his lips are moving, murmuring something under his breath.

His palm grows warm, glowing gold only to dim a minute after. As the light subsides, so do the waves of the inferno inside of her. 

It still bites, aches, but more like a puppy dog teething than a demon wanting to feast on her bones. 

“Wha-?”

“Caria, thou hast mentioned.” He pulls away, taking a step back just in case. Suddenly, his careful distance feels colder than his murderous instinct. As if she was plagued. “Go ask thy Queen for aid.”

“Are-” She stutters. “Are you letting me go?”

He scoffs for good measure. “Do not think thou art spared. Draw near the Capital, and I shall hunt thee down.” Like the dog you are , he means; she knows, can hear it in the tone of his voice. 

Still, he’s letting her go. 

Why?

Morgott snaps his eyes open, catching his breath as if he had been drowning. 

It takes so much of him to keep the simulacrum, and still. 

Well, he might not need to keep it up that far away now that Godrick is finally gone. As much family as he was a disgrace, desperate for power and proud of a gilded dream that never happened, Morgott kept protecting him. As the King he felt he needed to: he didn’t go against the Order, even when his… pastimes were vile, to say the least. 

And still, he was the weakest link. The shardbearer most easily trampled down. If any tarnished were to hunt down the pieces of the Elden Ring, he was surely to be the first one to go down.

And down he went. To a warrior of impressive skill, if not too curious, too distracted. 

To a mother. 

He cannot tell why she’s alive, why she is going back home, why he let her go. 

Tarnished aren’t supposed to be able to conceive, aren’t they? Their mortal flesh doesn’t touch Death, and as such, it shouldn’t be able to give life. 

And yet. 

The idea of a child, alone, somewhere in the wilderness, waiting for her mother to come home, not knowing she never would…

His debt is with his city, his people, not random women in wretched places, soiled in blood. What is he doing? 

He should have killed her right there, the second she suggested- he should’ve gutted her like a deer, waited for her, killing her over and over until the light in her eyes turned dull, until she gave into the maggots, the eternal nothingness, for good. 

A woman like that could not be a mother- not a loving one, at that. A tarnished could not, should not, be able to bear children. They would not love them, care for them. 

I will keep my daughter safe. Always.

And yet.

She fought the power of the Rune for her. She barged into Stormveil, ill prepared and ignorant, for her. 

Blasted fool. Morgott paces around his chambers, his dinner sitting untouched. 

He could spend hours every day, every night, in the Margit simulacrum, ignoring his own needs. His days are split between the protector and the King, leaving nothing for the man.

No. There is no man. There's only duty and monster, Grace and Curse, and he is both, always. 

He is no man. He never was.

And out there…the tarnished, the graceless, the cursed, plays house as if her tainted blood won’t call out for blood, as if her hands weren’t meant to wield the blade, to take lives instead of bringing them in. 

It felt like a slap in the face, a joke aimed only at him. 

There’s nothing but curse, and that woman tried to bloom flowers from rotten soil. 

That tarnished . 

Then why did he let her go?

He groans as he lets himself fall backwards onto the thin, worn mattress he uses as a bed, refusing to sleep on the same bedsheets that once cradled the great Godfrey’s dreams. 

Why did he let her go?

Chapter Text

It’s tiresome, more than it was the way in. Inside her she can feel the golden glow, like the touch of Grace, formed into chains around the great rune. 

King Godrick’s great rune.

She had slain the nightmare and in her pulse, in her soul, beats the power of a demigod, trying to consume her. 

Tied into submission by the tarnished hunter. 

If the finger readers would have told her this would happen, she would have laughed in their faces so hard she would have probably been kicked off the Roundtable hold altogether. 

Her muscles feel consumed, exhausted to the core; she feels like resonance, like harp strings strumming inside her chest, of Margit’s incantation. Like chains of light holding the soiled rune in place, stopping the bite. 

If he could do that, he could’ve ripped it out of her, could he not?

He could’ve opened her chest like that of prey, snapped her in half and taken that which he guarded so fearsomely. 

And yet, he let her go. No, not just that. He told her where to get help. 

Margit is terrifying: skillful as he is agile, his senses sharpened to perfection to build the most precise weapon, towering over her like a predator ready to pounce, tail whipping angrily at his back. 

Her memory goes back to the feeling of his rough, calloused fingers around her face, pulling her up like she weighed nothing, which for someone his size she surely doesn’t. 

The knot inside her stomach…the tight phantom of fear dissolves in something sweeter, something warmer when her skin lets the touch melt into the contact of his palm against her forehead, touching her only enough, as if she could shatter if he pressed too hard.

The dichotomy is… confusing. Yes, that’s all she can make out of that. At least for now. 

Gwenn knows Boggart has lived in Leyndell, albeit in their gaols, for a long time, having been banished after completing his sentence. But for some reason only mentioning Margit’s name feels like an intrusion, a reveal of something that should be treated delicately, like a small scared bird in her hands.  

The tarnished hunter took pity on her and she’s overthinking his actions afterwards. That’s all. 

She’ll have to make peace with knowing only that; the next time they cross paths he surely won’t be so forgiving.  

She follows the glistening of Grace in the air, like small fireflies dancing behind her eyelids, even though it takes her through a different path. She always trusts the golden light. 

Through the valleys and hills she crosses Stormveil’s domains into Liurnia, walking her way up the land. 

There’s a penetrating smell of death in the air, but not quite like at the castle. It feels antiseptic…somehow clean. No rot, no putrid flesh, but something akin to despair hangs insistent in the air. 

Gwenn has lived in Liurnia for years now, for Abigail’s entire life. Yet some spots here and there are strange to her, having dedicated most of her time to raising and educating her daughter. And that alone was trouble enough: the sweetling has the energy of an army, the curiosity of an academy of scholars, the memory of, well. The memory of a child that has heard too many swear words in her short life. 

She had her job cut for her, so the exploration of the Queen’s domains got relegated to the back of her mind. 

She could not have expected what awaits her at the zenith. 

The first thing to find her are the cries; short, desperate, flickering and extinguishing in a second. The whistling of the wind against sharp quick slashes. The creaking and snapping of wood. 

It sounds like conquest, like war. Gwenn would recognize that song anywhere. 

She runs as fast as she can but most of the carnage happened before she could have made it there. The visage of gallows, rows and rows of bodies hanging like a royal escort at the side of the pathway up, decorating the arch of the stone bridge, makes her stomach churn. The sweetened fermented smell of the poisonous waters underneath holds no candle to the corruption in front of her. She wants to cry but her throat feels like coarse sand, her chest closed shut. 

It’s foul. Evil. 

It’s so close to home. 

“Oh, it's you…” Gwenn almost yelps at the voice next to her, knelt on the dying grass. To her side, Nepheli knelt before broken bodies, only looking up to her for a second. “Well, what do you make of it? What's happened to this village?”

“Something horrible.” Gwenn can only answer. “ Someone horrible. This… this is no bandit work; this is extermination.”

“I witnessed a sight much the same, in my infancy. The oppression of the weak. Murder and pillage unchecked. A waking nightmare, made by men. “ The warrior breathes solemnly. It is a weight too much to bear and yet she rises, holds herself strong where Gwenn wants nothing but to break down. 

“But this time, I'm a woman grown. And though the suffering cannot be undone, I can still mete out justice.” She stands and Gwenn nods, her hand falling on the handle of Moonveil. The blade almost buzzes at her side, pulsing eagerly. 

“I’ll follow. For the voiceless and the weak.” They breathe as one; one resolve, one ambition. Justice.

Yet in every corner of the small village there’s nothing but death and silence, the dismal breeze clattering the corpses like some cursed chimes. Nothing inside the buildings, nothing on the moonlit clearing, nothing yet across the long stone bridge. 

The mouth of the clearing leads to a site that once felt sacred, but is now surrounded by more of the horrid sights of war. The bodies frame the cliff and on it towers an ancient tree that, once upon a time, held so much divinity. The ghosts of prayer still cling to it despite the horrors around it. 

At its base, two figures engulfed in shadow turn towards them and snicker. 

It’s the violence of it all, yes, but not only that; it’s the entitlement, the pride.

What kind of person would be proud of just a terrible project?

Gwenn sees red; she unsheathes as the smaller figure, faster or more daring perhaps, looms closer, slashing right through their apron. 

A perfumer; one that reeks of pungent venoms and ash. She scrunches her nose and spits at their feet before jumping back, avoiding one, two, three slashes. The perfumer chucks a vial at her and she jumps to land behind them, the tip of her Moonveil running clean through their neck. A dry snap echoes in the night as their vertebrae separate under the twist of the blade before Gwenn pulls it back off the now limp, lifeless body. 

She turns, listening to the heavy steps of the next figure, and barely gets to raise Moonveil over her head to block the cleaver coming down on her. In the flickering light of the town’s  lanterns the sight is dreadful: the worn bone separates into curved sharpened horns, placed like teeth alongside the blade, trying to carve into her. 

They feel like murder trophies. Behind them, a horned golden mask sits in an eternal grotesque smile. 

Gwenn had heard of them, but had never seen them before. The butchers, the executioners of those who come to clean the lands of impurities. 

The fucking Omenkillers. Waving their bloodthirst like a medal of honor, arrogant in their filth, hungry for praise and cheer. 

Disgusting. 

The roar that escaped her throat propels her forward as she puts her full weight put into her blade to push the murderer back. She’s small, but plenty skillful: she slashes, twists, thrusts and pushes them back, over and over. It’s a blind dance, fed on a fire she cannot control. Her arms open in scarlet lines at times and still she doesn’t stop, as they bloom over her now hardly white clothes. 

She feels the heat on her face before she can see where it comes from, and dodges to the side: the monster breathes a wave of fire where she was just standing, singeing the grass before them. The blade slashes at the back of their knees, biting the leather open; she moves fast, whipping the sword back and cutting through flesh this time. 

The scream makes the monster nothing but a man, and a man bleeds. A man dies. 

He falls to his knees, his arms flailing, the cleavers searching for her as she dodges and ducks  under his blows.

A man should not hold this power, this drive. A man should not drown in so much blood. 

She rolls closer, her boot connecting with his chin under the mask. 

She won’t remove it: he must die a monster, the way he lived. 

Moonveil finds its way through the bottom of his jaw, piercing up to the crown of his skull. The tip shines crimson and silver in the lantern light. 

The monster writhes, twitches, stops. 

Gwenn doesn’t breathe until the blade is dislodged, wiped clean, sheathed away. 

Her hands shake. 

“I will ask my father, the All Knowing, who might be responsible for this carnage.” She listens but doesn’t move, knelt on the soft forgiving soil. 

She hopes she can wake up, but the exhaustion in her limbs tells her this is no dream. 

The world is rotten and her hands stay stained, ever more stained. Justice has never been a blushing maiden, peace has never come without blood. Oh, but she’s so tired, so drenched in it. 

Who could ever do something like this?

“Please, see me again soon.” Nepheli tries again, a hand on Gwenn’s shoulder that finally snaps her back into reality. 

She nods curtly, her eyes still focused on something far away. 

She still finds a way to accept the warrior’s hand, to let herself be raised to her feet. 

She wipes the mud off her knees. It only spreads further on the fabric. 

Boc is going to be so upset when he sees the state of her dress. 

Maybe focusing on that is easier right now. 

“I need to go see my daughter. Later… I’ll look for you later.” Gwenn manages to eke out. Nepheli only nods slightly, letting her go to take her leave. 

Gwenn breathes once, twice, her eyes closed, her chest tight. 

She will be home soon, away from this. The world doesn’t stop spinning,  dying, killing, but still. 

She will be able to hug her child again. To forget just for a little while. 

She will be able to breathe. 

Chapter Text

The journey feels like an eternity. She loves to travel these lands while riding torrent, feeling one with the wind as her braids whip against her back at every turn; yet this time it  feels like a limbo forever engulfing her, the horizon always kicking back. 

The smell of fresh, clear water, the chittering of the creatures crawling through it, and the sweet scent of flowers blooming in the fertile soil brings her back from the horrors still tugging at the back of her mind. 

The bodies hang like ripened fruit, circling the edge of the cliff entirely. How many, she couldn't even imagine - tens, hundreds of innocents murdered and strung up like some kind of sick decoration, and for what? 

Who would do that? Who would order that? 

Gwenn didn't know much about Omenkillers - luckily had never met one, not until then. She could have done perfectly fine without ever seeing that mask, that morbid smile, that cleaver.

How proud, how perverted, how wrong it is to use the mutilated horns of your victims against them, to wield them like some holy weapon, to hide behind it like an emblem. Here comes the butcher, and behind it the gilded smile.

She shakes her head, holding tight onto Torrent's reins and swallowing hard to make her stomach stop churning. Her steed bucks up, looks back and huffs.

She mutters an apology before letting go. 

He knows where they're going anyway; Torrent had taken Abigail more than he had her, but he had still always ridden home in an almost straight line, getting back in record time, unscathed.

Gwenn had asked Melina once if she could leave the ring to her, but she just shook her head with an understanding smile. Torrent loves her child, yes, but obeys her. There would be no point to leave her with a symbolic token with no use. 

Still, she's glad that in her own tiredness to follow the Grace and let it bring her home, Torrent can provide the comfort of the scenic route. She's not a local, not really, but she's been in Liurnia for long enough that the constant soft rain feels like a blessing steaming off her feverish skin. 

She's been here for all of her daughter's life, after all. That's probably the longest she stayed in one place since the light of Grace claimed her back. 

The spell, seal, whatever the tarnished hunter buried into her soul still holds, not like a bandage but like a dagger holding the wound from bleeding out. It hurts, yes, but it's a dull pain, hot and menacing just below the surface. 

He said to ask her queen for help- in all fairness, she was renowned for her skills long before she even got the chance to be crowned, raising her name from the muck out of sheer determination, and her power hasn't waned that much since. Sure, she's got…different concerns lately. Concerns that fill up her time more than her own royal duties, more often than not. But her daughter is there to help, and get her sympathy too while she’s at it. She's learned a great deal of Liurnia and the Academy's affairs, the delicate balance in between its people and the students, and the arrogance of the latter to give space to the first. 

Politics might just be the same everywhere, changing a few names here and there. 

The stunning walls of Raya Lucaria welcome her like a mother, with open arms and a warmth her shivering skin can't wait to bury herself into. She can feel herself boiling and still she shudders; she pats Torrent's head and he knows to leave her at the gates, vanishing from underneath her. 

Gwenn misses her little devil dearly, but first things first. She cannot risk getting her daughter sick if whatever this is turns out to be contagious. 

“Good tidings, little lady. Glad to see you back.” The prospectors are polite to a fault; Gwenn would like to recognize one another but it feels like they get fed lines, instructed to never move out of place. The crowns obscure their features but she knows the voice. Lydia? Ferris? Lucretia? Fuck. One of them. Better to be safe than sorry. 

“I'm glad to be back too.” She hurries, her steps dogged and heavy.  By Grace, she didn't even know how much energy it was taking to try and keep the shard in place, to cope with the atrocities she's just seen, until she actually tried to hold herself up. Her knees tremble.  “I need to see the queen. Right away. Would that be possible?” 

“You'll need a healer first; you're positively pale!” The prospector came to her aid, linking Gwenn's arm over her shoulder and her own around Gwenn’s back. “After that we can talk about-”

“A healer won't know what to do.” She counters quickly. “It has to be the queen. Please.” 

She doesn't hesitate; she only nods and holds Gwenn as they shuffle through the too long corridors in search for the debate parlor where the queen often rests alongside her many children created by her hand. 

She's more stable than she was, that's for certain, but the grief still holds so deep, so sharply into her that she hardly ever leaves the room, their company. 

Still, the second she looks up from the book she's reading to a multitude of children gazing up in awe. She straightens up to walk to Gwenn, arms outstretched. 

The tarnished lets herself be guided into an embrace. 

“Oh sweetling, what is that that ails you?” Rennala almost coos into her hair, petting her head softly. The golden light vibrates, shining against her own magic, but not only that…The amber egg she cradles, from which she births the short lived students around her, almost buzzes, almost trembles.

Gwenn looks up to the pillow where it's cushioned; there's something inside, calling. She wants to touch it. The idea alone makes her sick.

What is that? 

“Oh little darling, inside your chest- you're holding a treasure.” The queen's long fingers pull on the tie in her braids; the dexterous sweetness in which they loosen her hair, combing it apart, feels comforting. Gwenn can't stop hesitation from closing her eyes, her voice a soft tune. 

“The rune- I don't think it wants to be with me, my queen.”

“You couldn't touch it if it didn't, little one.” She shakes her head so lightly Gwenn only feels it on the movement of her chest. “Oh, but it's ill- corrupted. It wants to break free but it will eat you out with the greed, the misery of its owner. “

“Godrick. It's Godrick the Golden’s.”

“Ah, the Grafted demon.” She scoffs and pats her head before letting go. “I can put it to sleep, so to speak, but I'm afraid you'll have to go to the two fingers still alive to cleanse it, to make it yours.” She moves towards a desk filled with instruments, tomes, and a concoction or two. The girl cannot see her hands as she busies herself, but she can see the blue glintstone light emanating from them.

“Whatever seal Grace has put on it, it won't stop it either; you can keep both but both will last only for a time.” 

Grace? 

Ah. Must have been Margit’s spell- the holy magic he wields. 

“My queen, what uh- what exactly is that seal doing?”

“My child, why, it's holding the corruption back - akin to a golden needle. Were you not aware when you sought its protection? “

“Well, not really, I-” Gwenn stopped suddenly. She can't really explain that the Fell Omen decided to take a break from exterminating her kind to save her specifically. She, the only tarnished with a fragment of the Elden Ring, his perfect target. 

She still can't understand why he would ever spare her, even if with a threat, even if with a scowl. He didn't have to stop his own hand, much less help her back home. 

“I cannot explain much about the seal, my queen. I apologize.” She murmurs, bowing to where Rennala stands, now turning towards her with a simple glintstone shard hanging from a thin golden chain. Soft hands over the crown of her head run softly down to the back of her neck, the little glimmer of blue light bouncing and shining against her chest. 

Gwenn holds the tiny stone in between her fingers. It’s ice cold to the touch in a way that's inviting. It makes no sense. 

Rennala’s hands brush down her shoulders, to hold her own. “Go forth to where the Two Fingers hide, my sweetling; they will make your weight not a burden.”

She can do nothing but nod, her queen’s eyes burning with determination to push her forward but still a softness she’s missed in the maelstrom of her quest, filled with death and horror and-

Fuck, she does need to feel better, to be able to get back home, to hold her child. The idea of the spells receding before she can cleanse herself of the Lord’s corruption, taking her, putting her own daughter at risk…

She misses Abigail like the flowers would miss their Sun but alas, nothing to do. 

She needs the Roundtable Hold. Much to her dismay, there’s only one person that can tell her where to find the last Two Fingers.

The wretched All Knowing. 

It’s time to pay Ofnir another visit.

She could walk around, talk to the knights, the champions, her dear friend Roderika on the other hallway, but the soft pulse of ocean blue against her chest, the dull tired ache seeping into her bones, burns into her like a ticking clock. 

Not today. She doesn’t have the privilege of time to waste. 

She goes to knock on his door and a shiver runs up her spine, like the touch of the dead, frost against bare bones. Gideon’s bouncer, guard dog, whatever that person is, stares silently. 

“Good morrow.” She curtsies and gets nothing but a scoff after a way too long to be comfortable look down. 

Clearly not the friendly type. 

She can only clear her throat before coming in after no answer on the other side. The bodyguard didn’t stop her, and well…Ofnir is the All-Knowing, is he not? He has to have noticed her.

“Gwenndolen.” His voice is immediately irksome: not by his always condescending tone or the slight hint of disgust in the way he shapes her name in his mouth, but because of the sudden amiability of it. Ofnir was always standoffish, bitter as if her presence would soil him, but now he seems, well… Happy to see her. In some way, at least.

“I heard you have gotten your first Great Rune, and are on your way to the Elden throne.”

Ah, so that 's it.  Of course it is. 

She looks down at him, keeping her distance. He always has a hidden intention, he has to. Gwenn can never be far away enough to be free of his influence. 

“I’m n- I mean, I do have it.” It’s stupid, to shield herself behind the target at her back, but it’s not only that.

It’s the proof she has gotten something he hasn’t, in however many years he’s been here leading others tarnished to the demigods like flies to the rot. She 's bested him. And he knows. 

