Luna
Fourteen bottles lay beside the two of them, as a circle of warriors had grown out of the disparaging results of the festival's activities this far. Fourteen failures to end the grand general Radahn.
The group had called it a night after the last attempt as the castle thankfully had a charm that allowed warriors in the festival to reform in seconds at a grace near the entrance. It did much to ensure they did not leave this world for so long as would normally happen to tarnished and the strange knight alike, but did little to quell the pain of repeated failure.
It was as if they had decided to encroach on a wall of pure steel, only to have it punch them back. Arrows that seemingly never ended and magic that brought the sky itself in descent on their charges made the approach alone a daunting task. By now they had chosen to rest and try again later, and the knight by now was drunker than she had memories to spare for.
Around the fire that night was a gentleman pot, an Alexander. A towering figure at nearly 4 meters who was a massive, sentient urn with four limbs made of more unfinished chunks of dry clay made to resemble human limbs. He had told stories of his great pursuits and battles, and that tomorrow he would cement his legacy by being the one to fell the late general Radahn. His stories gave the knight hope for this world, and the kind of inspiration that thought gave. He did not dream of glory it seemed for glory's sake, but to bring that glory home to his people and his village. A selfishness may dwell in it, but when such ideas are taken and spurred towards good use, could anyone truly ask one for more?
On another log was the kindly Blaidd. A towering half wolf man, clad in wolf furs and black armor, and shadow she had learned to the lady Ranni. A powerful witch who lived beyond Liurnia, and likely would be important to keep good relations with as even Melina had mentioned her. The man himself however was a gentle soul who seemed to see killing as merely the end to a good life. He was not the executioner, but the Mercy Bringer in his mind. He had the heart of a wolf, yet tried clearly to wield it like a knight, and it made the drunken moon knight smile.
There were others in this battle, but they tended to keep among themselves. The knight knew cooperation would be key, but forcing any alliances faster than needed would only harm their goals.
After a while, the others had begun to scatter to their own resting places while the knight stayed by the fire and grace.
Beside her, half laying against the knight was her ward. The dear Queen Marika, disguised as a pauper Priestess. She was absolutely hammered by this point, so far beyond flush herself that even her breath had begun to smell of grapes by the second bottle's opening.
"Thish ish geeting ridulsh..." She trailed off, half drooling against the knight's armor.
"Yes... I.." hiccup, "agree.." answered the knight, more intoxicated than one would catch at a glance. Her endurance was a thing of sturdy talent, even if her somewhat adopted brothers could easily drink her under the table back home.
"Sho..." The queen mumbled out. "You... You are.." the knight listened, curious to where it was going. "You... Are sho... Pretty.." she said softly, a more reverent tone that threw the knight further off than she had anticipated.
"Quite kind words from one who often....hmm... What.. was i.." the knight tried to retort, only to lose the train of thought quickly. The liquor had done much to addle her thoughts.
"Do you .. find me... Pretty?"
Marika
The question left her lips before the consequences of it fully took root in her mind. She had long begun to ponder these questions in secret, but the mention of a wife had briefly stayed her ideas. Though, she had mentioned Wives as well, which left hope in the goddess's newly mortal heart.
She felt herself stiffen against the knight, the liquor sobering ever so briefly after her lips had finished speaking. It was not a pleasant kind of sober, either.
She had begun to wish she had kept her mouth shut. This silent pause left her inside turning into knots, and then the knight responded.
She spoke with a soft, conflicted, and admiring tone. "I do. Every cell of mine says I should find you repulsive for who you are. Yet when I see that soft, golden hair... How the wind sometimes catches it and makes it look like swaying golden wheat in the blue skies.. how those eyes make me picture the most pure of daylights, shining in the sky to a warm summer day. Even your voice, as callused as you can be, has this... This... This gentleness.."
Marika knew not what to say, even as her eyes began to water. These words were unheard of by her before. It had always been words of worship, glory, grace, or imbibing her with honeyed words for gifts. These words however, honey and sweet, also carried honesty. She did not speak of her as something to woo.
