There is a discord for this fic. It has Live Updates about chapter progress and when they are completed, among other things. I'm also very active there and am likely to respond to any message sent there. Join at discord.gg/aWZ9qX9mAW
Glory to my Proofreader: Solare. For he is one who points out mistakes and acts as my favourite wall to bounce ideas off of.
MAN! It is good to be done with Med school finals! It's good to be back!
Enjoy this chapter everyone, it's among my favourites!
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The clash of steel and the guttural roars of Misbegotten echoed through the forest like a dirge, and John's heart pounded with it, each beat a drum calling him to violence. He pulled hard on Torrent's reins, spurring the spectral steed into a full sprint.
The battered line of soldiers was breaking apart, and Edgar, the man who could only be Irina's father, stood stubbornly in the center, his blade raised in defiance even as his knees threatened to buckle.
"Millicent, Melina, with me!" John barked, his voice sharp and commanding. The two women fell in close behind, their horses thundering across the uneven ground.
Halfway to the embattled men, John made his choice. He yanked back on Torrent, then leapt free of the saddle, boots striking the earth with a heavy thud. The spectral steed snorted once, tossing its head, before John clapped a gauntleted hand against its neck.
"Keep her safe, Torrent. Do not leave her side." His voice softened just slightly, though his eyes were already locked back on the battlefield.
Behind him, Irina's trembling voice called out, quivering with fear. "W-wait! Please don't leave me here alone!"
Torrent, bound by his master's command, carried her away at a safe distance, the shimmer of his spectral form making him seem all the more ethereal as he retreated. She whimpered, clutching at the saddle horn, her cries fading as the battle drew her guardian further from earshot.
John clenched his teeth, forcing himself not to turn back. There would be time for comfort later. Right now, there was only time for bloodshed.
The clearing exploded into chaos around him. Soldiers clashed with Misbegotten, their desperate grunts mixing with the shrieks of the beastmen. The Night's Cavalry loomed over it all, mounted atop his undead steed like a dark wraith, his flail sweeping arcs of death that battered shields and shattered bones.
John drew his Uchigatana in one smooth motion, the blade singing as it left the sheath, and charged forward into the melee.
He closed the distance just as the Cavalry's flail came crashing down toward Edgar's unguarded back. John lunged, his katana intercepting the chain mid-swing with a clash of sparks. The impact rattled his arm, but he held firm, snarling as his draconic eyes glared up into the helmeted face of the black rider.
"Not today," John growled, shoving the weapon aside and shoving Edgar out of the way.
The older man stumbled, then caught himself, eyes widening as he turned. "You, who in the name of the Erdtree…?"
"Johnathan. Friend of your daughter," John snapped quickly, already stepping into the Cavalry's space to keep the flail from building momentum again. "Save the talk for after we gut this bastard."
Edgar's jaw tightened, but there was no hesitation. With a grim nod, he raised his longsword again and fell into step at John's side.
Millicent's clear voice rang out as she sprinted past two struggling soldiers, she thrust her blade clean through the ribs of a snarling Misbegotten. The beast choked, coughed blood, and crumpled as she yanked her weapon free.
Melina, astride her steed, murmured an incantation under her breath, her voice a steady hymn that carried over the din. Golden light flared across the clearing, flowing into the wounded soldiers, sealing broken flesh and knitting torn muscle. Several men gasped and staggered upright again, shields raised once more, their morale bolstered by the healing warmth of her magic.
The Night's Cavalry's steed reared, skeletal hooves lashing out at John. He ducked low, sliding across the dirt, his katana flashing upward to score a burning gash along the beast's fetid belly. The steed screamed, an unnatural, hollow sound that rattled the bones, but it did not fall.
The black rider retaliated instantly, flail whipping downward with bone-crushing speed. John barely rolled aside, the chain smashing into the ground where he had just been. Stone and dirt exploded upward, pelting his armor.
Edgar moved in with surprising strength for a man of his age, his longsword striking in a two-handed swing at the Cavalry's leg. Sparks burst as steel rang against blackened armor, forcing the rider to turn his attention.
That gave John the opening he needed. He surged forward, dragonfire licking the corners of his mouth as his free hand curled into a claw. With a roar, he exhaled a plume of frost breath point-blank at the mounted knight. The freezing wind slammed into man and beast alike, coating the flail, the armor, and the skeletal horse in sheets of rime.