He needs to keep her under his command, or else. 

“You must follow your way forward now. There’s much a road to take-”

“I’ve done what you wanted, Ofnir.” Gwenn cuts him short. She leans on his desk, towering over the man bent over his scrolls, barely eyeing her at times. “I’ve cleared the castle from… The Golden’s influence. I took the shard. Now it’s your turn. Tell me how to clean it.”

His gaze stays on her for a second too long, scanning her posture, her braid fallen unmade over her shoulders, the loops shaping away into soft messy waves down her chest, her hands resting a bit too weighty on the desk, slightly trembling, the subtle blue light against her bosom. 

If she could see his face she could swear he’s smiling. She can hear it so clear. “Ah. Is it heavy on you, girl? Very well.” He straightens up before shifting her attention from her, tidying up the scrolls on his desk as if she wasn't standing right there. 

He always finds a new way to be intensely irritating. Although to be fair, the lingering dull, constant ache does nothing good to her patience. 

“You should go see the Two Fingers and ask them for their blessing, since you seem to be… collecting them. ” He looks at her as if she was some… some degenerate thing, all because of her favours.

She refuses to linger over how he might think she got them.

“And what is that golden power shining in you, Gwenndolen? I didn’t believe you were capable of using it, not just yet.”

Gwenn might not understand many things, but she's sure of one. He cannot know that was Margit’s pardon towards her, his concession. Whatever made him do such a thing, as confusing as it is, must remain a secret. At least until she crosses paths with him again, even though she cannot get any closer to Leyndell to do so.

His benevolence will not take her that far up north.

“It is my own problem how I get here well enough to do what I must.” She shuts him up quickly. “Where are these Two Fingers?” 

“Back to the roundtable hall, north gate.” He says simply, going back to his studies. “They’ll know how to guide you on your path, girl, I’m certain.”

There's something about the way he calls her that that sounds just so condescending she has to pull her hands back, fisting at her sides. 

She’s about to turn and leave without so much as a goodbye when he calls her attention back just for a moment.

“By the by, my daughter, Nepheli has taken something from me. Very important item-” If it really is, he doesn’t show it, talking almost to himself. He knows she’s listening intently even when she’s halfway turned to the door, refusing to even look at him. “You might find her back out there, on Stormveil, or somewhere close. I need that item back.”

“I see.” Gwenn promises nothing: there’s one thing she knows and that is that Neph holds more integrity in one of her toes than he does in his entire existence. If she goes to her it’ll be only to aid her, to find out what happened.

She owes nothing to the likes of Gideon Ofnir. 

She walks around the Roundtable, her eyes focused on the gate that has never budged under her hands before.

She barely pushes, and it opens. 

Inside, a throne room, unused and enclosed for ages, the pungent smell of age all around. Before the throne, a figure rises, and Gwenn’s stomach feels like dropping to her feet. She rests against the closed door to stop herself from running, swallows hard and straightens her back. 

What the fuck is that?

Waving in the air, rising tall. The Two Fingers- they do live up to the name, but what a sight. She could have lived very well without it. 

That cannot be the force that leads her, the Grace that calls to her. Not anything as horrible as this, as unnatural. 

“Are you the new Tarnished? You've done well. I am Enia, the Finger Reader. I interpret the words of the Fingers, envoys to the Greater Will. Look there. The Fingers tremble. To welcome you, shardbearer. Let their wisdom wash over you.” Barely a husk of a woman, all brittle skin and twisted bones beckons for her to come closer, to touch the cursed thing. Gwenn’s eyes shift to her atrophied legs underneath her, her blind hollow eyes, and rapidly looks away. 

“Do I have to-?” she points timidly, as a child would and the lady nods.

“Aye, the Fingers call for you, young Tarnished.” She encourages her as Gwenn takes a step forward, another. “Ahh, Great Runes are the stuff of demigods: the children of the goddess, Queen Marika. She who is vessel of the Elden Ring. The Greater Will has long renounced the demigods.Tarnished, show no mercy. Have their heads. Take all they have left.”

Gwenn’s hands stop in the air before touching them. “Their… heads? Madam,” she turns to her desperately before looking back at the looming figure. “Your.. Grace, I cannot- I’m no pillager. I did what I had to do, I can’t- I’m no judge, no God.”

“Ah, but don’t you see, child? Grace calls for you, the Fingers guide you.” She almost coos and the idea of being so sweetly led into war- no, extermination, feels like bile upon her tongue. “Godhood awaits for you.”

This place is cursed. In its entirety. She needs to leave. 

And before that, she needs to cleanse herself, to…

She hesitates once more. 

“Go ahead, child: the moon sorcery only puts the power of the Great Rune to sleep, and that but for a moment. And the touch of Grace cradling your soul- as powerful as it is will not win the war against the Great Rune.” Gwenn breathes out; at least she doesn’t ask. 

Her hand touches the thin, withered skin. The Fingers shiver.

Inside her, something breaks, shatters like glass, burns, burns so deeply from every cell from her feet to the tips of her hair feel like they’re on fire, twisting and turning inside out. 

Something floods her from the inside. 

Like a balm, the soft pulsing of renewed power, the known sibilance of rebirth, flows like ichor through her, mingling with her blood in something more pure, more sacred. 

She pulls her hand out, as if the touch burnt, but it didn’t, not quite. 

Something snapped inside of her, and somewhere, someone heard it. She knows.

The golden seal is no more; the slumber is no more. 

Her body pulses with renewed power. 

So this is how it feels to be a shardbearer, huh?

A small taste of godhood. 

She straightens up, examining her fingers; the slight glimmer of gold still webs in between. 

It’s frightening, how good it feels. How intoxicating it could be, to know she could bend the entire world to her will, to take her fate and take the Throne and…

But no. She’s got better things to do. 

She’s got a daughter to come back to. 

Chapter Text

“Mommy!” 

Gwenn can't wait for Torrent to stop; she dismounts and the smart beast vanishes into thin air. 

She runs to the little patpatpat of bare feet splashing around in the clear water, picking up the soft soil, ruffling the delicate blue blossoms. 

Her hair falls in disarray behind her back, a nest of chocolate brown curls flowing as the little child trips, fumbles, and then keeps on running, screaming for her mother, her joy resonating through the open space. 

She clashes against her chest with a dull thud, her tiny hands around Gwenn’s waist, her head buried in her embrace. 

“Hello, little devil. Did you miss me?” Gwenn smiles into her daughter's hair; it’s messy and knotted, just as she was expecting it to be. Boggart did not have a great hand with long hair nor with keeping a little child sitting down for more than two seconds. 

“I missed you so much, mommy!” Abigail is nothing but a ball of pure fire, radiating wild energy in a way that ends up being so contagious she can almost feel her skin buzzing as the child looks up at her and speaks without even catching her breath. “We did so much fishing! We caught lobsters and crab, and Uncle Boggart got this huuuge octopus once; it smelled terrible! He still ate it though. I didn't touch it; it was yucky. Did you know octopuses have a beak? They’re so nasty and big and weird-”

“Octopedes.” She interrupts, which makes Abigail just stare at her for a second before burying herself into her mother’s arms again. 

Her curiosity, her energy, her wonder; there’s no magic, no Grace in the world as healing as that. The muffled laughter against her clothes, the tiny hands squeezing tighter, the soft smell of dirt and leaves and tender blossoms clinging to Abigail’s hair and clothes. 

Gwenn could never have enough. 

“So? Coming back a hero?” Boggart waits for her, sitting down at the porch of their little cottage, chopping vegetables into the simmering pot. She only shrugs. “Know the feeling, Dolly. Why don’t you go clean all the gunk off you and sit by your good friend, maybe make him a drink, huh?” 

Gwenn snorts but still pats his shoulder as she goes by. She could use a quick scrub, some fresh clothes, and Boggart’s excellent cuisine.

And she just happens to know someone else who does, too.

“Let’s go, little devil! Let's get a fresh change of clothes; we’re taking down the entire forest you’re hiding in your hair.” 

The ensuing pout and the stomps only make the whole day much sweeter. 

A bath and a struggle later, as Gwenn tries to keep her daughter from running up and down the stream, untangling days worth of knots and clumps of mud off her hair, they're finally ready; scraped knees and old bruises were carefully cared for and kissed better. Boggart did his best; he's not made for parenthood and still loves the child as his own kin. Gwenn smiles as the child’s unruly hair is tamed into a braid and her own is made up into a bun, held by hair sticks subtly decorated with glintstones at the back: another humble gift from their Queen throughout the years.

Her stomach roared when the smell of the stew hit her nose.

After all the horror, the exhaustion, the nightmare…she has missed this. Her family, the laughter, the food. 

The peace.

Everything will be exactly where she left it the morning after. She deserves this; she needs this reprieve. 

And nothing's going to stop her from enjoying her own piece of Heaven before she needs to leave it again. 

It happens too quickly; before she knows it she’s packing provisions, adjusting her Moonveil to her hip, and hiding herself behind a cloak and hood the same vivid blue as the water blossoms all around them. Boggart wishes her good tidings, in his own way; Gail talks her ear off, wanting every souvenir she can get back from wherever she’s going. 

Gwenn insists it’s only a visit to an almost empty castle. The child still insists. 

Guess she’s going to have to find something nice to bring back, then. She can fight monsters and bandits and madness and, by Grace, demigods made a thing of dread, but she will never ever win an argument against her own daughter. She’s too cute not to let her win. 

The light of Grace takes her to where she needs to be, her body buzzing, tingling. The golden glimmer pours out of her skin like sweet pollen, her flesh made nothing but a mirage, decomposing into nothingness only to be carried away. Before her opens the yard by the Stormveil throne, where once a fearsome drake stood, trapped and subdued into no more than a trophy, waiting for its demise. 

It’s almost like being born again, without the agony of flesh suturing itself, bones reshaping themselves straight. It’s Life- pure, unadulterated Life, running through her, flooding her after it swallowed her whole in an explosion of warmth and tender silence. 

Her body seizes, tensing the second she looks around. This place again, now less cursed, less stained. The weight of the sin committed inside these walls will be hard to scrub down, much less erased, but she can’t imagine anyone more fitting of the task than the figure waiting for her, hand on the back of the Throne, standing proud.

Nepheli Loux. Warrior.

“Gwenn, champion, we meet again at last.” Her voice is firm but still warm, her hand reaching for hers. Standing at the head of the room feels fitting for her; Gwenn kneels. 

“Lady Nepheli, I could not think of anyone more suitable to pick the rotten bones of the fortress clean, to let it be born anew.”

“Gwenn, please, do get up. I remain the same woman underneath, as do you, I’m sure, shardbearer.”

The title reminds her of the girls they were, not long ago, following orders almost blindly, hoping faith will do enough to keep them safe, to bring their paths to fruition. They stand now in front of each other as full fledged warriors, as leaders, as champions.

The waters of Fate open their streams before them, washing over their feet. Every step of them brings  a corresponding response, ripples. 

It is overwhelmingly heavy. It is overwhelmingly hopeful. 

It’s still a power that Gwenn doesn’t feel she should be the one wielding, a double edged sword cutting deep. 

“I believe we will have to make our introductions again, then.” She jokes, and the soft roll of the warrior’s eyes, the barely contained chuckle, makes all the trouble worth it. 

“I’m afraid I missed you at the Roundtable.” The Throne is impossibly big for them, made for the likes of a Demigod; Nepheli encourages her to come up with her, to sit on the armrests, their arms resting on their knees and hands joining one another’s in the middle. 

“I can’t trust that you know. My father- he cast me out. For indulging my emotions. Forgetting the mission. Punishment for offing his pawns.”

“Back at the village- the carnage, the butchers…?”

“All his.” Nepheli nods heavily. “Father...rather, Lord Gideon has offered me guidance all my life. I would have done anything for him, to place him on the throne of Elden Lord.

And yet I... Though it was not my intent... I betrayed him…” 

Gwenn tightens her hold of Nepheli’s hands, her thumb softly rubbing her knuckles. 

No, this is not a weight any parent should put on their child, not massacre, not loyalty over everything, over foulness, over bloodthirst.

She wants to believe Gail would yell at her too, that she would put her in her place. She would never let her mother become a monster like that; she knows.

“I...can no longer trust in father... To think he'd order his men to enact such tragedy... Where is the justice he purports, in that? He once told me that if he became Elden Lord, he would never allow the downtrodden to be cheated ever again. Was he simply lying to me?”

She can’t hold Nepheli, she knows, but she offers the comfort she can. “I’m sorry, Neph- You’ve done just as you should have. There’s no debt, no guidance that deserves blindness, witless devotion. You’re better than that, and I’m glad you can see it too.”

Her eyes drift over the expansion of the empty yard, the sky populated with the flight and the songs of hawks. 

“This will need a new air to breathe, cleaner than the one rotting the soil.” Her eyes follow the soaring of one particular bird of prey, circling the towers, dipping down and coming back up again. It’s majestic, mesmerizing. “I would trust you with so much, Neph; this castle will only represent a fraction of the recognition you deserve.”

Nepheli laughs, squeezing her hands. “Though I have now abandoned my former guidance, I cannot express how much you've helped me. I hold a debt that shall never be paid in full, champion.” In her eyes a vastness grows, so impossibly deep, so alive, so free. “Should you become Elden Lord. I would gladly lighten your burden."

“Oh, Neph, I- I don’t know.” Gwenn’s hands tingle, the uncomfortable feeling running up her spine. 

She wants a world anew, forged in a Grace that doesn’t separate, doesn’t exclude. A love that flows to the Earth in the same ripples throughout. Something much different to what she’s seen, what she’s lived- she hates thinking of herself as a pariah, not when there’s so many. The Grace, the love, touches only a few brows, some of those now marked by the seal of Death from the Two Fingers. All must burn; everything repeats, over and over. 

Is she meant to reign over ashes? Is that why it doesn’t matter the kind of queen she would be? 

She couldn't imagine herself leading a small army, a tin town, much less the expansion the light of the Erdtree touches. What if she’s too blunt, too blind, too crass? If she’s not enough, what then? She might be sacrificed, the way the royal family has been, and then she wouldn't oppose it. Not if she’s the one bringing misery to the Lands. 

But she couldn’t even begin to imagine- No, she wouldn't do anything to put her child in danger. And there’s not a more dangerous place than a throne.

“Your heart is in the right place, Gwenn; it feels the woe of the land.” Nepheli tries to coax her but it’s too much, too big of a task, too heavy a burden. “There’s no one heart that has ever stepped on those halls more worthy of the throne. I can see that now.”

Gwenn doesn’t answer; instead she lets go, walking towards the door. The night starts to paint the skies in lilacs and blues, the hawks starting to find refuge around them.

“Gwenn.”

Her voice elevates almost on its own. It used to stretch over the empty valleys of Liurnia; it calls for the birds’ return.

Her hand stretches; the air is moist with early dew, crisp with ripened perfume beneath the clearing stench of rot. The sun goes down so a new day can start soon.

A funeral song, to let the spirits rest. A love song, to bring Life back.

A Dawn for Stormveil. For them both, too. 

I kiss the ground you are part of

I hear you calling my name

May your spirit rise

High above these crowns

May your breath become the wind

Whispering to me

I will let you go

She doesn’t turn; Nepheli’s hand finds her shoulder, resting softly on hers as they both stare at the expansion before them, the new tides coming. 

“The Two Fingers- all we’ve been told. It cannot be right.” She finally finds her own voice. 

“Will you defy the light that drives you, Gwenn?”

“No.” She shakes her head, still unsure. “Not defy,  but there's much to learn beforehand, much to do. I can’t- I can’t just take and ignore what comes with it, Neph. I don’t know if I even want any of it.”

Nepheli’s hand tightens, but only for a second. She can feel her warm smile next to her, in the way her voice curves. “At the base of the Erdtree lies most of the knowledge you can find about the order. Leyndell is your best bet to satisfy your ambitions.”

They still for a moment, the wind whispering in their ears. "Farewell, fellow warrior. I will remain, to summon the storm. But your guidance, and your fight... Surely lie elsewhere."

“Yes, Neph, sister.” Gwenn turns towards her. “To Leyndell, I believe. To find the answers I seek.” She breathes out, remembering the promise she’s made to the Capital's guardian. 

If she’s seen in the City…

Still, she needs to know where her Fate lies, to know what Grace wants for her, to know…why her. 

She’ll have to go back home, to pick up her daughter, to find a place to stay hidden from the soldiers, their patrols.

Their fierce commander. The Tarnished hunter. 

“I wish you luck on your endeavors, Gwenn, sister.” Nepheli pulls Gwenn away from her thoughts. “This throne is and will forever be an ally to our to be Lady Queen, should she wish to take up the Elden Throne.”

Gwenn can do nothing but smile. 

Her mind is a tumultuous ocean of so many thoughts, and yet, this is a steady rock to stand upon. Nepheli, Stormveil, Abigail. 

For them she must at least entertain the idea, to figure out whether it is her place or if she's only cannon fodder, as so many other tarnished before her.

For the promise of a brighter Dawn. 

Chapter Text

Her little girl produces such a shattering screech that her ears ring.

“Are we really going to the Capital, mommy?” Abigail hasn't stopped jumping to and down all across the house for the good portion of the last hour.

Gwenn is busy packing provisions and clothes- so many clothes! And shoes the little one will refuse to wear!- in tight bundles to pile up atop Torrent. She'd love to be more certain of what's to come but she cannot figure out how anything is going to unfold. 

For the time being, Boggart slides some nicely wrapped crab cakes into her bag and then messes up the perfectly good braids she had done to keep her little devil so still for.

“Remember, don't trust the knights, don't go anywhere alone and if they ask what you want: custard lattices. Always.” He speaks sweetly to the child and Gwenn's heart tightens. 

“I'm sorry this is all so sudden-”

“Hey Dolly, no getting the ol’ grannie panties in a bunch, yeah?” He pats her head and she glares. They're not that old! “You'll always have a place here, whether you come back or not.” 

“We are coming back!” Abigail protests with her hands on her waist. Little thing is going to be a menace when she grows up; she's got some fire already. “And you have to come visit too!”

“No can do, little lass, would have loved to.” He grins, all teeth even when a couple are broken and uneven. 

“What do you mean?” The mother turns to him before whistling over his ring. Torrent materializes at the doorstep. “You did your time.”

“And I live. Outside the city walls.”

“That's not fair. You’ve paid enough!” She insists, exasperated: he stole and killed for survival. He went through sheer torment. He should be allowed to finally live his life the way he wants to, he-

“Hey, I don't wanna be back anyway, Dolly. It's fine.” He rests his hands on her shoulders. “There's nothing there for me to go back to. I'm good with my water and my fish, thank fuck, the rest can be shoved up-”

“Okay I got it!” She stops him before he keeps it up but the little girl is already giggling - that's going to be fun the second they get there and have to introduce themselves to the guards, surely. 

She still doesn't know how to be let in as a tarnished, or even-

How to avoid Margit the Fell. Tarnished Hunter. 

The one warrior that had plagued her mind since the first battle. 

He let her go with the promise of her never coming back to his territory. Now she's about to go knock on his door. With her child on her horse. 

Grace be fucked, this is about to be a mess. 

But for now all she can do is enjoy the view. Panic can set in once the city is close enough to be seen on the horizon. For now, she's having a road trip with her girl, together after so long. 

He paces. 

Tarnished blood still lingers, stubbornly hanging from the fur of his arms, the calloused knuckles. 

The body, limp and cold, lies in the ground somewhere close. The animals will take it back, consume what's still good for something.

Tarnished are graceless: they do not come back to the immensity of the Erdtree once they finally die. They can be taken by maggots and birds; Morgott couldn't care less. 

He still paces.

No one else is here, not yet, at least. He often protects the western gate himself when he can't manage to focus on his kingly duties. His staff believes the veiled king is sleeping after a much too long day.  

It's better for them to do so than to worry about him. 

He does not need their worry. He can fend for himself perfectly fine. 

Yet he's fidgety, nervous: his slashes aren't careful, his strikes so out of focus he loses his footing half the times and still- the invaders pile up like cockroaches, attracted by the sweet scent of the recompense feeding their putrid ambition and squashed down, time and time again. 

They're nothing but a pest upon his door. 

And still his mind keeps finding its way to her. The Tarnished with the katana and the soft eyes. The Shardbearer. 

She was no one, and he pierced her through like any other; she came back to life like the scourge tarnished do, but not to fight him. To clear the disease of the castle, she had said. 