"The worst is whenever you finally do speak.. you sound like someone who loved her children very much. It almost sounds like the burden of the crown -"
"No... I... I have many regrets... But do not..." A sniffle," d-not gloriffy .. the l-liksh of me.." struggling to speak through her intoxicated state.
"Marika..."
It was quiet for a few moments as the Queen's hand slowly gripped the hauberk on the knight's chest. "You said my name..." It was almost a whisper of shock.
"..."
"You never -"
"Think nothing of it, My Golden Queen.."
Her eyes narrowed, as anger suddenly burned through her. "Think nothing?!" Sitting up in a sudden, if stumbling fury. "You just told me how, how..! Oh the ne-nerve!" Stumbling up to her feet, hand on her skirt as she tried to trudge off. She got about seven paces before the dirt won and she tumbled into the arms of her knight as she caught the drunken queen. "L-let g-go of me.." her hands pushed back, but there was no intent or presence behind it.
"..." The knight quietly ensured Marika stood properly, and then let go. The act left the queen a little fumbled and even more frustrated. Why couldn't she just behave like a lowborn or a selfish noble? Why was she being so chivalrous when her words whipped like poison against a woman of such gilded lineage. She had raised up an entire country from death and suffering, and she was being talked tk like a parent does a rather frustrating child
So why did every word this knight spoke hit her like either daggers to the heart, or music in her ear. It was a maddening dance.
"What in the name of the greater will is WRONG with you!??" She screamed, hands thrown behind her as if throwing her entire weight into the scream. It was a scream that had been built of conflicted feelings and total frustrations with her would-be savior who seemed practically dropped her out of the damned stars. She was bizarre and strong, charming and poisonous, focused and yet unable to stick to a single course. They had traveled all this way into Caelid when they were supposed to be beyond the walls of Stormveil, well into Liurnia or perhaps even ascended to the Atlus Plateua by now.
"Why is every part of you a living contradiction! Who are you?!" She yelled in a drunken, bold shriek.
"Be very careful with your questions here, my Queen.."
"Or what, what will you do?! Hurt me?? You do not know what kind of pain I live with! What weight sits upon my soul like acnhora daring to drag me beneath! I suffer every waking moment I continue to breathe!"
"You know nothing of real suffering."
"YOU KNOW NOT WHAT I HAVE SUFFERED!"
"I know the ledger all too well, My Queen." and the words were laced with venom.
The words struck her, making her step back as it truly hit her. She did not know why that seemed to hurt so badly, but this knight suggested to know the true extent... "T-that is not a funny jest..."
"Tell that to Messmer." The words sat heavy inside, and made every last wall of that urn she kept inside begin to crack. She felt it all threatening to come spilling out at the mention of his name.
"Get that name out of your mouth..."
"Or what, Your Grace?"
"... how dare you..." As she began to stomp off.
"... Marika.."
The queen froze, stopped in her tracks when she said her name. "You should only say a name with that kind of... That tone... With your wives.."
"I do."
She shook. Did this knight not know what she was doing, what turmoil she was stirring in her? Was it all a game? A trick?
"Is that why you are here?" She turned on her heel and began to march at the knight. "Are you here to seduce me, hm?? Some gambit of the greater will to teach me a lesson about obedience? I bet it has you poisoning my food and drink! That is why I have grown so reliant on it, on your cooking!" Her voice was angry, and furious, and so full of hurt.
"Marika.."
"All this time I had thought you had begun to, to care a about me! To even..." She stopped herself from daring to utter the word. It stood on the tip of her tongue like a sword of Damacles, daring her to set its string free.
"Please, Listen, I -"
"I will hear nothing from this, this stranger who has whisked me half across my own kingdom in filth and squaller all in the name of some mission she can not even tell me, nor an end I can even forsee! I am without my godhood, without all of my powers, without the voice of my God who has been with me for over a thousand years! I am... I am destitute and all I have to my name is a few, a Few rags! And a knight who can not follow an order if her life depended on it! You have no respect for authority, no discipline, no honor! And you! You!!! You... You have been so... Loyal..." She trailed off as her fury soon gave way to something else. "And I... I have not earned a drop of it... Yet our journey is still so.."
"Early." The knight added softly, quiet and barely about a whisper.