The Cavalry staggered under the sudden weight, the flail's motion stuttering mid-swing. Edgar pressed the attack, hacking furiously at the crippled rider, while John circled to flank.
Around them, the battle with the Misbegotten reached a fever pitch. The soldiers, newly healed by Melina's grace, rallied and pushed back, their blades cleaving through snarling beastmen with renewed vigor.
Millicent fought like a whirlwind, each strike precise and brutal despite her missing arm, her balance never faltering as she ducked and weaved between the larger foes. One Misbegotten lunged at her with a jagged cleaver, but she slid beneath the swing, slashing its hamstring and spinning to impale its chest in a single motion.
Melina's expression was calm but stern as she unleashed another golden spell, this one flaring outward to blind the eyes of several charging beastmen, their cries of agony splitting the night as soldiers cut them down with ruthless efficiency.
John roared again, this time bringing his Uchigatana in a savage upward slash that bit deep into the rider's side. Blackened armor split, blood spraying in an arc that steamed as it hit the frost still clinging to his form. The Cavalry howled, wrenching his flail free of ice and swinging it wildly.
The chain whipped across John's chest, the impact ringing his armor like a bell and knocking the wind from his lungs. He staggered back, coughing, vision swimming for a heartbeat.
"John!" Millicent shouted, cutting down another Misbegotten before charging toward him.
"I'm fine!" He barked hoarsely, straightening. His chest burned, but his grip on the katana remained iron. His draconic eyes blazed brighter than ever.
Edgar seized the chance, his longsword plunging into the Cavalry's thigh with brutal strength. The rider's steed screamed again, staggering back a step, and John lunged forward with a final, vicious strike.
His Uchigatana plunged upward through the rider's chestplate, the blade piercing through with a shriek of metal. John twisted, yanked free, then exhaled another blast of frostfire that engulfed the knight's helm entirely.
The Night's Cavalry let out a final, rattling roar before both he and his steed collapsed. The undead mount shattered into wisps of black smoke, dispersing into nothingness as its bond was severed. The rider's corpse fell heavy into the dirt, his flail lying limp beside him.
Silence followed.
Around them, the surviving Misbegotten faltered. Their snarls turned to uncertain growls, their movements hesitant.
When John turned his blazing eyes upon them, blood still dripping from his blade and frost mist curling from his mouth, they broke. Half fled shrieking into the trees, the other half were cut down mercilessly by the soldiers and Millicent before they could escape.
The clearing was left in ruin, littered with the corpses of beastmen and broken steel. The few surviving soldiers leaned on their blades, gasping for breath, their eyes wide as they looked upon the obsidian-clad warrior who had turned the tide.
John wiped his blade clean with a slow flourish, then sheathed it, the sound sharp in the heavy silence. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, but his grin remained, wolfish and bright.
"Not bad…" He muttered, glancing at Edgar with a smirk. "Not bad at all. Guess you're tougher than you look."
Edgar's expression was weary but resolute. His voice carried a gravitas honed by command. "And you fight like a beast unchained, I barely contributed... If you are who you claim, then you have my thanks… Johnathan."
Marika's laughter stirred faintly in the back of his mind, golden and amused. "A beast unchained indeed. My Champion, ever the monster who slays monsters."
John only chuckled under his breath, shaking his head as he turned toward where Torrent waited, Irina still clutching at his spectral mane with wide-eyed fear beneath her blindfold.
John walked towards Torrent and offered his hands to Irina, guiding her carefully until her boots found solid ground. He set her beside him with a gentleness at odds with the gore that still streaked his gauntlets, then stepped aside as the blindfolded girl turned toward the familiar clatter of armor.
"Father…?" her voice wavered, hope and fear braided together.
Edgar limped forward, bloodied and breathing hard, yet somehow straightening taller with every step.
"Irina…" He breathed, voice cracking as if he were sixteen again. He all but stumbled the last few paces, gathering her into his arms, clutching the back of her head like a man who feared she might dissolve if he let go.
She told him, haltingly, about the ambush on the road, the panic that had frozen her in place, the sudden thunder of footsteps, and the warrior who had cut death out of the air and then stomped it into the dirt. Edgar tried to bow mid-embrace, failed, then simply held her and murmured his thanks into her hair.
John left them to it and turned to the black-clad corpse of the Night's Cavalry. He crouched, rolling the heavy body with a grunt, then worked the flail loose from a locked gauntlet.