As much as he wanted to refuse her, she was right. Godrick held little still sacred but the lands he kept corrupting with his wretchedness. Even as far away from his influence as it was, that kind of rot expands and conquers; it sullies even the winds. 

Someone was bound to take him down sooner or later: it might as well be the vermin he kept feeding on.

It still shakes him, how clearly he can remember her. He can't possibly recall one detail of the faceless parasite that still stains his fingers, but she…

Like it was just hours ago. Her braids the color of finely crafted chocolate, adorned with silver threads like moonlight; the compassion in her voice quickly turned sour with fury; 

her passion worn like jewelry across her skin, still stained from the battle, beading with sweat and flushed pink…

He shakes his head. It's just a woman! And a filthy tarnished at that. He can do better, he can control that poisonous blood running through his veins, eliciting such… such terrible thoughts out of him. He feels the need boiling into his gut, and he swallows it down and stamps it out as if it has never been there.  

His peace of mind won't be robbed by the phantom of a loud mouthed tarnished playing damsel.

He sensed her, cleansed of the seal he put on her barely a few days ago; it didn't quite surprise him, as he told her to do so himself. Why did he even bother pacifying the corruption of the Great Rune he couldn't understand. Why she was still alive?

He comforts himself in the thought that she would have been brought back into existence anyway, clutching that rune still.

What he isn't expecting, even after his warning, is to see one of the knights of his night cavalry coming towards him with news of her. 

“What dost thou mean, coming towards the capital? She said she wouldn't- that filthy bug shall be squashed for her insolence!”

He dismisses the knight back to their position. They ride into the shadows. 

He has to see it for himself. 

It's tiring, and long, but oh so much better. 

Abigail talks Gwenn's ear off and asks about every flower and fruit and creature they come across. Her mother walks by her, Torrent's reins in her hand as the steed takes the little child who keeps pointing and wondering out loud, smiling so easily. 

Her cheeks haven't hurt this much in such a long time. 

It feels like a lifetime ago, her quest to Stormveil and the great rune and the… the beast she had seen and defeated. It feels like a different reality. 

The lands open, green and full of life, to them, as if they were waiting for them. 

It isn't exactly safe and easy but Torrent knows to run and hide, to protect the child while Gwenn unsheathes Moonveil and deals with anything, monster and bandit alike. 

Her daughter knows not to make any sound, to stay put and wait it out. Even though she'd like her not to need to… but this is the world they've come to experience; this is the best she can offer her. 

She's swift, dexterous, precise. She'll give them a chance to flee or scare off the beasts and when still everything fails, she'll waste no time and make no show of it: her blade is sharp and her wits are sharper. She makes sure to wipe every trace of blood off of her before calling back for Torrent. 

And it is treacherous, even without the predators looming over every corner. The valleys open into sharp cliffs and canyons to the West, and mines overrun by creatures up north, to the unmovable lift on the East. It would be much easier to ride it, but while she’s heard it can actually be used she has no idea how to activate it; instead she takes the long way around - the safest way possible. 

She dares into the mines, a blue shimmer of magic over her head and her blade on hand, as she opens her way through, dashing and piercing and exploring every cave and corner to make sure that by the time she calls back to her companions, the whole place is completely empty of threats. 

There’s always rockslides, but Torrent can deal with those just fine.

And Abigail? Well. She knows she’s safe to the point she laughs, and cheers her mother on, and talks her way through everything, unfazed by danger and the roars of creatures. No, instead she investigates any little plant and bug, waves at whatever doesn't try to hurt them, and copies the sounds made by miners and demihumans as they try to communicate with her. Gwenn hopes it’s perceived as a little child trying to build bridges and not mockery, but the odd smiles tell her they can all tell she’s just learning. 

It's always precious to see someone trying to connect. 

Gwenn has forgotten how beautiful these lands can be. 

And the Capital itself, oh it is breathtaking. The walls rise over the clear low level lakes framing it with pure blues and greens as the gold of the Erdtree opens like a canopy over it. 

She might have stopped breathing for a second. How could they not write odes to it, and pray to such a magnificent vision?

Yet Gwenn knows what Melina’s plan is, and now she can see it up close, it aches. However, Grace brought her here, protected her; there must be a reason. 

Every cycle has its end; in its finality resides its beauty. The Erdtree is no different.

She keeps her hood up and close; as long as the guards don’t look at the katana hidden behind her back, under her cloak, or at the eerie golden hue of her eyes, they have no reason to doubt her. She talks about a new life for her and her daughter and they laugh, make comments in between themselves that she doesn’t need to be able to listen to to know the tune of, and they let them through. She pulls her cloak further around her for good measure. 

Inside the city, there’s a second wall dividing the good and the beautiful, from the workers. Gwenn cannot expect to find her way in so easily; instead they walk the streets for a confectioner first (“Mommy! We need to find the lettuce!” shouts the little devil and she giggles too much to correct her fast enough. The vendor ends up slipping a couple of extra chocolates into her paper bag) and a landlord with available space later. There are signs, yes, but not many willing to take them in. Either because of her eyes, as Tarnished can be bad news, bring misery, or just get killed or disappear without paying, or because their spaces are barely livable for an adult, much less a child. 

By the time the sun is down, they come across an old lady sitting in front of her doorstep, knitting. She quickly invites them over the second she hears she’s a single mother. Next to her house there’s a thin adjoined building, a little wood stove and a simple bathroom with some bare space below a loft like second floor with a closet, a bed and a night table. It’s old and it needs warming up, but it feels promising. 

Gwenn pays upfront and unloads Torrent’s bags into what would be the living room, preparing some quick dough to make bread with the already cooked meats that were still packed, while the child decides where her stuff will go. She’ll have to get a job soon, figure out how to get access to the library, and most importantly, how to get a governess or a school for Abigail. She deserves every type of education, for her mind to expand without limits.

They bathe, eat, and then they rest, cuddled into each other, under their blanket, too excited to sleep still. 

Well, Abigail is. Gwenn feels herself tugged to the door, constantly peering through the windows. She’s aware there’s a sliver of Grace at the plaza close by, they’ve seen it as they were investigating the outskirts of the city, but this tug doesn’t feel like Grace. No, this is familiar but in a different way. 

She gets up, kissing her child’s hair, before going towards the door. 

The shadow before it engulfs her completely. She freezes.

“Mommy? You left the door open!” 

“Stay inside, little devil!” She shouts back, but her eyes don’t let go of the figure in front of her. 

Margit, the fell Omen. Tarnished Hunter.

The one person she isn’t ready to see. 

Well, fuck. 

Chapter Text

“I know what you said- listen, I had to, I-” 

“Thou hath crossed the valleys with a child, Tarnished.” The Omen quickly interrupts her babble and secretly she’s relieved; that sentence had no ending, she really doesn’t know how to justify her presence in the one place she was told never to come. 

“I did, yes.” She holds her hands in front of her, her head down. “I’m sorry, sir. But I do need this city’s library. For her sake and my own.”

For the longest moment, she can sense no sound, no movement. Finally, something breaks the silence.

But not the right something.

“Mommy, it’s cold, you need to come back to bed.” The little girl shows up from behind her, clutching onto her worn, simple garb to peer at the man at the door. She shows no sign of fear; she never does. “Hello, sir, mommy needs to go back to bed, could you leave, please?”

“Abigail!” Gwenn chastises her between her teeth but the girl only shrugs.

“I said please, mommy!”

Margit clears his throat. “Let me not hear of ill news from you, Tarnished-”

“Gwenndolen, Sir Margit.” She interrupts. She might be fearful for her security, and Abigail’s at that, but if anything, her daughter needs to know to always ask for her well deserved respect. “I know your name, I’m sure you can learn mine.”

Margit only growls lowly. She’s convinced he’d have a lot to say if it wasn't for the tiny ears listening.

The little child raises her hand, still behind her mother’s skirts.

It catches Margit’s attention, or curiosity at least. Enough for him to ask. “Yes, little lady?”

“Gail, please, thank you!” She chimes in gleefully. 

Gwenn thinks she can almost make out a tiny smile on the omen’s lips. Actually, the lantern lights barely close enough don’t give her enough help to see him; she curses herself for remembering his face, but not really his features. His eye is golden, she knows, but what about his nose? His jaw? His brow? Will she meet another omen and discover with horror that she never bothered to know him?

It’s now bothering her more and more as he, clearly as awkward as any other person with no contact with kids, still tried to be polite. “Pleasure to meet thee, little Gail.”

“Mommy says the name fits me cause like, big big winds!” She uses big gestures to embellish her point. 

By Grace, she made her as cute as can be. 

“Sir? May I request a last favour from you?” Gwenn barely makes herself heard, her hands now behind her back, one of them grabbing one of her child’s to keep her from running out the house, maybe even trying to grab the stranger's hand. The sweet child is way too trusting for her own good, sometimes. 

Margit barely makes a noise at the back of his throat, but his golden stare falls hard on her. He feels like an anvil pressed onto her chest, like a towering presence staring into her soul. It’s oppressive, and it feels like it doesn’t have to be, too. 

“May I look at you?” She asks simply. 

“Look at me?” His voice sounds incredulous, as if they are speaking two different languages.

“Yeah. Just-” She stretches up, onto her tiptoes, to inspect his face. The flat lines of his nose, the white whiskers of his beard, the scars of cut off horns over his eye while his horns on the other side keep the other one closed; the permanent scowl on his lips, now more confused than anything in an expression that makes him, a grown fairly terrifying man, adorable. 

The idea makes her laugh to herself. 

“You're sparing us, sir.” She explains softly, her lips curved into a warm smile. For some reason, simple amiability strikes her as something he doesn't get much of by the way he reacts to it, as if there’s some trap behind it all. “I’d like to at least remember the face of the man who saved my life, even if it’s also the man who threatened it in the first place.” She adds with a soft chuckle. “I’m afraid I did remember the heavy part of your hammer more than your face.”

He huffs. “Thou shan’t find many omen in the Capital-”

“Still. I wanted to know you. So thank you.”

He stares, silent. 

The little girl decides to interrupt the silence. “Sir Omen, we need to go to sleep.”

“Ah. Of course, little lady.” He vows, startled, at the girl, making her mother laugh. The sound seems to startle him further. “Careful, Tarnished.” He reminds her. 

“Of course, Sir.” She vows politely, closing the door slowly just in case. 

She’s cold, and tired, and needs to cuddle up to her girl before she gets suddenly energized just by being awake when she shouldn't be.

But Gwenn does feel she might have a nice dream or two after too many nights without them. 

Those hard firm features would look so soft, so pretty with a smile.

She doesn’t have the energy to think of the implications of any of it. She takes her daughter back to bed with a yawn. 

They have provisions but that doesn't mean she'll wait around. 

Gwenn wakes up to make breakfast, puts on a simple dress and weaves her hair into a tight braid that hangs at the middle of her back. Her daughter's curiosity, even early in the morning, does enough to scare away the lazy remnants of sleep as she answers question after question, most of which she doesn't quite know. Gail is a smart child and won't push past but she does twist her mouth and clicks her tongue in disapproval. 

“You don't know so much, mommy. Uncle would know.”

“He would, little devil. He was born in this city.” She laughs behind her tea; Gail's childish rosy cheeks look much redder caked in jam that somehow missed her entire mouth. 

“Would he know about the sir Omen, too, mommy?” She asks simply before biting into her toast again; now the jam coats her fingers too. Not a problem since she can just lick them clean with her mouth still full of food. 

“Baby, eat what's in your mouth first.” She grimaces as she can clearly see the contents of the child’s mouthful. “He would too, yes. I've asked him before.”

“Well I never heard of him!” The child protests. “Did you know he has a tail?”

“I did!” It's as skillful as a fifth limb and heavy enough to destroy ballistas just by landing on them. It's terrifying.  

“It's very fluffy. I wonder if I can touch it.” Gwenn laughs. Of course. She ruffles her daughter's hair. 

“That you'll have to ask him, sweetheart. But for now we need to get washed up and dressed; we're going to the neighbors so mommy can go find a job, alright?”

“Fiiiine,” She's already rolling her eyes and her mother knows she'll drag her feet until she realizes the amount of reading time she gets. 

“I think the lady next door is a lifelong citizen. You could ask her so many things-” She bargains and her child lights up. 

“And she'll know about the yellow flowers and the shiny leaves and the big walls and-”

“Yes baby, you can ask anything.” She stops her rant before it'll eat up their entire morning. “I'm packing your book and your charcoals. Don't make a mess in her house; I'll hear about it!”

“Yes, mother!” The child mocks her, running to the bathroom to scrub the jam off her face. 

“And if your hands are sticky they're still not clean!”

She can hear the protests but they only make her laugh. This might be, at least for a little while, the closest thing to a home she can make for her: a steady job that won't send her into battle, maybe a school if she can find something like it, a stroll through the city on the weekends…

For once, she's excited. 

For once, her immediate future doesn't seem bathed in blood. 

She doesn't need to always try to look much further. This time, she's taking the peace she earned. 

The thing is, tarnished are known for one thing and that is conquest. Soldiers of the first Elden Lord, they can be employed as guards or mercenaries. 

Every shop and pantry turns her away from the door at the first look of her eyes. 

She huffs. 

It's not like she can't do anything else! She knows she can! She's a fast reader and her handwriting isn't the best but she can write! She's an amazing cook if her daughter's words are anything to go by and she's patient, so achingly patient, especially with children. 

The city has plenty of places looking for a caretaker given a good part of their adult population is in the armed forces protecting the walls, yet no one in their right mind would give their child to a tarnished. 

The sun is starting to hide behind the Erdtree; most of the shops are closing. No luck today, sadly.

 She should still find something for Gail; her smile will surely make the whole experience much better. And there's always tomorrow. 

A bar tucked in before a corner is just turning in their lanterns; the smell of freshly cooked poultry and hot spices fills her nostrils. 

Oh, to not make dinner tonight. That sounds fantastic. That smells fantastic. 

She walks in and stares in awe. 

It's small, yes, but it's a proper tavern, stage and all with what look like instruments covered by tattered sheets.

“Hello, good evening.” Gwenn walks up to the bar counter. “May I ask you for some food to go? I couldn't help but smell chicken from outside-”

The lady wiping the bar, a broad, strong senior woman with hair like soft yellowed embers, takes one look at her then scoffs. “Chicken pasties, ten a pop. Got any coin? We don't deal in trades here.” 

Her demeanor is harsh and her words sharp enough to cut. Apparently most tarnished around must have been trying to exchange loot and hunted game for food. 

“I- I do! Could I please have four?” She counts the exact amount and puts it on the counter. The lady eyes it suspiciously then yells the order back at the kitchen before taking the money. “I'm sorry for asking but, would you happen to have a job opening? I just got into town, I can do anything-!”

The woman stares. She takes Gwenn's chin hardly in her mouth and moves her face this way then that as if she was examining a piece of fruit. 

“You're a pretty girl.” She finally concedes. “Can you cook and clean? Can you do your sums fast?” 

“Yes ma'am, absolutely- I can also write, if that's needed, and I can work any shift.” She counters, excited. Is this it? 

“Well, what else can you do?”

“... I'm sorry?” 

“You're pretty but you don't dress for tips. So what else can you do?”

Ah. Of course. In places like these, the working women are the entertainment, and her dress is too modest for ogling eyes. 

Her eyes shift quickly to the stage. She takes a step back, two, and clears her throat. 

Her voice flows like the waters on the clear stream; the cramped walls make it echo, amplifying it to a mesmerizing chant that creeps into bone, that nestles into one's ribcage. 

I'm not dead yet, so cold, filled with regret

In my head: only you

I see red, I haste in urge to forget

Everything in my head for you

And your breath

Now freeze me to death

This transcendental eminence

Is it all in my head for you?

This fundamental resonance

How it rings, how it's calling for you

You, I wanna forget

You, I wanna forget

You, I wanna forget

You, I wanna forget*

The lady lets her finish her song, and still then it takes her a moment to speak.

She clears her throat. 

“Here's your food.” She unceremoniously drops a paper bag on the counter. “You start tomorrow- before the sun leaves the first branches of the Erdtree.” Gwenn thanks her profusely as she takes the bag in her hands. “You'd do well to wear something different, girlie; our patrons are mostly from the inner city, loaded and not knowing what to throw the money at next.” she scoffs for good measure. “Modesty won't feed you either.”

“I understand ma'am, thank you.” She bows again and grins; the barkeeper can't help but smile back, albeit barely. 

She made it. 

She can't wait to go back home and tell her daughter. 

The soldier walks firmly, back upright, along the shadows. 

He patrols alone; he's not the first one. It might be a call from some neighbor, or a suspicious noise; sometimes soldiers are requested to patrol off their routes. 

Still, he crosses the inner walls, waking swiftly, silently. 

He doesn't know what he's doing here, hidden under the veil of a common city guard; why he insists. What within him is insisting on this. 

Morgott marches by unsuspecting citizens who only move out of the way, avoiding eye contact. 

He knows where to go. He doesn't know why. 

Something in him expects to find something terrible, something foul that can make him finally snap out of this charm and back into his senses. 

His mind goes back to the little girl hiding behind her mother (clearly her mother: they wore almost the same face!) Calling him Sir. As if he was worthy of such a title, such respect. She would show no more terror of him than she would with any other stranger, quickly kicking him off of her doorstep as if he was not a threat to them. 

And her mother, terrified. Of his own behavior, of course; he can't blame the one he felled with his own hand for being scared of him. 

But for her to be grateful for her life, when he's tried to cut it short? Interested in him, even? 

In his face? 

The face people fear and run from, a face that had cost him years of imprisonment, his own childhood? 

And she smiled at it? 

The memory of her, on her tiptoes and still so small in comparison, trying to reach him, to study him, only to smile after, so wide, so warm he felt something flutter in his chest as if it were trying to break free. 

He was thankful for the child, really, for his tongue had been frozen in his mouth and his hands held in place lest they try to touch her, to study her too. 

What a ridiculous, foul beast he could be. A tarnished! He pardoned a tarnished, and for what? Softness? Delusion?

He jumps onto the rooftops, letting his disguise vanish off of him in a glimmer of golden light. It takes him one, two, three buildings to reach his destination: the open window of the Tarnished's top floor. 

The curtains are drawn back and the girls look like one from this far up, cuddled in the same bed, sitting with a blanket around their shoulders. The little one stirs, no, shivers. The mother holds her closer.

On their legs there's an open book, but they're not reading. Oh, how he wishes they were, instead of this. 

The wind brings the sound with it, charged with the soft intonation of the last verses of a lullaby. 

I've got a lot to lose, but I won't lie to you

And make-believe sincerity, I'm prayin' for a remedy

Beloved distant blue

One day I'll die for you and swim in sweet serenity

'Cause death is not my enemy**

It's the cadence that nails him to the rooftop, where instead of leaving, he nestles, his spell now worn and broken, his cane in his lap and his tail around his legs. It's the way she forms the words as if she were drawing in the air what makes him stare, completely silent, in awe. 

It's the subtle shift of her eyes to the window what makes him jump off and across the town, over the outer walls. 

How dare she. The witch, the enchantress; there must be something putrid inside of her, something that smells so sweet on the outside and leads to nothing but rot!

At this hour the night cavalry are tasked with keeping the outskirts safe but he needs something to kill, something to sink his teeth into, something to writhe in his hands until it stops. 

Something to erase her from his mind, for how long he can make it.

How dare she, the temptress! How dare she!

Chapter Text

It's not a bad job.

Not entirely a bad life.

Gwenn wakes up to spend the morning with her daughter, then slips into the inner walls in the afternoons, trying to find a way into the royal library. The times there are precious, safeguarded, meant for only worthy eyes. 

She'd consider herself worthy: of quick words and sharp mind, kissed by Grace and curiosity alike. Most people wouldn't, for all the same reasons. 

Especially the guards. 

Circumventing them has proven impossible: all the entrances are along the same wall. It was surely built for a huge influx of patrons, now mostly abandoned. 

A terrible shame. 

And yet, they won't let her in. 

At dusk, before the sun comes down, it's time to leave the inner walls, to work at the pub. It's constantly filled with low level workers looking for cheap thrills and cheaper warmth for their beds, and tired soldiers looking for something to justify the horrors. 

Some sing with her, sometimes taking her hand in theirs, spinning her around and shouting the chorus as if the Erdtree itself would bow to listen to them. 