"Yes... So what... What... We barely even know one another yet.." she could not find the words for exactly what she intended to say. It all felt like crumbling sand as her thoughts raged against the dizzying effects of the liquor.
"Because I promised." She said with no small amount of finality. As if a promise was truly that vital of a thing.
"To whom exactly was this, oath made?"
"My mother. She sends me often on these kinds of... Let us call them missions."
"Your mother sounds like she is quite the deal disher."
"Wait until you meet my father, or my other mother."
"You have... W-wait, when I what?"
The Knight's cheeks then grew aflame as she turned with a scratching finger against her cheek towards the logs. "Depending on how you count adoption, I have six parents in total."
"I beg your pardon?!" The queen gasped, quickly forgetting her anger and marching further now to follow.
"Yes. I have multiple parents, some of varying degrees of blood relation."
"That is not at all what I inquired about my Knight," she was quick to interject, "I asked what you meant when you said that I was to meet them! That sounded dangerously close to a proposal in these lands."
"Well, I think you read too much into things." Sitting down on her log, trying to steer the conversation away.
"Ohhh I am sure you would like that to be the case. Tell me, is this how you proposed to your other wives?"
The knights blush turned so bright as to be crimson. "W... Well..."
"So why should I be seen as different?"
"Because they haven't met you, or even know you or this world exist most likely."
The answer did much to slow the queen's train of thought. So this knight had more than one lover, but there was a process to it. Not only that.. "Do... They know you are here...?
The knight slowly shook her head as she pulled the golden scarf over her mouth. "Mother was quite insistent to send me here before I had time to prepare. Part of the conditions."
"And those conditions are?"
"I would love to tell you."
"...Pardon?"
The queen sat down, now much more curious.
"Part of the conditions sort of... Wipe my memory as time went on after the first day or so. Not entirely, but any information that could compromise this place is washed away until I am done here." She spoke with an almost mechanical certainty. It was a practiced speech she had likely said more times than Marika felt comfortable to think about.
"You have... Done this before?"
"Many times."
"And... What is it you do?"
"Kill monsters... Save worlds.."
"Well, I do not suppose that means you have any extra worldly talents then?"
"Other than a smithing arm? Sadly those went too. Still, I have..." The words trailing off of Marika's ears now as her mind drifted elsewhere.
She sat and pondered this, ruminating on the shift this caused, hoping her mind retained all of this tomorrow. She sadly figured it may not, given the quaking throbbing that had begun to hit her skull and make her eyes seem so very heavy.
'She was sent to kill us, I knew it!'
Her hand instantly went to her head as the crimson pain one more hit her thoughts. It burned, and it frustrated her already taxed thoughts.
"Shut UP!" She screamed, clutching her head, cracking the log with the sheer power of her voice, and causing her knight to stand in sudden alarm.
"Marika?!" She could tell from the tone of her voice that she was worried. Her head hurt so badly, though. She sways softly, trying to stuff Him and all these feelings behind their cage and back in their urn. She wanted it all to just be-
"I have you..." She spoke just as her arms circled and pulled the golden goddess against her chest. Her hands cradled her quietly, stroking her hair comfortingly as she tried to calm down her ward.
"Don't d-do this..."
"But you are hurting..."
"You w-will make it hurt so much worse..."
She sniffled, yet clung to her savior as the voice dimmed, yet the pain grew hotter. She wept against the armor as cracks in her urn threatened to spill over and even burst at every last one. "Please..."
"Marika..."
"Please do not s-stop.."
She squeezed the queen in a little closer.
"I am sorry..."
"Why must everything I want in this world turn to ashes in my hands..."
"I.. I do not understand.."
"Maybe you will... But... For tonight... Would you please just keep holding me... It is so very cold..."
She squeezed in the queen tighter. "I cannot warm your bed..."
"Why not..."
"Because I would be dishonoring them..."
"You..." She felt the venomous rebuke fall from her lips before it ever managed to catch wind. Loyalty. It was her most defining feature.
The queen clutched tighter. "Then simply let me hog you for the warmth... Just this once..."
"Okay," She answered in a soft whisper. "Okay. I can do that."