Others touch. She doesn't like those. 

She's abandoned her modest dresses in due time for dancers’ clothes: vaporous skirts with slits up her thighs that envelop her like the winds as she turns, trousers of fine fabric and long flowy cloth belts accentuating the movement of her hips, and low cut tops that reveal her midriff to the stale air of the venue. It's not entirely comfortable - she does love the way the clothes make her moves melt into the air as if she was made of it, a whisper, a song Incarnate- but the bartender was right. Even with a salary, everyone there is working for tips: almost every patron comes from the castle, heavy pockets and heavier hearts. 

She has no problem making them smile. She also has no problem slapping curious hands off of her body, too hot against the bare skin of her lower back, her arms, her legs.

 What she is not numb to hearing is the one thing one of the men murmurs as he clearly trails behind her at the end of the shift. There's barely an hour or so until the sky clears into orange hues melting into the Erdtree gold. 

Gwenn knows; she walks through alleys no one would touch just to make sure and he's still there. Drunk, but not enough to sway.

Not out of his mind, only emboldened. 

That's the worst part of it. 

“Going back to your daughter already? Shame, you should stay a little longer.” His words feel heavy in the air, making her grimace. This is her residence now; of course people would know of her child, but she can't help but be protective about her. 

These are not safe people. 

“Who would have known tarnished are such good breeding bitches?” His hand finds one of her braids, and tugs. She hisses, her hand falling onto the handle of the crystal dagger tucked into her waistband, hidden under the layers of fabric. Don't. He'll find you. But she cannot let go. 

“Wonder if that sweet little girl of yours will be just as nice and tender-”

Her body responds with a mind of its own: one hand clutches his wrist as she spins, and the back of her knife collides against the man's nose. He shrieks insults as he holds his face in his hands, blood pooling and dripping down his arms. 

It's not enough. It cannot be. She punches the air out of his lungs and folds him in half. Her ears are ringing out of rage. 

She can deal with the insults, the jabs, the touches. But Abigail? 

Abigail is out of the question. 

The assailant falls to his knees as the voices she didn’t notice until then start growing louder; she towers over him, dagger in hand. 

She knows how terrible it looks but there's no point in hiding. She's done the one thing Margit asked her not to do.

By the time the soldiers catch up to her she doesn't resist: they take their knife, some picking up the bloody man as if he were a blubbering baby, still whining about his face. 

In any case, she made it better. Marked him for all to see, at least for a while. 

She dreads what's going to happen next.

Gwenn gets escorted by knights up into the city, through the castle doors. There might be six? eight? Maybe even ten soldiers all around her. 

A bit much for a tavern worker, if they were to ask her. 

Oh but she's convinced she's not here to answer anything. Tarnished don't get rights, much less a fair trial. No, she's sure she's not meant to survive this. 

She eyes at the possible ways out: windows tall enough, unguarded doors, the faint traces of courtyards. If nothing works, she can only take death as it comes, suffer it gnawing at her bones only to spit her back out on the plaza close to home. 

It wouldn't be such a terrible end, but it would cut short her journey. They would have to leave. 

And how to get to the library then? Even with proper residence, gaining entry is hard enough. 

Her mind is still balancing possibilities when she's grabbed by her arms and thrown to her knees. There's a worn out and still lavish golden carpet beneath her, trailing up the steps. 

She looks up and her voice catches in her throat. 

“What's the meaning of thine interruption, tarnished?”

The voice is familiar - yet not quite. Soft enough to not feel like a threat, but firm and demanding, his words seem to let seethe poison into every sound. Contempt. Even disgust. 

The figure looks over her, clad in a dark veil similar to that worn by the night's cavalry, making the simple circlet atop his head look like divine gold.

Shit. Grace be fucking merciful. 

The Veiled King. 

She's heard enough about him (his short fuse around her kind especially) from Boggart.  Banishment, even death would be a merciful end, lucky even. 

But she has not ended up in this situation by being lucky. 

She keeps her head down, her eyes focused on the carpet. What can she even say? Will he take pity on a child, or is her daughter, too, doomed for being her flesh and blood?

“Well? Speak.”

“Answer to your King, woman.” One of the guards kicks her slightly with his greave and she has to stop herself from hissing at him.  

Not my king. Never my king. 

“I was defending myself, Lord.” She finally manages, refusing to look up. I barely touched him, she wants to continue, but her death wish is not that great.

“Defending thyself from who is trained to aid thee when in peril?” His tone sounds almost mocking. She can't help but look up, glare at him, her mouth twisted into a scowl.

“Defending myself, yes- from a man following a woman home in the middle of the night, touching her, implying..” she shudders, “Horrifying things under the veil of darkness.” 

She leaves her daughter out of the situation; she doesn't need to be involved. His doing should have been bad enough. 

“We do not employ such scum , Tarnished.” She can feel the bile in his voice: well, the King does have a heart. To the meek and helpless, at least, if not her. 

“Then I would recommend, sir, to take a good look at the people you do employ. Might get a surprise or two.”

The guard at her side chastises her, a heavy hand into the back of her neck to throw her back onto the ground.

So much for mercy. 

“Thine insolence knows no bounds.” The King huffs angrily. “Let her be escorted home; neither she nor her kin will be permitted to leave the city until this matter is settled.”

What? 

Is he letting her go? 

“My King, pardon my interruption, but the woman attacked a royal guard, defenseless and intoxicated!” The guard refuses to let go of her, to allow her the mercy his King offers.

Because of course he wouldn't. He and the scumbag might even be friends for all she knows. 

“Should I state, then, that one of our best had been overpowered by a…”His head barely shifts; he's staring at her. “By a dancer with a meager table knife in her hand?”

The guard winces; his hand retreats. 

“He will stand fore me just as she has. Pray he be innocent of such a heinous crime.”

There's no more objections. The King dismisses them with a twist of his wrist and Gwenn is yanked up onto her feet. 

The second they cross the threshold, he shoves her against another guard. A woman, she assumes from the sound of the choked huff, as she stops her fall. 

“I'm not taking this- this tarnished home. You deal with the pest.” 

The soldier says nothing but her body language alone shows enough. She walks away only to turn a couple of steps later. “Well? Go on, roach. Home. Move it.” 

The name makes her stomach turn and her veins boil with anger. They're all just as foul, aren't they? From the King down. 

He might be just enough, but he seems anything but tolerating of her existence. 

“Am I not getting my knife back? It's dangerous out there.” She softens her voice, trying to elicit anything closer to sympathy. 

The guards in this place seem to have it trained out of them. “If the King hasn't told us you can, no. You're lucky you're walking out, tarnished.” 

She doesn't feel lucky. She clicks her tongue. 

“Come on, then. Move.”

It's gonna be a long way home.

The second he's back alone, his calm facade crumbles. 

Morgott stands up and leaves the throne in his audience hall, much more modest than the throne room he doesn't even dare touch. 

He paces. Unquiet. Mumbling. Rageful. 

How dare anyone put his Tarnished in danger? 

He finds the words forming in his mind, and plucks them out like splinters. The flesh has already infected around them, overgrown, taking them in. 

He keeps finding them, little shards, little concerns.

His soldiers tell him the little child was running over the steps of the plaza and his mind wanders, thinking of her falling; there's always guards patrolling near the streets the tarnished take to get back home in the early morning. 

He was not expecting that same patrol to be the one to endanger her, to ignore the threat, because it is one of them. 

They have orders to stay behind unless strictly necessary, but still…

The guard comes back soon enough. “My king.” He bows so exaggeratedly it makes bile climb up his throat. 

There are some things Morgott just can't get used to: yes, he is the monarch and dedicates his life to maintaining the Golden Order and the Capital on their feet, and yet… 

He's nothing but the one left to take the seat, the last one worthy of it. Not the right one, not by a long shot; not with his accursed blood running through his veins, deforming him in such an abhorrent way-

No, his brothers have fallen, there's no one else who can take the responsibility of the throne, but he does it in good faith, carefully, thoughtfully. His crown must carry the veil with it, the mask he must wear in order to fulfill the privilege and the burden of his family name. 

He's the son of Godfrey, omen or not. He's the King. He will perform his duties whether or not his curse makes it a secret in broad daylight. 

Yet the idolizing adoration of the noblemen trying to get into the treasury, of the soldiers looking for special treatment, makes him sick every time.

He's here for duty, not luxury. 

“Send him in.”

At least he can take his anger out on the drunken, wretched knight. Tarnished or not, nothing justifies the affront to a woman's virtue; and yet if it were just that, a warrior like her would have left, would have fled before getting into trouble. Nay, she fought back.

He must have threatened her daughter. 

That kind of vile behavior is not condoned in his city. 

He will have to deal with the consequences of his decision sooner rather than later, he knows. 

For now, Morgott tries to brush off the discomfort and convince himself it was justified.

It is. The bastard confessed. To have threatened her and her child. Just to keep them in line, he said. Tarnished must remember they're only welcome by His grace. 

Not only a degenerate, but a blasphemous one. How dare he even suggest he'd ever permit such a thing, even as a vacuous threat? 

He has been banished to never again cross the city walls; he's lucky Morgott didn't just throw him into the dungeons. He's not to speak of his offense without shame, so there's a chance his fears are unfounded but soon, he knows.

Everything always comes back around. 

And she's too far away to protect. Too close and it would be even more dangerous.

By the light of Marika, why did she have to come to his city?

He instructs his retinue to stay away from the wing he often seals for himself. In what used to be the Lord’s bedroom, the big marital bed hasn't been touched since Godfrey lay there last, and no servant is allowed that far back either. At the opposite wall a pile of furs and pillows makes the times of a nest for him, something he's more used to. In the anteroom, his study, he receives his meals, left for him while he’s in deep prayer behind locked doors, and any emergency that may arise. But this bedroom is his and his alone.

His room where he can prostrate himself, palms up and gaze down, and unleash his fury in ways his people could never deem too savage. 

Margit is let loose to roam over the plateaus, and woe betide the poor bastard, the tarnished, traitor or bandit that may cross his path. The King has a bloodlust to quench.

Chapter Text

She's had enough.

Gwenn has come to a new city, got a job and a roof, only to be denied entrance to the library over and over (a place of knowledge, no less! Like she'll sully the tomes somehow!). And groped and stalked so constantly she ended up fucking tried in court! Or whatever that shit was!

She's furious. She's furious and alone with a child in an unknown place that hates her the second they notice the golden glimmer in her eyes. 

She's angry. Tired. Missing her obnoxious foul mouthed roommate that would listen to her and offer terrible punishments for whoever dares to even make her lose her cool. 

She needs to talk to someone and she can't think of anyone else.

Gail, like the sweet yet unstoppable maelstrom that she is, is happy enough just crossing the walls back out to the shallow waters outside; the giant crayfish, the green valleys, it all feels much more like home than the cold buildings at the other side. 

She's off to chase butterflies and inspect insects, close enough so she can still be watched, while her mother clears her throat and manufactures a pleasant smile before calling for the guard.

“Excuse me, is there any way I could see your commander?” 

The guard barely turns to her before scoffing and looking back at the road. “I'm the authority here, lady, what do you want?”

She clicks her tongue. Her hands knew exactly where her dagger rests, would rest, but alas, she didn't get that back either. 

She hopes he hasn't noticed her scowl. The disgust on his face doesn't change. She tries again.

“I need to find Sir Margit. Could you tell me whe-”

“The Omen ?” The disrespectful fuck snorts. 

Gwenn has to swallow hard in order to not slap his helmet clean off his head. 

“What would such a small little lady like yourself want with such a foul, dangerous beast?” He laughs.

Enough. 

She takes a step closer, grabbing him by the pauldron of his armor to shove him back against the stone wall. She's too close, she knows, but for once she needs to be recognized.

The soldier squirms in her grasp as soon as he sees the gold in her eyes. 

“Where?” Her voice is firm and free of pleasantries.

“Down at the plateau.” He finally stutters out, and she sets him free. 

She turns and walks away without giving him so much as another glance in his direction. “He'll destroy you, tarnished wench! You and all your cursed kin!”

“Yeah yeah, graceless tarnished, yadda yadda fuck you. ” She just lets out as she struts down the valley.  She finds her little girl and picks her up in her arms, hurrying her step.

Somewhere, there has to be a battle.

Somewhere there has to be him. 

The greenery is nothing but clear. The skies are pure blue, shimmering with the divine Erdtree gold.

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Morgott's blood boils in his veins. He made the right choice, he knows this; whether or not it was about her , no woman's virtue should ever be threatened- especially not by one of his soldiers. Still, that doesn’t mean the court will take it lightly; not that, nor his sour humor, nor his refusal to speak about his decision, instead retreating to his study to continue with his royal duties.

Which absolutely wasn’t a bluff so he could summon the simulacrum and run off somewhere to feel someone, something crumble under his hands. 

He had used them against her too: pierced through her as if she was barely there. 

When she found him again she looked radiant, glistening with gold, and yet exhausted, spent and soiled with the corruption that plagued every brick in Stormveil. 

Morgott took pity. That's the only possibility that makes sense to him, that brings him comfort. He took pity on a warrior, a mother, a soft little girl plagued with compassion in a world that wouldn't give it back.

Tarnished are lowly citizens, a threat to the Erdtree, to the Order. He's meant to eliminate them, to make sure they get nowhere close to the throne, and yet.. 

The great rune could have consumed her, made her something akin to what the grafted was-

The idea grows like bile at the back of his throat. He spits his disgust out over the tall grass. 

She would have been nothing, not a threat to the Capital, not to his crown, not his credibility, not to his peace of mind. 

The woman can't stay out of his dreams, his thoughts. The second he closes his eyes, she's there: the warm, soft touch of her skin, so small in his hands, the sweet, tender voice piercing like a dagger in the night, the smile… 

She smiled at him. He, who put a knife through her chest. He, who threatened her, who banished her into the outer circle of the city. He, the monster. He, of accursed blood running so hot in his veins he needs to spill someone else's, Grace given mission or not.

It's lucky the tarnished keep finding their way into his territory. 

He closes his eyes and sighs. The thought of her makes the pulse worse. 

It doesn't ask for blood but it yearns… it yearns…

He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to give it a name. 

He turns when he hears the soft steps over the grass.

He summons his dagger before he turns; it faded into golden light as he gawks in shock.

“Sir Omen!” 

Gwenn can't stop her from trotting off from behind her legs and across the valley, calling at the top of her lungs.

The Omen looks at her, then at her mother, dumbfounded. He was alone: no bloodshed, no soldiers, no trace of anything. 

Just Margit and the vast expanse of green. 

“Little devil- Gail, please!” The woman trots behind her, in a sudden panic at what the little child could say to him, do to him.

The idea of her just clutching his tail, of ignoring the sharp ends of its horns just because it’s fluffy, makes her shudder. 

Yet she can still count on the man’s shock, still as a statue on the field, moving only to stare at her as she hugs his leg like he’s raised her.

It’s a dangerous habit, yes, but Gwenn still loves the open nature of her daughter, the heart always on her sleeve. As sweet as it is, it also causes one hell lot of trouble. 

“Sir Omen, hi!” She yells at him, excited. Margit only tilts his head at the small girl, his tail swaying quietly behind him, whipping slightly. 

“Hello, little Lady,” he starts but his eyes fall immediately on her mother, walking to them trying to catch her breath. “Whyfor art thou here? It’s dangerous-”

“Mom was looking for you!” She interrupts. The woman behind her clicks her tongue and the little child winces; she shouldn’t talk over others, she knows as much, but oh, how she wants to share all she knows. “She said she missed you, so we asked where you were-”

“Okay, sweetheart, that’s enough-” Gwenn hurries to hold her back, gesturing at the clear light butterflies hovering over the flowers at the edge of a shallow pond closeby. “Why don’t you go chase bugs? You can take them with you and we’ll read about them later, yeah?”

The child shrieks in excitement before running away promptly to where her mother indicated, leaving the adults to themselves. 

“I’m not a Sir-” Margit starts but scowls immediately when he notices her rolling her eyes. “ Tarnished.”

“I’ve got a name, Margit. I know you know it, too.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “She does, too, but I think she really likes ‘little lady’.” She smiles to herself. 

For someone so awfully threatening to her, the commander happens to be utterly sweet to her child. 

“Didst thou come here to ask for the same treatment? Thou art not a child.” He seems to scold her, his voice tight and his brow furrowed. 

Are kids the only ones who can get something soft out of him? For some reason she refuses to believe that. No, this is the man who spared her, who protected her, time and time again, who should’ve killed her more than the one time he did, should be an enemy, and yet he’s conceding a conversation to her when he owes her nothing. This is his battlefield; she could be prey, and yet.

“I wouldn’t mind a nickname.” She teases, and only gets a scoff; still, his tail swishes and whips faster. She takes her time, sighs, before continuing. “I left everything leagues ago, everyone; I-” He did try to kill her. And still. “I have no one else I can trust. Not that I have to burden you with anything, but.” She twists her mouth. Her eyes look for something else to focus on, something easier. 

Nothing has ever been easier. When she arrived, she was told she needed to kill, to look for the meaning of her existence through battle. Refusing has only brought bloodshed around her anyway; her name, her eyes are a curse in themselves. She found love, and that love was ill fated from the get go. It brought the best and the worst life could ever bring. And even then, she needed to keep going. Keep searching, keep fighting, keep running; running from everyone, from everything, finding another shelter that will turn on her over, and over, and over. Leyndell didn’t promise to be better than the windmill village did, than the Roundtable said to be; it never promised her anything, and yet. 

She can do nothing but hope for mercy. 

“I  would like to burden you a tiny bit. If you would let me, that is.” She smiles shyly, looking up at him. Margit towers over her even bent down onto his cane, imponent. She’s witnessed first hand the agility, the speed of his, the strength of his body, more muscle than the tattered furs and walking stick could ever show. It feels almost intentional to be underrated, believed weaker than he is, slower, less of a deadly weapon made man. 

Still, the heaviness of his brow, the wide angles of his nose, speckled with flat growths, the permanent scowl of his mouth- they’re all such particular traits, such unique features she’s tattooed them into her memory. Even when the crown of horns doesn’t make it obvious, she’s positive she could always recognize him. She needs to always know the man that has shown compassion without asking for more than to not be dragged into her mess.

So, of course, as a reward she’ll be dragging him into her mess. But she will ask first. 

“This is a battlefield, Tarnished, not a tea party.” He chastises, again, and her mood sours. 

Fine.. Fine! He wants her to fight him so much, she can have it. 

“Fine, want to feel my rage firsthand? Be my guest, Sir.”

She unsheaths Moonveil, slashing a wave of magic his way before lounging at him. He’s quick on his feet, alert, but she’s not expecting that blow to connect from the get go. No, she expects him to speak, to lose his focus. 

“That’s not my name, Tarnished.” He barks out before summoning a gigantic hammer, leaping in the air to fall where she stands; she’s seen it before, she can almost count how long it takes him to gather enough grace to perform the summoning. She can see the window. 

Gwenn summons a glintblade to her chest height; when it finally forms, he’s falling upon where she was just a second ago. The projectile forms, flying across the air with the sound of a blade cutting its way through until it meets his chest with no chance to stop it. He grunts and covers the spot on his chest with his hand but only for a moment; it looks more bothersome than painful. Good: she’s only trying to prove a point. “That’s not mine either!” She yells in triumph, earning a menacing glare. 

“Gwenndolen.” In his voice it sounds like thunder falling on her; she still sheaths her blade back, pulling her arms behind her back like a child being scolded, her mouth curved into a mischievous grin. “Yes, Margit?”

The Omen sighs. He gives up so visibly, plopping down on the grass, leaning on his cane. “What wantest thou, then?”

She’s won.

She’s won.

She has to stifle down a cheer of victory before running to sit next to him, and proceed to talk his ear off. He grunts, and nods, letting her take the weight off of her chest that prevented her from breathing freely.

In the distance, the Erdtree sheds golden leaves like morning dew. Something in the air shifts. It feels like Autumn, and yet. It feels like a promise strewn into the vastness. 

In the valley, a little girl runs behind nascent butterflies. For a moment, the war feels so far away.

Chapter Text

Morgott settles easily into the new habit, the odd routine. 

He would have kicked himself in the shin, would have thrown himself back into the Shunning grounds the second he would have known he would be expecting, no, eagerly anticipating the little tarnished girl. She would come to find him in the outskirts of his own city, as if they were two teenagers hiding from their parents, only to talk to him. 

To talk. With the protector of the city, the tarnished hunter, the accursed child of a god retreated into the shadow of a black veil and trickery just to be accepted into his own realm. 

To talk to the beast who put a blade through her without as much as a second thought. 

Oh, but she doesn’t seem upset or vengeful- no, she comes to find him almost trotting through the fields, her heart drawn on the curve of her lips, on the heaviness of her brow, on  the swiftness of her feet. 

She’d come and ask for his attention every time he found himself alone in the expanse, as if she were trying to keep her charm alive, to make sure he could never forget her.

How he wishes he could forget her. He feels feverish just remembering the easy, wide toothed grin as she looks him in the eye, free of fear, of disgust, of anything bitter. 

He’s positive more often than not that if he were to touch her, to just caress the long braids the color of caramel resting on her shoulders, he might ignite into flames. He's just able to hold himself back from soiling her, from cursing her, by the grace of some divine force; the  same force, this modicum of compassion for his punished soul, squirms inside his chest every time she sits too close. 

She still talks and talks: about the soldier, the patrons, the coworkers. 

Morgott would like to say he’s not interested. He barely listens, and he does barely answer: yet locked into his mind is every name and description of every man fool enough, daring enough to touch her as if she was just a part of the attraction, looking for reason to chase after them the day after, make them pay for their offenses. 

No one touches the King’s treasures. 

He shifts in his seat, visibly uncomfortable, as the gilded dimwits of his court keep arguing whether or not to increase the taxes to pay for yet another festival- a festival that made no sense, so obscure it felt like the city would be paying for the acorn brained perfumed buffoon's personal birthday party. 

He could nip it in the bud, but giving them a minute or two to speak their minds still gives him some leverage, even though he has never even considered to do so much as listen to them. 

He finally has enough. His mind can’t focus on anything but her, and even if he wanted to, he feels his common sense would take corporeal form only to launch itself off the assembly room’s window, plummeting stories down onto the cobblestone. 

It still sounds so much better than having to sit here for any longer. 

“This has gone on for long enough. No, Sir Harnell, the city will not pay for your over the top, unnecessary tribute to your own name. Do so on your own coin, of which you have plenty enough so as not to be asking the crown for charity, or do naught at all.” He states firmly, before letting his hands rest on the table. It thunders, much to his dismay; he’s not focused enough to even control his own strength. All he wants to do is run, anywhere. 

Back to the outskirts, to the damp softness of the grass, to the sweet eagerness of her voice, her joy, her rage, her- 

Back to this. Ugh! Little enchantress finds her way into his mind over and over. He really needs a moment’s respite, a second to meditate, to connect with the Grace that moves him, that guides him.

“You’re dismissed: I have better things to do with my time than entertaining thy petty little trifles.” He stands from his chair and half the court does so with him, but no one fights his decision. People hardly do, not after all this time, not in the only bastion still standing after the chaos of the Shattering. One by one, they bow to him, and take their leave.

He has to grit his teeth, to hide his balled fists at the awfully wrong feeling that settles on the bottom of his stomach every time they do.

He’s a servant of them, a protector. If only they knew. 

He wants to find his own peace of mind again, to meditate in his own quarters, alone, away from everything else.  

He asks to be left alone to rest, and seals his door, before kneeling on his rug, hands on the floor and palms up as if in offering. 

Margit finds his way out of the walls and into the valleys again.

Gwenn finds a way to make it work.

She works at night, takes care of her child in the mornings, and somehow finds time in between to try to convince the guards to let her through. 

Not that anything has worked so far. No homemade sweets, or soft lines she learned at the bar, nor even blatant bribery.

They do act as if they're well paid, so they’ve got that going for them, at least. 

And after her first and only meeting with the Veiled King she might have had enough audiences to last her a lifetime, enough of him .

She left her room at the Academy almost as soon as Gail started walking on her own, having met who would later become her roommate. Even as sweet as he might be, the once prisoner of Leyndell still has too risky a vocabulary to speak in front of a child in the prime age of repeating everything she hears. 

It's funny, though. That was the worst part: it doesn't matter what you say to your kid if you're laughing. That's all that will stay. 

She left by the time the Queen was confiding enough with her to talk about marriage. Noble marriage, at that, thinking of who might be a suitable step father for her daughter and a powerful ally for her reign. 

She was not chattel to be exchanged, good intentions or not. She wasn't going to be one even if it made entrance to the library much easier. 

Her conviction does cost her, however. 

“And they look at me once, for two seconds, and go ‘tarnished can't read.’ Bitch! I have made my infant daughter read more than you've ever had in your entire miserable bottom feeder life!” She huffs and scoffs, sitting on a boulder as Margit just stands by her side, watching the immensity of the plateau for threats.

She thinks she heard a little snort that only encourages her further.

“And they're all like that, you know? They see me, literally wearing a glintstone catalyst, and go ‘no, she has never seen a book in her life.’ I can give them a run for their money, any day.” She flicks her braids back, indignant.

“A proud little thing thou art, Tarnished.” He finally responds to her, without even looking her way. He still doesn't move away, doesn't try to shut her up. 

It's the closest to a confidant she can hope for in a place as unwelcoming as this. It works. 

He starts moving to patrol the vastness; she follows.

“Well, who the hell is it gonna be if not me?” She counters with words sharper than the grin on her face. “I didn't get this far to pretend my achievements don't matter now, did I?”

“Prithee, what achievements,” Margit is deliberately slow on his delivery, “Art thou so proud of?”

“Well, as far as I know, I'm the only shardbearer who's not a demigod, so why not start there?” She almost dances, strutting at his side, trying to catch a glimpse of his expression. 

He stops his walk for just a second before continuing. “It is better not to wave meat in front of the lions, Tarnished-”

“Please.” Gwenn’s voice is more of a demand than a plea. She can see his shoulders drop; it feels more like relief than disillusionment. “You know better.”

“Gwenn.” He gives in. “Thou as well. Trust is a weapon without a handle-”

“I do appreciate your phrases so much.” She cuts him short. Yes, she's trusting. Yes, it's dangerous. This still feels nice. Right. Even if he keeps putting up a space in between she's not willing to reciprocate. “Not only for your wisdom but because I haven't heard anyone use them, not like you do.”

She smiles wide as he seems taken aback for a moment. 

It's a thing she realized she could do to him so easily, getting him off track with the simplest of compliments. 

It might work better just because she means every word. 

“I'm sorry, you were saying?”

“Hast thou not somewhere to be, Gwenn ?”

His demeanor is meant to sound cold, she knows, but his low, velvety voice almost purring her name makes it sound so entirely… different. 

Different is a good word for it. Yes, she's keeping that for now, putting it in a box and storing the fleeting flutter of her heart, the tingling buzzing in her skin for the day she can deal with what it means. 

“Ah sh- I'm gonna be late!” She turns to leave but before Margit can finally get rid of her the way he clearly wants to, she stands on a higher expanse of the valley to yell at him. “See you soon, sir!”

“Gwenn-”

“Margit!”  She laughs as she leaves him behind. 

There's something about pushing his buttons, as harmless as she makes it at least, that's intensely satisfying. Something about breaking his ever so formal charade.

The day she can make him swear or even say something she wouldn't repeat in front of her daughter, she might yell out of shock. 

For today, that just makes her day much lighter. 

But sadly, it is time to work. 

Chapter Text

It stays with her: the way he becomes more and more of a man and less of a weapon, of a tool for the city. 

She met him first weeks, moons ago, and he was the epitome of power, a machine of rage and war, stubborn as a brick wall, and just as impenetrable. 

It’s almost uncanny to think he’s the same man now. Not for a lack of credit on his behalf. He's easily one of the most powerful fighters she’s ever seen, to the point where she’s been trying to learn how to conjure the daggers he uses in her free time, in the mornings after leaving Gail with the neighbour to study. The fact is she hasn’t been able to produce anything more than a vanishing mirage, a golden arch of energy that flees from her fingers instead of something tangible, something deadly. 

Gwenn hasn’t yet found the catalyst to make it stick. 

She knows enough about incantations to be aware that most people require seals as a catalyst, just as she wears glintstone bracelets, chains drawn from her wrists to her middle fingers, to perform any sort of spell. 

However, she’s touched by Grace, guided by it. The golden energy flows from her fingers as if it bleeds from her pores. Just like him.

He’s the only one she can use as an example, and still, she fears asking for help properly, fears showing him. 

Giving him a reason to doubt her again. She won’t risk what they have, what took so long, so much effort. 

See, her visits have become a habit of his now- she can see that, as she runs across the plateau to meet him, waiting until he is actually free of his duties, hiding from other tarnished.

She’s heard enough about recusants to let them know she exists, much less that her daughter does. 

She can only hope Ofnir hasn't sold her out for her rune, or his credibility, either. 

Margit huffs, scoffs, and stays silent most of the time, answering in simple gestures or sounds, and still he lets her speak, lets her sit by him, and even lets her joke. 

He doesn’t laugh, of course he doesn’t, but he could also stop her if he really wanted to. He could prevent her from address him with honorifics, but he could also stop her from responding to his every little girl with old man , if he was actually uncomfortable with her closeness. Still, even in her familiarity, she made sure never to touch him, not unless she had to. 

The one time she tried to grab him to show him to a particularly beautiful landscape, her whole hand grasping around two of his fingers, he snatched it back, as if her contact would burn him. She never tried again. 

She didn’t try to tell him today is a free day for her either: her work is going to be closed for the night for repairs on the furniture; two heavily dignified knights had carefully thrown one another across for the sake of a maiden that looked like she wanted neither. Her child is already in bed by the time she should be going to work, so Gwenn decides to pay Margit a visit. 

Quietly.

She can be as tiny, as invisible, and silent as a mouse, hiding around the shadows and moving only at the right times, her breathing so carefully controlled it fades in between all other noises. 

He never saw her coming. 

The glintblade forms, a sharp cut in the air, and Margit turns around, his staff ready to stop whatever comes. The blade clashes against enchanted wood, and disappears: it was aimed for the space in between his feet, anyway. She didn’t mean to hit him. 

“Tarnished! Halt thy feeble games!” He shouts into the seemingly empty night sky. 

She appears, hands behind her back, playing innocent, with a huge grin on her face. 

The twilight grows behind him, making the light of the Erdtree look like a halo. 

There’s something about him, about his features, that she can’t stop staring at. The way his nose rests wide and flat, giving him a solemn air she has only seen in coins, in royal portraits; his brow, heavy with horns, still tall and proud and somehow magnificent, his eyes the same gold that cover his fingers, touched by divinity. His lips, always a sharp line, as if he was purposefully holding closed the doors of the fortress, holding a dam back. 

Gwenn tries to imagine how his smile must look like. She can’t figure out why. 

It takes her a second to snap out of her trance. “What on earth could you mean by games, sir?” She answers with a sly smirk, playfully. Her wrist twists behind her, a small glimmer of blue light forming. 

She moves out of the way and the glintblade flies at him. 

He still stops it in mid air, because of course he does, but this time he runs towards her, jumping up to break her stance. 

She doesn’t have time to think. Fuck, she doesn’t even have her armor, her sword! She never thought Margit would actually fight her again, not with such a little push, not so seriously!

Her dancer’s dress flows around her as she jumps back but it’s barely enough; his pounce covers way more ground than her legs can. 

She pulls up her arms to defend herself, shutting her eyes hard and hoping for the best.

“Tarnished.” She feels the weight of him, of his staff, against her crossed hands, but only the pressure, not the touch. The blow never comes but she’s still wary of looking up. “Gwenn.” Margit calls again and this time she listens.

In between them, held by her extended arms and her wrists crossed in front of her, two sacred daggers form to trap Margit’s staff in between the blades.

The divine energy flows from her hands like a cloud of glimmering pollen, solidifying around her fists. 

Her bare fists. No seal on them. 

So this is how he notices. 

“I can explain-” she starts, as if there's something wrong with her abilities. She's kissed by Grace, blessed. 

But his tone is closer to the first Margit she ever knew. 

The tarnished hunter. 

“How, Gwenn?” He retreats and strikes again; the ground under her feet yields but her posture does not, her arms trembling. The daggers don’t even flicker. “Tarnished.” He emphasizes his point with slashes at every word; she manages to stop every single one, but it still takes a toll on her, drains her. “Graceless. How?”

“You insist on that, Margit. Sir. ” If he gets to break the conditions of their friendship, or their truce, at least, then so does she. He visibly winces in disgust: it’s still incredibly funny how it makes him so deeply uncomfortable. She curls her hands tighter and the daggers explode in her hands in a shockwave of gold; Margit is forced to jump back, to give her space. 

Gwenn swirls her hand over her head, the glintstone bracelet shining deep blue around her wrist. “You keep insisting on that.” She lets go, and the blades form and follow, yet still too slow to hit their target. She expected exactly that. She doesn't want to hurt him, not really; she just needs him away and listening. “You killed me once, remember? Pierced through me like I was nothing- I remember it clearly, tarnished hunter, how bones break and flesh rips away like butter, and how it molds back together again.”

“Thou hast been extinguished, I recall.” His voice sounds milder, to a point she’d think he was astonished if she didn’t know him any better. “And came back a shardbearer.” He lets his cane down, finally. It digs softly into the ground next to his feet as he leans on it. 

He towers at least half of his body over her; she cannot help but assume how tall he’d be without the cane, the folded spine. 

“Grace called for me again. It does, often.” She explains with a compassion proper of her duty as a mother. Patience, always. “How or why, I cannot tell- all I know is it marks the spot, like a treasure map, but without any indication alongside it.” She lets her exhaustion win over her prideful stance; her trembling legs collapse underneath her as she falls onto the ground on her knees. “Now it’s your turn,” she still meets his eye, tarnished to glistening gold.. “Margit, How?”

“How what, Gwenn?” He sounds exasperated, out of options.

Despite everything, violence is still his first and he hasn't threatened her yet, not really.

“How do you do it? I've watched you- I remember , you make it look so swift and easy, as if every blade was an extension of yourself…” she wonders more than asking, her fingers furling and unfurling engulfed by this miasma of golden light. It takes the shape it wants more than the one she needs, and only when it wants to.

“Everything has a purpose, Gwenn.” His tone is almost caring, warm to the point of hot mead, comforting. “What is its purpose, thine ambition which thy weapon must carry in thy stead?”

“Ah.”

Gwenn stares at her hand, grace still dancing around it like golden dust floating in the air. “To protect myself, I guess.” 

She swirls her wrist but nothing solidifies in her hand, only stutters for a moment to close in on it again.

The Omen tilts his head for only a second but says nothing. His tail swishes, picking up a cloud of dust off the ground.

She tries again. “To come back home.” 

Something seems to react: for a second she could feel a shape forming against her palm but it vanishes when she tries to clasp her hand around it.

“To what home, to whom, Tarnished? Thou must give it power, give it reason.” He reaches out, holding her wrist around his fingers, making her point at him with a non existent weapon. “Defend thyself or thy flame dies with you! Who will be left then, who will miss thee?” He finishes on a rumble too close to a growl that makes the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. “Who will be next once thy light is snuffed out for good?”

Gail .

Her mind conjures her as a vision behind her eyes, running across the plateau, inoffensive, unaware. 

Everything for her. The world for her. 

In her closed fist the dagger appears and grows into a thin long blade, closer to her own, sparkling with holy power. 

It doesn't ebb, it doesn't stutter. 

It's perfect. 

Gwenn is startled, in awe watching her own doing, perfectly balanced in her hand, flowing as if it were alive; a river of gold molded into the fury of a blade. 

For protection. For love.

She doesn't move her hand much until he lets go, and takes a step back. 

“It… it's absurd.” he seems to be talking to himself more than her. “Just one try, and-”

“Oh no, I've been at it for a while.” She laughs before swinging her blade around; it does feel like an extension of herself, as if she could roughly direct it if she'd let it go. Still, she's afraid she won't be able to cast it again if she does. 

It leaves a trace of light as it cuts the air. “Since I could call on Grace the same way you do, I tried to follow your steps.”

He scoffs, turning his head around; he then sits heavily on the ground, leaning on his cane as he does. 

Some habits of his do remind her he's far from a youngling, despite his dexterity in battle. He rolls his shoulders back and she can hear the cracking of his bones all the way down like an instrument.

She has to bite her tongue not to offer to make it better for him. After all, with the expanse of his back, she might need hours to take all of those knots out, and much more patience than she's known for.

“Thy talent deserves a greater teacher.” He finally mutters, almost as a confession.

She won't have it- he was her model to finding her own strength; no one else could fit her as well as he does.

The sheer phrasing of that thought makes her shiver in a way she's not ready to explore. She sits, pulling her knees up and against her body instead, wrapping her arms around them.

“Well, I don't want anyone else. It works with you- so easily, in fact, that I'd hate to let that go for what others might see as better.”

“Not just others, stubborn child; I have told thee-”

“And I'm telling you, the only way I won't just train it by myself is if you were to teach me.” She did not start that sentence meaning to invite herself into his schedule like that. Again.

Funny how it keeps happening.

She jumps up to her feet, blushing. 

It's like a magnet: she keeps finding herself around him, wanting to be nowhere else. 

He sighs, exasperated. At least she didn't call him old this time; he should be grateful because he's in fact being incredibly cranky. “Go home to your child, Gwenn. Bury thy foolish ideas.”

She huffs but doesn't fight him. Not immediately, at least.

More importantly, not fast enough.

“I shall wait for thee after the sun hides, on the days thou hast no obligation towards that lustful cesspit where thou spendest thine evenings.”

“It's a job, Marg- wait, what?”

She's rooted to the ground as he groans, rising onto his feet, his tail swishing behind him in a steady rhythm. “And not one complaint; I am not thy child for thee to steer thine own way.”

She doesn't get to reply: she yells in excitement and immediately covers her mouth, bowing toward him with her hands still clasped around her face, before running off to the outer walls.

Let's not make him change his mind.

She cannot wait for her first lesson.

Chapter Text

Why?

He didn’t have to give in, to give anything. 

That night, at the mere suggestion of sundown, he all but runs to the valleys, waiting for her.

No. Doing his job. Following his mission as a protector of the city and the Erdtree. 

Not for her, he repeats to himself, and still, still... 

She doesn’t make it the next day, and his mind wails. He handles a recusant or two, less fought against and more torn to shreds like old cloth dolls. 

It’s not enough. His accursed blood runs like fire, wanting to consume him, to make of him nothing but a beast, trotting down the valleys back to the city to take her back-

He roars, invoking a shower of daggers around him. 

The shine of Grace calms him down. Barely, but he’ll hold onto anything he can. 

Morgott knows he told her to come whenever she wasn't working, but something deep inside hoped she would ditch everything, come running… for what reason, he could not say.

Every reason he could think of makes him want to crawl back into the shining grounds, remind himself the things he’s been promised, where those desires belong until his mind shuts up, falls back into place. 

He wants to run all the way to Rykard, kill as much as he can find, tear limb from body like every sinner and wretch and cursed soldier is made from nothing but soft butter, until his strength leaves him, until the simulacrum disappears, and to hell with the royal way to deal with him, with the simple defense, to staying still.

The stillness makes his mind rile up, makes it walk in circles.

Find her again.

No. He cannot keep doing this. He’s a king, a protector, not a half witted teenager with an insistent obsession. He knows better than to hang onto her like this, to expect so much of her. A tarnished, as sweet as she is. A conqueror, even as tender. A soft, caring woman full of life and laughter that refuses not to look at him when she addresses him, insists on showering him in honors that aren’t his to keep, stares at him in a way that feels like she can see past him, to something deeper, something not even he is willing to touch. 

He paces, looking down the road for something, anything that looks like prey. His mind is doing it again, putting words in her mouth, putting touches on his skin he hasn’t felt, menacing, looming what ifs. It kills him, every time: to have her pierce him through with her sword would be a much better fate than to daydream, to yearn for something he has never had before.

It is criminal. For her to be such an awful sorceress, clumsy and hesitating, and still be such a terrible enchantress. 

Something, someone is coming up the plateau. One of the manor’s mercenaries, it seems. 

His tail whips excitedly behind him, ready for battle. 

Anything to shut the noise up. 

It takes three days for her day off to come around, and it feels like years.

She’s excited, and terrified; still, her feet cannot stay quiet, couldn't all this time. She’s dancing until her feet ache night after night, trying to keep her mind occupied.

Margit is easily one of the most talented spellcasters she's ever met; if the Queen, and her daughter too at that, are called by the Moon, empyreans in their own right, then he's just as much called by Grace, blessed with divine power to a point it cannot be learned. 

He might always best her, but only growing up next to his shade would be an honor.

Gwenn runs as she leaves the walls of the city. 

“Still eager to fulfill your foolish plans, little girl?” Margits turns the second she’s in his range of view; how he could hear her so easily will always be a mystery for her. 

He’s quite impressive. Worthy of admiration. 

Even when he keeps doing things that purposely piss her off. 

“I’m here, am I not, old man?” She taunts with a smirk; his face twitches in a way that makes her think he’s trying hard not to follow. 

Instead he scoffs, producing a golden dagger out of nowhere. 

“Follow me then; there’s much to learn.”

 It’s exhausting, relentless: it takes motivation, to extract strength from the words that drive her, and Grace knows she wishes love is all she finds. 

Instead, her weapons are sharper, steadier, when fed by fear.

The fear of losing her child, herself, her world. Of having lost for no good reason at all.

Her weapons are stronger when fed by rage.

The fire of seeing everything bow and bend under the boot of golden chains from pious figures, of the ever growing weight of bodies piling up and up. And her own bloody hands.

Her weapons shine brighter fed by guilt. 

Her mind remembers the touch of him, the sweetness of his voice, his lute. The cursed heat of his blood, pulsing over her hand as her fist found her way through his ribcage, held onto his heart until it stopped. 

Her daughter has his smile. It’s impossibly sweet. It hurts to see. 

Margit is not a man of tender reprise: he can see how it affects her, for sure. Gwenn is convinced that every stab she lets her heart take to fuel her skill is written on her face, and the fact he stops her jabs finally, instead of just moving aside with an agility almost impossible to match, proves her right. “Enough, Gwenn.” He holds her by the wrist and the dagger vanishes in thin gold dust. Her hand is almost swallowed by his. 

It’s funny, in a way. 

She sighs and lets go, falling to her knees upon the soft grass. She smiles tiredly at him as he towers above her.

The Erdtree as a halo, always. It feels like an embrace. She wonders if he feels it too. 

“How was it, teach?”

“Art thou bound to seek validation at every step?” He’s grumpy, panting softly, but still sits next to her, leaving a careful space in between; his tail circles him to wrap over his feet. 

Like a cat, she thinks. Adorable. 

She needs to remind herself not to pet it, as soft and fluffy it might look. 

“Some people still remember how interpersonal relations feel like, Margit.” she says, staring at the lazy swish of the tip of his tail before finding his gaze; he looks away the second she turns to him. 

He only scoffs, annoyed, at her. He does that often, lately. 

“I’ve been hearing about a little intruder trying to find her way into the court’s archives.”

Gwenn laughs; he knows it’s her, of course he does. He must really be the King’s right hand, informed of anything that can be a minimal threat. Even just a curious girl asking nicely. 

“I’ve just been asking around; it’s the soldiers that make a big deal out of it.” She pouts, pulling her knees up to hug them against her body; her chin rests on them as she sighs. “I just want to understand something.”

“What thing?” He sounds more curious than he’d like to, she’s sure of it, but mentioning it might just make him retreat somehow. 

He's older than she can understand, she's sure of it, but she's still convinced there are things lost to time that even he could explain. The idea of Margit having met and been around the king since the Shattering, maybe even before, sounds so far out of her own comprehension. Trying to understand her own connection to Grace beyond Marika’s legends feels out of reach but still necessary to know who she is, her purpose behind simply erasing the goddess’ lineage. It's a matter of survival for her at this point, not duty, not honor: she needs to understand the identity Grace gave her with no explanation after cleansing her of her own. 

“History, mostly. And why. A lot of whys, actually.” She looks up to the sky; the golden shimmer feels ominous, almost judging her reluctance to just accept the close to unlimited power, the potential for divinity without question. “You know, we just happen here. Empty. No memories of any life beforehand, no desires, no dreams- I don't know my mother's name.” She turns to him with a sad smile. He's staring, silent. It's probably one of the times he's been more focused on her since they met. “I am a mother. If someone just plucked my daughter away from me, cored me out of her heart and put a weapon in her hand… I deserve the answers, Margit.” 

He stares at her for a moment longer, before turning back towards the Erdtree. “Thy heart works just fine, Gwenn. Much too softly, even.” He scoffs. “No armor can defend what thou keepeth offering on a silver platter. It shall be thy demise.”

“You treat it like a weakness; I think it's a strong suit of mine.” She clicks her tongue and shrugs. It would be nice if he did the same; surely, he's got his reasons not to, but she also knows absolutely nothing about him. She makes a mental note to read about omen life in the Capital. “It gave me the chance to talk often with this nice gentleman, powerful and oddly sweet at times, who had such interesting insights and awfully dated phrases,” Gwenn sideeyes him: he's looking at her with a scowl, pretending not to. His gaze keeps shifting on and off; once his meets hers, she sticks her tongue out at him. “Also had a terrible, terrible temper. So grumpy I can hear him scowling all the way from home.”

He visibly rolls his eye at her before getting up with a groan, helping himself with his cane; it's weirdly funny to see, his eyes permanently closed by the crown of horns on one side of his face only makes it more obvious. 

“Thou art naught but an insolent child.”

She follows suit,quickening her pace. One step of his is easily three of hers. 

“Can you help me get into the library then?”

“Nay. The library is only accessible to the court. Whiny, conceited nobles who would never pick up a tome to save their lives, or champions who vanish in the battlefield before they get the chance to.” He didn't turn to look at her; she can still notice him slowing his step to let her reach him. 

Her hand twitches at her side. She wonders how soft or coarse the white fine hair coating his wrist would be, how harsh the callouses from battle- she remembers the tenderness of his touch when he sealed her rune away, impossibly delicate. 

“That's a sad fate for a library.” she says without thinking. “Do you read?” He turns for a second to frown at her. Ah, the king's right hand must know how, for sure. “I mean, over there. You're a champion, aren't you?”

“Not a part of the court, little girl.” His voice sounds pensive, heavier. “Omen aren't allowed in the city.”

That's ridiculous. The Carian family has allies in between dragons and trolls, and they're more than allowed to live across their lands. The idea of undesirable citizens is outrageous at best. “You are their champion. You are the reason they stand tall still.”

“It is by Marika’s blessing and the ruling of the King-”

“Fuck the King!” She snaps before she can stop it. “He's not here, he doesn't see shit- he just entertains rich man babies and calms the blind masses while you're literally known as an exterminator. For them! You deserve the recognition-”

“Thou shalt halt thy blasphemous tongue in my presence!” He stops and turns to her so suddenly she crashes against him; it is like hitting a stone wall, she falls back and his presence feels even bigger, towering over her like a titan. 

She’s startled, but not quite scared. Or not scared of him, more like, but to have broken some crystal fragile thread in between them that she might not be able to fix. 

“The king keeps the city working in the middle of war, blossoming- thou would be but a hunter, a sword and naught else if not for him.” 

It dawns on her. Leyndell has bars and bakeries, art traders and musicians; it's not a trench to survive in, it's a cultural oasis amongst the bloodshed. 

That's why she came here in the first place, to find humanity. How could she be blind to it fluttering all around her?

She gets up, dusting off her dress. “You're right.” She acquiesces. “I still think you deserve to be recognized, if not honored, for your work, but still.” 

She gets ready; Margit barely reacts to her dashing next to him before she's too far for him not to scream at her. 

“What art thou planning now, tarnished?”

“You'll see!” She turns to wave at him, still running. She hurries up to get back home. 

Tonight she'll rest up with her daughter, enjoy her presence as much as she can.

Gwenn is only aware of one enemy of the Capital big enough to raise her to the rank of champion. A twisted, wretched one but a mortal one still. 

Tomorrow she'll ask an audience with the king. 

Soon, she'll infiltrate the Volcano Manor. 

She'll eliminate Praetor Rykard in Leyndell’s name.

Chapter Text

Her commitment doesn’t falter, even if her confidence starts doing so. 

Gwenn knows barely anything about Rykard: princess Ranni often would avoid the subject of her brothers altogether, to save her mother the pain. The Carian manor still holds portraits of him, hair falling like magma upon his shoulders and his profile sharp and elegant. He holds the manor at Mount Gelmir, a place she’s been advised not to get close to both by his sister and multiple peers at the Roundtable- a place of death and nightmares, they said, where not many come back from unscathed, nor untouched. 

Still. She can’t think of any other way to prove her worth; if she presents herself as a messenger from the Carian family, she’d be kicked out on the ground that the Queen has often and consistently refused to provide her assistance to a war that wasn’t her own.

The king and his seemingly iron fist wouldn’t cave in to such a small thing. Gwenn needs something of value to bargain with. 

She’ll give him the most valuable thing she can think of: safety. Peace. 

Even at the cost of the blood of her kin on her hands. 

As far as she knows, the recusants are called to arms against their own, in a battle to the death to prove who’s worthy of whatever blessing they’re promised. Or something; she really doesn’t know much except they’re out for blood, no matter how many of them Margit turns into ribbons. 

And Gwenn has seen him do just that. Sometimes she even feels he was soft with her, stopping once his blade pierced her from side to side, instead of making an example out of her. 

She asks for an audience, and she gets one, albeit not too soon. 

Having to keep the secret from her friend (she’ll call him friend, even though he keeps his distance, measures his touches as if she were carrying some infection he might catch if he’s not careful. It’s annoying, but it's better than what it was.) is the worst part. She wants to feel proud of her decision, courageous of her choice, but that would mean telling the one man who constantly reminds her to not let haste feel like courage that, well, she has. But she knows she can pull through. 

Mostly because she’s still not sure. 

Rykard is meant to be a demonic thing, a creature serpent and man alike, a cursed child of the Queen that she’s not allowed to know much of. She knows he fell in love with a dancer; that’s the last reliable information that got her way. Princess Ranni makes sure she finds out only enough. 

Gwenn is certain her princess doesn’t mind her plans much. Not really. Or at least, she hopes so.

She’s resting a lot of hope on this. 

It might actually be haste, not courage. Ugh, she hates when the old man is right. 

But the audience is set up, and she’s nothing if not tenacious. 

She’s standing behind his door.

He knows this.

Morgott cannot stop pacing around his study. 

The thing is, she doesn’t ask for an audience. She’s never asked for an audience. She talks to Margit, vents out the fire of her soul, and goes back to the city, mellow and sweet as wildberry nectar. 

She doesn't need the King. Or more likely, she doesn’t like him. 

He knows why too: he’s tried so hard to put a space in between him and the image of Margit he might have scarred himself forever in her mind, a too stern hand over her rose colored glass dreams, even when sharpened with a clever, quick tongue and a deadlier stubbornness.

Oh, the fires of her heart could devour the world. If only she ever dared.

He hates it. The fact he’s thought of it, dreamt of it. Her love curdling sour in her throat, choking all those pretty words she always seemed to have. 

Morgott can feel it: the iron underneath the caress.

She’s a fighter, a conqueror. He saw that before he saw the bleeding heart, the mother in her, praising and cooing over her child, opening the ground up to the skies to make refuge for her. 

Before the lover.

He scoffs. Paces. It’s stupid, childish, and yet it’s so hard to stop. His tail whips, nervous, but the charm of the veil hides it from prying eyes.

He tilts to that tenderness so easily, it’s outrageous. Shameful.

She praises him for the smallest of things and he has to look away not to blush. 

She touches the hand of a soldier only to keep her step, and he swallows bile as if the fire was consuming him from the inside. 

A tarnished. A mother. A woman with a kind of power he’s never learned how to fight against.

To fill up a space he didn’t know was empty, hungry.

An enchantress that has glamoured him into her chains, entangled him more than he would ever admit. 

A champion, soliciting an audience with the King.

“Let her in.”

“Veiled King.” She says, almost as if it was meant to sound derogatory, bowing to him. 

She calls him King, every time. Never hers. It’s a custom, mostly, but from her it bothers him more than it should. 

“Gwenndolen.” He musters all the patience that he can; something about her drive, her stance, makes him think the worst.

He can’t even picture what the worst is, but a ghostly chill runs up his spine as her eyes lock on his. He straightens up, supported by his cane, just in case. 

“I have come to offer you my aid, your Majesty.” She bows, and doesn’t get up again. 

She waits for him.

“I have no need for thee, Tarnished.” He walks away. His knees tremble more than he’s willing to let show. He sits down behind his desk, upright and dignified, hiding his discomfort. 

She’s meant to just be here. Peacefully. Where he can enjoy her, care for her, protect her. That’s all she’s needed for. 

“See, I think you do. I think your borders do, too.” She insists. 

She approaches the desk as if it were her territory, hands on the surface and her face so close to his he can feel her breath subtly moving his veil.

His own breath catches in his throat. Could she see the trick from up close?

Would she care?

His hands stay still on his lap; if he moves he might try to touch her, to brush back the strand of hair that falls from her forehead onto the middle of her nose as she leans on the furniture. 

She still has to look up at him. 

“What could I possibly require from thee?” He frowns. That she sees; the fact that she smiles at it is still concerning. 

“Rykard’s pawns.” 

No.

Rykard is still alive for one reason only: he’s dangerous, truly dangerous. Morgott had no army good enough to stop his recusants, no other warriors than himself, and still he couldn’t leave for long enough to do it himself.

Even if he did, he wasn’t sure he was going to come back. The Erdtree’s blessing might be the only thing behind him that could pull him through the battle. And that far away, well-

“Foolish tarnished, once again thou'rt but blind and brash. If thy wish is death thou hast nought to do but ask-” He seethes; how dare she threaten the one thing he holds so dear? 

No, Rykard may have his foot soldiers, his champions. Even Morgott himself, if it is so fated. But he will not touch one hair on her head. 

“Mind you, King, I have offered, not asked for permission-”

“I shall not take thy charitable services, you foolish girl, nor thy sacrifice to such a fruitless campaign.”

“Oh, you’re an entire-” She grits her teeth before taking a step back, having to breathe to regain a level head. “He’s dying, Morgott, whether you want him to or not. For my friend’s sake, if not your city.” She turns, taking her leave. “You can either recognize my effort, or demonize me for not submitting to your insistence to babysit me. Either way, know one thing.”

She bows before she opens the door behind her. 

“You cannot fucking stop me.”

He holds his rage in like a wildfire, threatening to consume everything in its path, until she leaves. 

The moment after, he roars, screams his fears out, his powerlessness. 

He wears no shackles anymore, not like he did as a small bairn, and yet his hands feel tied behind his back. 

He cannot stop her. 

She’s going to get consumed by the Serpent. The way all of them do.

If she’s not, she might just come back as a recusant, looking for his head.

By the Erdtree’s light, he can’t be certain of how much fight there is in him to stop her then. 

Unless.

The fucking enchantress! How dare she!

How dare she make him follow like a blind dog!

Gwenn packs in a hurry, pulling her change of clothes into her rucksack as if something were following her. 

Nothing was, but something was watching intently for sure. 

“Mommy?” Gail sits on the floor, drawing on the floorboards with chalk. 

Butterflies. She loves butterflies. 

“My little devil.” She drops to her knees by her daughter’s side; her hair is a mess, as it always is, no matter how much her mother tries to brush it during the day. Gwenn still tries to push it out of the child’s eyes. “My sweetheart, I have to go for a little bit, okay?” She  explains softly; her daughter is used to it already, more used to it than she’d like her to be. "I have to go, but I’ll come back as soon as I can make it.”

The little girl nods; there’s no smile on her face but still no resentment. A part of Gwenn wishes she would just be angry. “Just come back, Mommy. Promise?”

She asks for so much, and so little. Poor thing has grown up amongst summoned lights, and night songs, and creatures playing with her as if they were pets, peers; she’s also grown up with blood, and loss, and change. So much change.

There has been only one thing fixed for her, one safe place, and Gwenn could not risk it, not for anything in the world. 

“Of course baby, no matter what. Promise.”

Once she gets ready, Moonveil at her side, she walks to the walls to find Margit waiting on the other side. 

“Has your King sent for me already?” She jokes, but the bitterness is more pungent. He only scowls, refusing to look at her. 

“Thy plans are ridiculous at best, Gwenn; the praetor is not a prized deer.” 

He doesn't follow, not yet, but she knows he will.

He feels condescending, in a way, simplistic. Rykard is a threat, sure, but she has defeated Godrick in a fair fight; she's a shard bearer. 

It's not about her.

“You're worried.” 

“By the- of course I'm worried, you half witted girl! Thou cannot fathom the armies he hath taken! Even with thy own blessing, he is not to be taken lightly!”

Margit sounded frustrated, angrier than he’s ever been at her- even when they were enemies, his hatred sounded categorical, mandated. She’s a Tarnished, and therefore must be hated. Now there’s something deeper, something more personal. The idea of her getting hurt hits harder than any of his religious commandments do. 

He cares. And she’s been blind. Foolish, indeed. 

“Oh, I’ll- Margit, I’ll come back safe, I can assure you.” She turns to him, expecting a dismissive scoff. Instead he’s finally  starting to breach the space in between them as if he were being dragged to her against his will. “If he must live in order for me to come back then I’ll come back a failure, but alive. I promised Gail as much.”

“And thou shalt keep thy word.” He reaches her, walks past her. “For I am coming with thee.”

Is he?

But he’s got so many responsibilities, so much to guard!

“But Margit, your post! Isn’t the King gonna be mad?”

“Since when hast thou cared about the King?” He scoffs and she can almost feel a smirk in his tone. “My position asks me to protect Leyndell from the pillagers.” He looks over his shoulder and she hurries to his side. 

“We’re going to empty the entire snake’s nest, once and for all.”

Chapter Text

They walk. 

And walk. 

From the outer walls of Leyndell, through a road green with foliage and dotted with flowers, sweet scented and waving on the breeze; they walk at a leisurely, although constant pace, Gwenn sitting sideways on her steed while her companion follows slightly behind. Frowning. 

Always frowning. 

“You didn’t have to come, you know.”

She smiles at him cheekily; he must notice, for he looks her way for only one second and then looks away and scoffs. 

What a grumpy old man. 

“You’re gonna get all wrinkly and withered if you keep doing that, old man.”

“Thou art naught but a stubborn little child.” He finally concedes, albeit angrily, but it still feels like a victory. He hasn’t said one thing the whole way, despite her comments and silly ranting. Gwenn swallows the awkward feeling down, as if she’s been punished for daring to get out of the city. 

“Maybe, but at least I’m trying to have fun with it.” She still taunts him, as if he needed much to spark like new kindling. 

“I found no fun in having to babysit a thick skulled, half wit little lady and her ridiculous ideas.” He doesn’t cross his arms but only because he still needs the cane to walk, she reckons; it still doesn’t fail to make her laugh. 

Maybe he's right. Maybe Rykard could kill her as easily as one could stomp on a roach; but even if he is, she might as well try to enjoy the last few hours before she has to face whatever hides within the mountain.

She hasn’t heard much of Mount Gelmir: most tarnished warriors who go in do not come out the same way. Either they get recruited or murdered. Gwenn is not willing to be a part of them so she’ll have to challenge the odds because she promised she would come back in one piece. 

And she cannot blame Margit for not believing her word is enough: he’s been around knights and warriors enough to have met more than one who thought themself invincible, unstoppable, and suffered his own hubris. She won’t fight for honor, but rather for her daughter: it will do Gail no good if the serpent’s dead but her mother is, too. If it comes to it, she’d rather save herself and come back home, fight again another day. 

Or convince Margit to leave, at least, and let Grace bring her back without him falling into the jaws of the serpent. 

Is it even dangerous enough for him to be that wary? Margit is easily one of the best fighters she’s ever seen, shadowed by none, a feared name of his own making. Gwenn cannot even imagine what something, anything more powerful than him, would even be like. 

That’s why she prefers not to. Truth be told, being with Margit makes her feel safe to the point of recklessness, even if she’s not a child to fall for cheap tricks; his presence makes her want to run through the fields, to fight him until he smiles again, to duel every objection of his with a clever quip until he rolls his eyes at her and realizes he cannot win. 

He makes her feel alive in a way she hasn’t in a long time. In the way not being on your toes, always wary and alert, feels like. 

The idea crosses her mind like a flash and while it’s a stupid thing to do, it’s also a stupid thing she’s done many times. 

“You’re incredibly fast, aren’t you, Margit?”

He looks at her, stopping only for a second to examine her for traces of her intentions. Her eyes shine with mischief and her smirk carries nothing but bad news. 

The little devil might be her daughter, but she had to learn from somewhere. 

“What art thou planning?” He finally lets go, slowly, as her hand fists the reins and her leg slips across Torrent’s back to quickly spur him on. 

The spirit steed runs like the wind, picks up like a fallen leaf, faster and faster through the field, while Margit follows, more shocked than angry.

Well, she finally surprised him. 

Before them, soon enough, the canyons open, a mineshaft underneath and no bridge to be seen. It’s the perfect spot. 

She calls Torrent off mid air, as she hangs over the open abyss through nothing but momentum, and turns in time to see him running at her desperately. 

She barely feels the gravity pulling her down before an arm raps around her, shoving her against his chest, firm and soft and impressively hot. He almost crushes her against his  body as he climbs the hillside down, bouncing in between the rocks with outstanding ease. 

Only once his feet press soundly against the hardened dirt does his arm release her, making her fall ass first onto the ground. 

She doesn’t mind one bit. 

“What dost thou thinkest thou art doing?” He barks at her. “Thou couldst have been ribbons amongst the rocks!”

“I was gonna be perfectly fine,” she dismisses him with a wave of her hand, interrupting before he could yell at her again, “You were right there.”

“I might not have made it, you stubborn girl!”

“You would.” She grins and he scoffs, exasperated. His cane slams against the hard ground  as he turns, trying to find his composure again. “I trust you.”

That seems to stop him in his tracks. He stares, his pupil barely widened, his body completely stiffened. He doesn’t answer for the longest time, so she does, as she gets up from the floor, dusting her clothes. “I know you won’t let me fall, like I know you won't let me die. You will deafen me complaining about how reckless everything is, but I’ll be fine.” She explains softly, before coming close to him to place her hand on the one that holds his cane. “I know this, because I trust you.”

He gazes into her eyes, then looks down at their hands together. Back up, then back down, as if he was terrified of moving a muscle. 

“Thou art ridiculous. Reckless. Incorregible.” he says mostly to himself, shaking his head slightly.

Gwenn chuckles. He’s somewhat adorable when he’s mad out of care, which is not a good thing to figure out. She already has too much fun pushing his buttons as it is. 

She steps away to glance around her. They fell down in between the altus plane and the start of the hills, down the bridge. There are ladders and bridges indicating there’s a road up the mountain, and an entrance to a cave below that seems braced by wooden beams. 

A cave used for something, for sure. 

“Also stubborn and bothersome, don’t forget.” She almost talks to herself as she takes small steps, taking in everything around her; the air smells earthy, yet not dry, and dust clings to everything quickly. She might find some small animals to hunt but there’s none she can see easily, and the sun is starting to go down. Maybe up there they’d have more luck but climbing all those steps feels like a tiresome ordeal, more than she’s willing to exhaust herself with. 

She surely couldn’t ask him to pick her up, but being carried sounds so nice; the furnace-like heat of his body around her again, the drumming of his heart in her ears, the softness, almost featherlike touch of his fur, firm muscle underneath…

She’s dwelling too much on it. 

Maybe she 's tired. Yeah, that 's it. She’s way too tired for the mountain. 

“We shall stop here for the night.” He declares and she sighs, relieved. When looking for a place to set up camp, not that he was about to, having nothing on him but the tattered cloak he wears and his cane, her eyes follow the golden shimmer of Grace in the air.

The golden specks float in the air like lost shards of sunlight, flowing into the opening of the cave. 

“There. Can we get there?” Gwenn points at the entrance. Margit seems to hesitate but not fight her. 

“It’s just an old road, Gwenn.” He barely protests, but the dusk approaching stops him in his tracks. “It might be safer. Let’s make haste, before the night falls upon thee.”

“Me? What about you?” She complains but barely puts any emphasis on it, as she moves into the tunnel. It’s barely lit, with nothing but a lift going down into the heart of the mines underneath. 

She can feel the call, the pull. 

“We’re going down.” She murmurs a simple spell onto her glintstone bracelet before shifting her hand as the eerie blue magic focuses on her palm, creating something akin to a small bright star that floats delicately over them, lighting up the entire room. 

She steps onto the lift but before she can encourage him in, he activates the lever next to it, sending her down. 

“Margit!” She chastises more than screams after him, as she crosses her hands over her chest. 

She doesn’t get to say much more, however, as he jumps into the shaft and lands with a heavy thud onto the floor behind her. “Gwenndolen.” He acknowledges her so nonchalantly it makes her giggle. 

So he thinks he’s funny.

She could see it now, the little speck of Grace dancing like a flame next to some abandoned crates and bags, at a side of the tunnel. Nothing seems to be around close enough to worry about, even if there are clearly sounds of movement deeper down. It looks good enough to rest, to rejuvenate her, to stop for now.

She moves to it, getting the side of the wall next to it free of random items before pulling a bag down to sit on it. It feels like sand, or of something similar, inside. 

“Can you see it?” She asks softly. “The golden light?”

“What light, girl?” He comes closer, clearly trying to follow her eyes, blind to the eerie golden hue.

She doesn’t think about it; just reaches out and holds him by one finger, pulling his hand on top of the golden specks. Grace dances in his palm, illuminating it gold, in contrast with the blue light of her starlight; she can see small scars dwindling, being absorbed. It cannot undo all of his old wounds, but it’s touching him, choosing him. 

“What is this?” He seems hypnotized, like a child upon seeing the stars for the first time. 

Gwenn cannot tell how much he’s aware of. “What do you see, Margit?” She doesn’t realize her hand is still on his, fingers caressing his from knuckle to tip silently, tenderly. “What can you feel?”

“It’s… warm. Light.” He looks up to meet her eyes. “Is this…?”

“That’s what Grace feels like. You can’t see it?” He shakes his head so subtly she can barely make it up. “It’s touching you, enveloping you, it’s…” She giggles. She doesn’t know why: there’s something relieving, something fulfilling about it all. Like a blessing. 

“Is this what moves thee, what… what keeps thy soul alive?”

She nods. “What grants me- us, I guess- the power and the life and… It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Just as is. No calls or missions: just the blessing of life flickering into your hand like a living flame.” She talks without noticing, her eyes fixed on his greyish skin licked golden. 

“Living flame, huh?” 

His hand barely curls, turning up for hers to rest on his. It takes them a while to notice, to pull apart. 

“I shall ensure the tunnel is safe for thee. Prithee, make thyself comfortable, for we have much to walk in the morning.” He gets up before she can protest, his cane echoing in the depths of the tunnel as he gets engulfed in the darkness. 

“But you need to eat something…” She murmurs, already alone.

She has felt it, but never paid attention before now: he’s all sharp muscle, lean and powerful and still his ribs poke out of his skin like a stray dog. The furs he wears make him look bigger than his own close to famished state. She can't help but wonder if there’s something of religious intent in it, in fasting the way he must be doing, or if it’s a consequence of Leyndell’s awful treatment of his kind. In any case, she knows he will fight her tooth and nail if she tries to force him to eat with her, calling it pity or whatnot. She’ll have to be smart, she’ll have to be resilient. 

But most of all, she’ll have to be stubborn and bothersome. The way she best knows how. 

But for now, a snack of whatever she managed to fit into her satchel and a nice fire is enough. He’ll come down and rest next to her, hopefully, and tomorrow will be a new day. 

Something inside of her cannot wait for the morning to come. 

Chapter Text

Morgott stays up, sitting upright against the tunnel walls, staring at her as she barely stirs in her sleep. 

He’s spent his night in the tunnels, eliminating any threat that he could find. He did so to fulfill his word, to protect her, not because he needed the space in between them, the touch of her still lingering on him. The warmth of the golden light wrapped around his fingers like threads of fine gold still resonates on his skin like a phantom touch. 

The pads of her fingers, her delicate fingernails running up and down the side of his hand like it was a habit, burned even hotter.

He can't understand how he managed to be here, in between all of this, hunting the head of praetor Rykard at last. He knows he has to; he was going to one day, when the armies were strong enough and his recusants would fall like fragile, uneven bricks trying to pick up the ruins of a house that should have never been to begin with. 

Morgott resisted the attacks from General Radahn when he was still more than a carcass driven by rot and hunger, and protected Leyndell and the Ertdtree from any conqueror and pillager, named or otherwise, that came barging through its doors. And yet, he stilled his hand at the praetor's troops, knowing his own city needed him more than any admiration seeking quest.

Until she came along. A soft small thing, shivering under her own cloak wrapped tight around her as she curls and stirs in the cart she took as a makeshift bed. Something must be bothering her, bouncing around in her dreams like an irritating gnat, making her frown in her sleep. 

It’s somehow too captivating to look away; it’s nothing, just a woman bundled up into a tight cocoon, in deep slumber, but he cannot convince himself to look away.

He has meticulously and anxiously tended the Erdtree for so long, nervous of turning his very back on it, and yet he's more comfortable doing that than looking away from her for more than a second

Why does he even care anyway?

Just one girl, one more tarnished that found her road entangled with his, and for some reason decided to braid them both together. Quite insistently, at that.

She seems to refuse anything but, to find time and time again more intricate ways to step on his toes, to talk back at him, to stretch his patience paper thin. 

Why is he so unable to refuse her, then? As much as he wants to, the idea of being around her, of seeing her blossom into her own power, to watch her shine like the golden leaves as she dumps her rage and her irritation onto him and comes out lighter from the exchange, pure as the clear mountain springs, pulls him to her like a magnet.

He needs not do anything: just sit there for her, make a sound here or there to make sure she knows he’s listening, and the trick is done. He does good.

Somehow, he’s found the way. Or It found him, more like. 

He’s done the right thing as much as he knew how, at every step. From denying himself of the closeness that might bring others to the aim of his own curse, to spending every single hour protecting the Erdtree and the capital; if his waking hours weren’t enough, he’d borrow from the rest. Exhaustion and starvation weren’t enough hurdles for his holy mission to be interrupted. 

And yet, he’s always felt he’s been doing the right things. Doing right. Not good.

He’s still an Omen, a cursed creature; a terrible truth runs into his veins, a sentence he cannot shake, and no matter what he does, he cannot do good. 

But to her he does, somehow. 

It’s a spell he can’t decipher, and it burns into his mind like a branding iron, marking him with a writing he cannot recognize. 

It’s terrifying, in a way. It still feels like a pressure bursting out of his chest, filling him up and still asking for more. 

Morgott reaches out for where he remembers the dancing specks of gold were, finding them after a bit of going back and forth; the soft warmth, like midday sunlight, shine over his greyish skin, the silver white hairs over his hands.

Why would she ever let hands like these touch her, hold her out of harm’s way, shoot up to her as if he couldn’t crush her in a miscalculated attempt?

Why does it feel like she keeps trying to? 

She touched him so softly, so curiously, and his breath froze in his throat. He stuttered (he’s too old to get flustered like a little child!) and she made no comment, just kept talking, caressing him as if it was as natural to her as beating was to her heart. 

He can’t help but wonder how her heart sounds, fluttering in her chest like a hummingbird, or calm and quiet and constant. 

He doesn’t even notice it until it happens, until his hand leaves the safety of Grace to feel the warmth radiating from her instead, curled tight against herself. It must be cold; he can barely feel the bite of winter, but compared to her the cave is as chilled as the dead. Large, calloused fingers caress her forehead, moving the strands of hair that loosened from her braids from her face. 

She barely reacts, scrunching her nose as the hair tickles her face; she hurriedly rubs it against the edge of her cloak to stop her sudden itch. 

It’s adorable. 

It makes him want to wake her up, to ask, to-

He falls back onto his haunches, crossing his legs and putting as much distance as he can from the cart.

Still, he can’t stop watching. Just in case, just to make sure.

He promised she would be safe.

He doesn’t feel the sun coming up.

Gwenn wakes up more sore than she’d expected, even when she knew an abandoned cart wouldn’t be the most comfortable sleep in her lifetime; the cold had still seeped through her makeshift covers and made her body tense up and shiver during the night. 

It’s not the worst thing in the world anyway; nothing a quick stretch can’t fix. She gets up on her feet, pulling her arms up and reaching as far up as she can, feeling the tension releasing and her joints crack and loosen. 

Her stomach wakes up with her, complaining almost as soon as she can start getting the feeling back into her legs; her trousers were thick fabric, her boots robust leather, and still the cave’s whistling cold finds its way in, making her shiver to the core. She has brought some provisions; they’re hardly enough but she figured they could hunt something out of the mountain, forage once they’re on their way back. For now she unpacks simple grain, flour, and fruit preserves, sealed in tight jars, a cloth bag of tea and Erdtree flower buds, and decides to make breakfast. She takes a step to the imposing figure Margit is even in the shadows of the cave, even curled into a sitting position, his cane on his lap and his fur obscuring most of his frame, before she notices the stillness, the silence. 

There’s nothing but a soft whistle, a quiet sigh every now and then, a stir of the fingers. 

He’s asleep. Soundly asleep enough that he doesn’t seem to notice her staring up at him, his brow unfurrowed for once, calm, his expression so soft even behind the toughness of scars and growths. 

Gwenn almost reaches up to him, but stops herself before touching him. She better not interrupt him; she has never seen him so relaxed. 

She makes herself busy, kneading dough and making a makeshift oven out of stones boxing her pastries for her summoned fire to bake them; her thick leather gloves let her manipulate them, opening the vault to check on their baking. It’s a bit of a racket, but he still doesn’t seem to wake up until the tea is ready, for some strange reason.

He’s always been so enamored with the glory of the Erdtree that she’s not surprised the warm perfumed smell of its flowers wakes him up. 

“Morning, Margit. Come, come.” She cradles a steaming cup in her hand, presenting it to him. It is dwarfed by his hands, and he’s still like the dead as he stares at it, as if he was holding some miracle of magic. She laughs. “It’s just tea, you can try it.”

“We’re not here for a cozy picnic in the mountains, Gwenn.” He protested, his voice low and raspy from sleep. He still doesn't let go of the cup.

Gwenn swallows hard before she replies; her mind goes blank for a second, trying to process what he said instead of just how he said it. 

Has he always sounded so…?

“No, we’re going into battle. We need to eat properly.” She reaches out to put her hands over his, encouraging him to lift the cup up to his lips. “The Erdtree flowers have healing properties, and are invigorating. Rowa fruits steady any simple ailment and provide mild analgesic relief.” She adds, gesturing at the freshly made pastries. “It’s not frivolous, Margit.”

He wants to fight her, to keep fighting her; she can see it in the sudden tension of his shoulders, on the way his fingers clasp tightly around the hot drink as she touches him. He still takes a deep breath, sighs, and then gives in, tasting the tea. It’s sweet; she can tell from the face he makes. He must only drink the most bitter awful things in the name of duty or whatever it is. 

He still gives it a moment and then sips at it again. 

That’s a victory in her book. 

Yet when she offers a pastry to him, baked into golden yet soft pillowy dough with a tart sweet filling, he gets up with a stiff huff to put distance in between them. “Do not tug at the rope thou might have gotten in thy favour: it might just snap in thy hands.” 

Ah. Yes, that’s the Margit she knows. It’s both a relief to see him again and a little sad to see the starstruck soft man she shared her night with. 

The sensation of his rough hands underneath hers as she ran her fingers over his, trying to memorize every cut and fold and scar, still felt tattooed upon her skin. She could have tried to scratch a bark free of its pattern and it wouldn’t feel as vivid and this did, as his body around her did, when he held her to his chest as if she were the most precious thing. 

She’s had embraces like it before, not only from her infant child but her roommate too, in the lonely nights, and before that… And still, her mind only compares it with that of the sweetest man she’s ever known, the man that would have given anything, has given everything to her; the man she saw bleed out in her arms. 

She shoves a pastry into her mouth, packing up her mess before carefully tying the rest of the still warm food into a carian blue fabric with the crest emblazoned on it that once held the glintstone jewelry the Queen had offered to her. Margit waits patiently, barely glancing back at her from time to time. 

He still sips at his tea. It still feels special. 

Soon enough she holds out her hands and he gives the cup back, holding it by the rim, as if he was avoiding contact with her. 

She frowns for only a second, but decides against mentioning it. 

“Well, where to now?”

“Now, you impulsive little brat,” He started so slowly with that half asleep voice that somehow can make her something inside her coil and burn hotter; she holds her bag closer to her body, it’s reassuring, in a way. Anything is better than the touch with her own skin, flushed red and bright as the lava inside the mountain. “We climb the ravine thou hast so intelligently jumped into.”

His belligerence always feels like a safe place. 

She grins in a way that someone who doesn't know her very well could consider diabolical. “Let’s, then.” She pulls her arms up like a child. “Take me up?”

He groans but she doesn’t let him reject her just yet. “I know, I know, rope snaps, but what other option do you see?”

Margit looks up and down and far into the depths of the ravine: he’s apt to go up such steep inclines, even with barely any footing at all in the rock, but she doesn’t have the expertise nor the strength to do such a thing. She’s a warrior, full fledged and trained by him in the arts of holy incantations, and yet, she’s still a small woman that handles flat surfaces much better than walls of stone and moss. 

He sighs again. It’s becoming a thing, it seems. She adds it to the many noises he makes instead of having to talk his thoughts out. 

He grabs one of her hands, whipping her into his embrace and up his chest as his arm curls behind her lower back, keeping her effortlessly in place. Her long chocolate hair hasn’t been braided still, so preoccupied with setting something for them both to share, that the mere stick she accommodates into it to keep it in a low bun at the back of her head flies off and wild locks spread over his shoulder as she takes a hold of his neck. 

If she does or does not nuzzle the tight, hot skin where his pulse resonates like festival drums against her, no one but her can tell. 

He tightens his hold, lowering himself before jumping straight up at such ridiculous heights that she hides into the crook of his neck instead of looking down.

Chapter Text

He can feel his pulse underneath his fingernails, as if his accursed blood was trying to finally leave his body, pushing through his skin. 

He can hear nothing as intensely as his own heartbeat beating into his ears.

No, that's not true.

Morgott can hear hers, fluttering like a hummingbird, accelerating at every leap across wide gaps in between the hills, settling down a moment after; he could find a melody in the way her breath fluctuates, the way she sighs against the crook of his neck.

His muscles are so tense he's impressed they haven't missed their landing and fallen into the abyss just yet. 

When the mouth of the volcano finally opens up before them, he lets Gwenn down to stretch her legs. The lava nearby makes the atmosphere sticky hot, suffocating, and the memory of her body splayed flat against his, as if she was trying to cover as much of him as possible, still burns even hotter. 

She sighs and stretches up to the sky the second he lets her go. Her fair forehead is starting to get speckled by tiny droplets of sweat, her hair sticking to her bare neck and her scent more powerful, almost dizzyingly so. 

This quest he set himself on is about to be the death of him, he's sure.

“I can’t go down there if it’s so awfully hot already!” Gwenn whines, pulling her thick leather gloves off with her teeth; she whips her head around but her hair barely moves, damp and stubborn. 

She tears her cloak off her shoulders with more force than it is needed, folding it carefully to then hang it over the satchel over her shoulder.

She groans again, and Morgott can’t help but scoff. 

“What is it now, girl?” He feels himself growing older as he speaks, his companion missing her daughter for sure, given she behaves like a little child, huffing and pulling her sleeves back before giving up and…

“It’s so damn hot!” She complains again, this time undoing her belt and ripping off her layers until she’s left on her undergarment and trousers, her clothes this time balled up without a care and thrown angrily inside her bag.

It’s Morgott’s time to huff. “We’re going into battle, Gwenn; art thou planning to avoid each and every blow aimed at thee?” He’s frustrated, yes, but by more than her own ridiculous recklessness, for the way his own gaze shifts towards her and the way the cream colored fabric is so thin and worn out he can guess at the color of her skin underneath, the curves the loose clothing doesn’t follow, like a sculpture behind a smoked window. He wants to look away, and every time he lets his guard down for a second he finds himself staring at the way her waist contorts and her hips sway even through her tantrum.

“Yes! At least I won’t roast before we get there!” She sounds so annoyed he almost steps back; she pulls her hair around her fist to pin it into a bun at the back of her head with the same chopsticks he’s seen her cook with the night before. She’s resourceful, he’ll give her that.

That’s better than admitting the way his mouth goes dry at the sight of her slender neck, small strands still sticking to her skin insistently, and how could he blame them, if she looks so soft and delicate. She’d be so pliant under his hands, her smell so sweet, her presence so warm…

He walks past her, his mind focused on not looking behind him, but before him the scenery is not much better: 

The edge drops down sharply onto terrible edges and fiery magma, licking the rock like a furious sea; at the other end, the manor stands tall in between the fire and the doom of the innards of the mountains, protected by snakes and terrible contraptions and the always looming presence of its master. 

Oh, Morgott is not happy to have to see praetor Rykard in the flesh, not if the rumours of him feasting on his enemies is true. 

Not with her by his side, stealing every ounce of fortitude he’s got, frolicking like a little butterfly amongst the hot rocks, dancing without even trying to, as if her body was called towards grace, towards the weightlessness of fallen leaves and the sweet nectars of just blossomed buds. 

By the light of the Erdtree, he needs to find his composure again. He’s not a mindless animal. 

She might be seriously hurt if he doesn’t compose himself soon, and that is something he will not forgive himself, whether he understands why or not. 

She stops swirling around, inspecting every weed and insect she can find crawling  around the pebbles to come closer to him soon enough. “What’s wrong- oh.” Her voice fades as she sees the sudden drop, the abyss before them, nothing but shadow and sharp stone and molten death. 

Morgott can hear her heart lifting, accelerating like the wings of a tiny bird desperate to flee; he can see her breath stop for a second before she looks at him, yet she says nothing. She doesn’t have to: dread shades the golden light of her eyes. 

“We can go around somewhere.” Her voice is small, almost a plea: he won’t jump, and he certainly won’t let her either.

“No more stunts with your phantom accomplice?” He taunts her, and even though his voice gives no hint, Gwenn smirks after a second, playing offense.

“Hey, Torrent deserves all the high praise!” She crosses her arms over her chest and the fabric cinches around her waist in such a way Morgott can’t help but think of how he could hold her middle in his hands and the tips of his fingers could probably touch.

He swallows hard. 

“He’s incredibly loyal and I’m a terrible, terrible rider.” She laughs and it sounds like the skies open up over them, and only them.

He rolls his eye and looks at the other side of the mountain. They could go around, but it would take so awfully long and drain their strength; he cannot let their possibilities dwindle. 

Even at the cost of his sanity. 

“What thou art, little knight, is a whimsical twinkle footed child.” He barely pays attention to his own words, readying himself for what comes next.

“Nay, come hither.” He steels himself before he reaches an arm up for her, offering the space she so comfortably curled up against before. 

It was maddening even through layers of clothing, intoxicating before she was drenched in sweat, shimmering and panting just from standing in such scorching heat. Now Morgott fears he might lose his head altogether, but he has to keep her safe: that is his priority, his only real goal. 

How she managed to get them both into the literal mouth of a volcano is frankly outstanding. 

She hesitates, but still approaches him, little by little, as if he were to take the offer back at any point. As if he wasn’t burning to touch her again, to feel her attached to him like a part of his own body, like an echo of his own heart, her breathing hot against his skin and her body clutching at every bit she could reach, fingers absentmindedly playing with the hair of his chest, the longer strands at the back of his head. 

He makes no move to dissuade her still, and she promptly jumps onto his embrace, her boots learning on his forearm to lunge herself onto the crook of his neck, her arms linking like a necklace around him. His hand splays open against her back, and the fabric in between feels like an excuse, a veil of modesty that does nothing to quench the fire coiling inside of him, threatening to consume him.

His tail swishes and whips, as his other hand clings onto his cane as if his life depends on it, because it very well could be: it is the only thing he knows tangible enough, safe enough to hold him like a lifeline to not drown into the confines of his own mind.

He breathes deep.

“Hold on.” He murmurs, and she curls into him tighter, her lips against the crook of his neck in a way he needs to tell himself it’s not a kiss over and over and he leaps into the void.

The molten fire licks the stone like a rageful sea, wanting to swallow it all. 

Gwenn refuses to look up: the moment Margit’s feet leave the ground, her heart sinks into her stomach, and her head feels light yet suffocatingly trapped. It’s the void underneath them, the excruciating pressure of the heat pushing onto the sides of her head, the change from lead heavy to weightless as Margit jumps and leaps and climbs the rocks. One bounce over a sharp edge and his tail whips against it, yanking them forward; the menacing protrusion sinks like glass against the brute force of the tail’s horns. One jump and his knees sink down, her insides mixing into a knot before they stretch out again as he rises effortlessly, covering an impressive distance at every step. 

Her body hates it, being pulled and pushed around by gravity but the hand flat against her back keeps her in place, almost sitting her onto his forearm as he crushes her against his chest. 

It's reassuring, somehow. The sound of his rushing heart, of his breath becoming shallower as the effort slowly but surely gets to him; still, the warmth of him felt nothing like the stale claustrophobic air around them, the soft feather-like touch of his fur barely covering the sheer firm muscle underneath.

She can't really remember what it was like to be held like this; she only slept this closely with her daughter, and her house companion, but Margit feels nothing like them. Not only because he envelops her as if she was merely palm sized, but because his closeness makes her own chest beat like mad, her hands insisting on never letting go.

The tenderness of him just gazing at her fingers traveling across his still lingers in her mind; one solitary moment of vulnerability where there was no warrior, no guardian, no monster. Just a man curious, intrigued, and the touch so delicate she could just have imagined it, were it not for that fact that she can feel every line of his knuckles under the pads of her fingers if she tries. 

Margit carries her through slithering tunnels that open in fiery cascades and bright threatening landscapes; she curls deeper into the crook of his neck, protecting her nose from the sulfur and smoke in the air, breathing him in deeper than the poison around her. 

She clutches him tighter at every inhale. It's captivating, enthralling to a point that she doesn't have the time nor the courage to decipher. 

Soon enough he stops, his head up as they stay impossibly still, dead silent. His tail swishing the heavy air around is the only thing cutting through the feeling of death floating around them like a knife; the air feels slightly damp but still too heavy, clinging to them. 

He softens his brutal grip on her but she doesn’t budge. He holds his breath when she nuzzles against his neck. “I don’t wanna,” she whines and she knows it; it helps Gail get everything she wants, so why wouldn’t it get her mother one more minute in the reprise of Margit’s embrace? “You smell nice.”

Gwenn knows how silly, how odd that sounds; he proves her right when he scoffs and drops her onto the ground like an undesirable baggage. 

The rock is too hard even against her terribly thick trousers. She still crosses her legs and her arms like a pouty child. “Rude!” She wants to sound serious but the way he looks at her makes her giggle almost instantly. Yes, she’s being ridiculous, but it is almost always because his reaction to it, so done with it and still patiently waiting for her to snap out of it, is absolutely hilarious. 

She wouldn’t push his buttons so much if it wasn’t so funny.

Before them there’s a wide set of stairs leading to an open doorway, as menacing as it is breathtaking: carved into the face of the mountain, the red lights and pews stretch as far as the eye can see and only make the sensation of dread worsen. 

Much more so, when the shiver Gwenn feels crawling up her back nestles at the back of her mind, looming over her like a well known predator. 

She takes a step towards the stairs but Margit stops her, placing himself in front of her to shield her. 

“Whatever fiend lies at that altar, it is born out of something cursed and rotten.” He murmurs as if it was a prayer, a conviction that didn’t need to be heard. 

Her hand goes to Moonveil’s handle; the shiver of metal lets her know she’s trembling. Her whole body is tense, ready to run, to fight her way through whatever waits for her as long as the ghost over her shoulder lets her go. 

If Margit notices, he doesn’t let it show. 

As they come close, she finds herself retreating behind him, her feet light but hesitant, expecting something out of a nightmare.

She hears a gasp, and feels the Grace running across his arm to form a spear around his closed fist as the sound reaches her. Something like flesh meeting the ground, being crushed wetly against heavy weight; the faint swish of a blade too thin, too fast; that and the dull smell of withered flowers along with pulsating, rotting skin makes her stomach turn inside out, makes her mind scream.

She knows it. Whatever that thing is, she knows it and she’s been hoping never to find it again. 

Margit glances back at her for merely a second before his left hand reaches for her arm, yanking her off his back and onto the pews. The monster doesn’t get to glance at her before it becomes a target of Margit’s fury, shooting himself at it like a weapon, with a grace befitting a dancer and the bloodthirstiness of a beast. 

A sword clashes against his cane; he roars before coming back into the battle. The… thing he’s fighting is covered in bulbous, rippling skin, greyed and dead and swollen. It drops onto the ground and rolls around him, but Margit summons a light as bright as the Erdtree itself, no, a constellation over his head, that falls in the shape of a multitude of daggers, piercing through his foe as if it was the prey for a feast. It rises from the ground in clear pain, staggering, and still its figure feels imposing, obscured by a cloak and hood that covers it in its entirety made out of pulled skin and stolen faces. 

She can’t watch. Something in the black flames spewing from him makes her retch, tremble as if in sickness; something about its sounds, its smells… It brings something from the back of her mind she thought buried for good, safe away from her. The memories of a hot sun and chanting and dancing, so much chanting over the crackling of bonfires, the stench of burning bodies, the screams of the ones still alive, peeled like fruit while they writhe and agonize under the cold unyielding blade. 

She doesn’t realize how the fight goes; too trapped in her own mind, she only listens to the clashing of weapons, see the lights above her but nothing else. The torments awakening her memories fill a space much bigger, threatening to take hold of every bit of her thoughts. 

Yet a voice says her name. She hasn’t heard it in so long. He’s a singer, she knew the second she heard him for the first time. Anyone could notice the tender melody of his tone. He asks for her name and it sounds like a serenade coming out of his mouth. 

He touches her shoulder and it’s… strange. Warm, relieving, like the kiss of a blanket left in the sun draped over her back, too big to be his but it had to be, right? He’s right there, her life and heart, her light in the dark, her…

“Gwenndolen! Wake up!” Her eyes lock onto something, like the Erdtree, shining down on her. 

No. Not quite. 

The hands shake her out of her stupor. Small pools of Grace float against the ceiling like stars, looking down at them. The man that was beside her is no more, and Margit takes his place, his brow creased in worry. 

Where was she? There was grass, and fires all over, and windmills on the horizon and…

“Margit?” She yawns without even noticing. 

Where was she?

“We need to move, Gwenn, onto thy feet!” He urges her on, offering his hand but the first step she takes she stumbles; her legs keep trembling like a baby deer’s, unable to hold her up. 

She says nothing, only looking up at him with something terrible enough in her eyes for him not to insist. 

Instead he pulls her against him, his arm wrapping under her thighs to push her up enough to drape her over his shoulder; she holds onto him for dear life, curling and clinging to anything she can reach as if the earth would swallow her if she ever dared to fall. 

Even through his haste, he doesn't run. His strides are long and sure, out of the temple and onto the molten rock, crossing the current as if it was a mere river. Gwenn thinks she can hear him grit his teeth, tightening his jaw after every step, but her head is still fuzzy and the permeating relentless heat does nothing to alleviate it. Something inside of her snapped and it won’t come back down now, threatening to drown her. She whimpers without even noticing; his hand travels up to her back, holding her tighter. 

Margit’s here. She can breathe; he’s all around her, holding her. He’s here he’s here he’s here-

She barely notices the balcony before he activates the portal in front of it and a flash of light engulfs the little bit left of her focus. 

Chapter Text

Gwenn seems to be somewhere else still, even with her eyes open and her hands clutching at him for dear life. She responds to movement and to his voice, somewhat, but not enough to lift the weight inside his stomach that he keeps trying to swallow down. 

She will be fine. She wasn’t even touched in battle, she doesn’t look hurt, and yet. Something feels much worse than a seeping wound. 

The portal brings them to the depths of a cave, the stench of death and rotten flesh coming from the opening into a much bigger chamber. The sound of slithering and the splintering of bones tells him they’re in the right place, if it wasn’t enough with Morgott’s own Great Rune resonating within his chest with the light of its peer. 

Praetor Rykard. He could never understand how such a thing became a shard bearer, if it was a blessing from Queen Rennala the mad woman herself or just stolen in the midst of the maelstrom that was the Shattering; either way, its power along with the Devourer of Gods has made a fearsome enough opponent of him that Morgott hasn’t tried to come down himself to uproot his entire diseased dynasty from the lands. 

Still, even though he knows the priority should be elsewhere, his mind is too preoccupied to care about the stench, the suffocating air around them, the menacing presence at the other side of the cave. He turns to Gwenn and she barely moves from his embrace, reaching an arm towards an unassuming corner of the cave. 

Could it be..?

He follows her arm, stretching his hand out, and soon enough his fingertips glisten with dancing particles of golden light floating around them. Grace. Again, she’s found Grace, even without her wits about her. 

What a woman full of wonders the tarnished wanderer ended up being. 

He kneels and she all but slides off him, her legs still weak and trembling, her eyes unfocused; he doesn’t move for the longest time, his arms outstretched close to her in case she were to tumble back and fall. 

She wobbles until her hand touches the wall, turns to slide down it and laughs. It’s almost mocking, offensive: she laughs in such a bitter manner it hurts to witness. 

It rapidly transforms as she pulls her knees closer and hides her face behind them; the shaking of her shoulders draws a clear picture even when she’s surely biting her lip, trying to be silent. 

She’s crying. Sobbing so violently she trembles like a leaf. 

“Gwenn.” Morgott sits before her, the warmth of Grace enveloping them, making the atmosphere a little less corrupted, a little less ominous. “Gwenn, I am at a loss. Prithee, what must I do?” His voice is softer than he’s heard it in millenia, without even thinking about it; something inside him wants to snap, to free itself and sink within her, to join her in her despair. To take her sorrow from the inside and crush it like ripe fruit. 

“Sorry.” Her voice is barely a thread, devoid of her usual joy and spring to it. Whatever took it shall see a vengeance far worse that he has gotten the chance to deliver so far, even if it burns the last of his sanity with it. She’s smiling, he can hear it, but there’s nothing but trembling bitterness in her tone. “I didn’t even make it to- I don’t know. I’m sorry- I’m better than this.”

He stumbles upon his words. How could he even start? To embrace her, to dry her tears, to hold her so tightly that whatever took a hold of her can no longer have space to breathe. Morgott stills, opening and closing his mouth without finding the right thing to say; instead, he lets a hand fall tentatively upon her hair. Once she doesn’t move, her shoulders relaxing slightly, he pets her delicately, as if she could run off from him if he tried too hard. 

The air is thick; the silence penetrates everything for what feels like a lifetime. Her waves are soft, having escaped from her makeshift updo to cascade messily down her shoulders, covering her face further; he has to physically stop himself from pulling her closer, from enveloping her fully, from eliminating every last bit of space in between them. 

He doesn’t have to. 

The second she moves his hand flinches back; she looks up with reddened eyes and sprints, colliding against his chest and circling him as much as her little arms can reach; the sharp intake of breath decides for him and by the time he notices he’s lifted her up off the ground and clutch her tight against his chest, her head underneath his chin and his tail curling around him, as if he could make a bubble around them where nothing can harm her. 

He so wishes he could. 

Time passes and he only listens to her quietly recovering her breath, her hands furling and unfurling on his chest, her hair bleeding across his arms, her heart an insistent rapid hammering against his own. When she finally looks up her face is pink, traced with tears, and yet she’s smiling. 

“I must sound like the craziest girl you’ve ever met.” Her voice trembles, but finally sounds alive again. Sounds like her again. Morgott’s chest finally moves again, he finally breathes, relieved; she’s back, somehow he hasn’t lost her to an enemy he can’t even understand.

“Thou hast been nothing but a strange creature since the day we met.” He means well and still his words sound venomous; it's a habit, or a poor choice of words. In any case, it makes her giggle for some reason. 

“Have I?” She turns to sit on his forearm, resting her head on his chest; his heart races, and the idea she could be listening so closely only makes it worse. Still, the air feels lighter, easy to breathe through. “I don’t know what any of that was, I’m sorry.” She finally concedes after a pause. “If you were expecting a detailed briefing-”

“Art thou wounded?” He interrupts quickly. It’s the only way he can show his interest is where it needs to be; he shall not trouble her further about a nightmare she can’t even peek through without dying for a moment. 

Witnessing her so inert was, was-

“No, Margit, I’m fine. I don’t even think you actually needed me here!” She laughs, and Morgott can tell that grin is there for him, to ease him as if he were a child, but for once he doesn’t have the heart to take offense. “I did need you there, however.” Her voice softens and his catches, stuttering hopefully briefly enough she can't notice. “Thank you, Margit.”

He wants to scoff, to tell her how naive she was, coming here as if she can take on the world alone, but that she knows, he can tell. “I’m only following my word, Gwenn.”

“And your word saved my life. So thank you.”

This time he looks away, unsure of what to say; his fingers fidget, caressing the soft touch with incredible tenderness before he notices the curve of her back, the dip of her spine underneath his fingertips, and suddenly stops. 

Gwenn, instead of running from his embrace, closed her hand around his thumb to pull him back against her. “It was… strange.” She talks as if she was still in trance: her eyes glance over him, every point of contact in between them, her clothes soaked through with sweat and her lively pink flushed skin contrasting against his ashen grey. He gives in, his palm molding to her, and she nuzzles against him. He feels his heart pounding as if it was trying to jump into her hands. “It was sunny, full of flowers, and people were nice.. for a while.” Morgott doesn’t dare interrupt; whatever it is, she clearly needs it out of her. He better not disrupt her daydreaming, even when her fingers playing absentmindedly with the hairs on his chest makes him bite his tongue to not make a sound. 

“The smell, though, like burnt meat, and the sounds- when I could start making words out of the crying, I, I-” She curls tighter against him, her own knees touching her chest, but he pulls her back; she still holds her legs close, peering up at him with big round eyes like a child scolded. 

The flower fields. The smell. The screaming. The godskin noble.

She wasn’t hurt in the temple, no, she remembered. She knows them. 

“Where was this?” His voice is too sharp, his tone too demanding, and he knows, but there’s nothing he can do: he never considered himself a man of soft manners. “Gwenn, where?”

“I don’t know!” She flinched, “I was taken, he said it was safe, we were about to have a child, it had to be-” 

We.

Gwenn talked. A lot, in fact. She’d find time during her days almost every day to find him and talk until his mind was buzzing with words he couldn’t follow anymore. She loved talking. But never about him.

Her child’s father. 

How could she, if this is what she remembers of him?

He doesn’t know every corner where the godskin cult lives yet, but he knows one at least, one way too close to him for comfort. “Were there windmills?” He asks, almost frantic.

She nods as he loosens his grasp on her shoulder enough for her to hide against him again.

He makes a mental note to never ask about him again. Not if this is what he gets in return: a frightened, broken shell of the light as a butterfly, strong and bullheaded woman he… he…

“Your heart is going so fast.” She mentions with a soft, worried tone and a hand on his chest. 

If she keeps looking at him so tenderly- he diverts his eye toward anything but her. 

“We still have a duty.” He says as solemnly as he can, given he can’t listen to anything but the insistent drumming in his ears. He better not be blushing like a maiden, too. He’ll have so much to pray for, to cleanse from when he’s back- he cannot wait to be back. 

“Well, I cannot let you get in there so- so unwell.” She frowns and he can’t help but peek out of the corner of his eye: her arms cross in front of her as she pouts, her hair spilling over her shoulders. Adorable. 

Before he can protest, she lets her voice grow and echo round the small cave, flooding it like a typhoon, taking his own breath while her raises. 

Run river red, run red

Run red river run home and back again

Run river red, run red

Run red river run home and back again

Run, river, make me shiver

Make me cold and make me stay here

Make me want to catch my breath and fill that breath with water

Cold but warming, feel me squirming

Push me under, cure the hurting

Make it slow but soon an ending comes when I relax.

Once she’s done, he’s in awe, completely still, mesmerized. 

He’s battled sorcerers, he’s been paralyzed and poisoned, and put to sleep. But this feels like none and all at once. 

The enchantress pulls him in, closes him within her fist, within the magician in her voice. 

The woman, however, pulls away from him, stands up and offers her tiny hand to him. 

“Better?” She asks in such a childlike tone that something inside of him resonates with it like a tuning fork.

“Aye.” He barely hears his own voice. 

She stretches her other hand, and Grace takes hold of her fist, before elongating into a spear in his hand. 

She’s learned well. 

“Well, then,” She grins, and there’s no stench of death that could ever obscure that grin, “Let’s make the Devourer of Gods choke.”