The weapon was brutal and beautifully wicked, its chained heads studded and slick with blood, the haft wrapped in worn leather that still stank of tar and night. He tested the weight with a short swing, nodded, then paused with a thought tugging at him.
"Hang on," he muttered, prying at the Cavalryman's vambrace after tossing the flail into his inventory. The dead man's arm gave with an ugly creak of metal, and beneath the plate John found a ring. Not gold. Not silver.
A black iron band chased with sigils so fine they were almost a texture rather than symbols, and in its face a glossed onyx oval that glimmered faintly like wet ink. It reminded him of the whistle he used to summon Torrent, not the same casting yet undeniably akin, like a sibling artifact forged for a different stable.
He stood and tossed it lightly to Millicent. "Try that."
She fumbled it with one hand, then slipped it on with a curious smile. The instant the ring touched her skin, the air around her shivered, and a bloom of smoke-black light unfurled at her flank. Hooves struck soil, heavy and sure.
A spectral destrier, midnight and mist, stamped once and huffed fog out of a muzzle that gleamed like wet obsidian. Its eyes were veiled in shadow and yet alert, attentive to the girl wearing its master's mark.
Millicent reached her hand toward the creature with slow care, and the steed snorted, half-hesitant, half-testing. It tossed its head, backing a step. Melina came forward quietly, one palm up, her voice low and soft with an authority that made beasts listen.
John moved to Millicent's other side, resting his hand on the animal's neck, letting a trickle of draconic warmth seep into his touch. The steed's ears flicked. The tension bled away by inches. When Millicent finally laid her palm along its cheek, the horse blew a warmer breath and pressed back, accepting.
By then the clearing had gone silent. Edgar's soldiers, bandaged and spent, stared at the trio with a mixture of awe and the kind of fear reserved for tales told around campfires. They had watched a Night's Cavalry fall, seen Misbegotten scattered like leaves, and now witnessed the victors calmly claim and tame the spectral mount of the vanquished as if such things happened between breakfast and lunch every day.
Edgar stepped forward at last and bowed so deeply he winced, his battle wounds making sure to make their existence known.
"You have my thanks, Sir Johnathan." He said, voice thick and earnest. "For saving my men, for saving me, but above all for saving my daughter. I am forever in your debt. If she had died… I do not know what I would have done."
John kept the easy smile but felt his jaw tighten for a heartbeat. He did know. He saw the forked road in his mind, the one where Irina's corpse became a beacon and a vessel. He shut the door on that picture and let it sink into the dark.
"No problem." He said lightly. "I am just glad we got here before the worst happened." He glanced to the Cavalry's corpse, then up to the thinning canopy that still held waning daylight. "Although I have to ask. Why is a Night's Cavalry roaming while the sun is still peeking? They usually keep to the black hours."
Edgar frowned. "I wonder the same. Perhaps poor timing or some fell omen. We were moving to a new campsite when they came upon us. Maybe they woke early. Maybe some shadow stirred them. Wrong place, wrong time."
He gestured toward a stretch of trees deeper in the wood. "Please. Come to our camp. There is little comfort to offer, but I would speak more."
They moved through the trees to a small encampment tucked into a natural fold of earth, concealed from the road by a tumble of rock and thorn. Wedges of canvas had been stretched between stumps and stakes to form crude shelters.
A fire pit had been dug in a shallow trench to hide its light. Bundles of arrows lay under oilcloth, and spears leaned against a split log bench. The place smelled of sweat, cedar smoke, and iron. Edgar settled on an upturned crate and exhaled as if it were the first true breath he had taken all day.
"I intended to hold Castle Morne to the last man," he admitted, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "but my men thought me a fool to die behind those walls without hope of relief. They convinced me to withdraw so I might rally our strength from the hamlets and towers around the peninsula. We chose this site as a staging ground. Close enough to watch the causeway, hidden enough to avoid the Misbegotten raids."
He glanced toward the bodies that were already being covered with canvas. "We were found regardless. Night's Cavalry. Strays. Bad luck."
John folded his arms and leaned on a post. "Then we skip luck and fix it with effort. I will help."
Relief eased the lines of Edgar's face, but he lifted a hand. "I will take it gladly, but I will still need time. We must gather the last sworn blades scattered across the region, send calls to those who fled the outposts, check the stores, and set our lines. By tomorrow evening, we can be ready to strike. I had thought to beg for aid from Lord Godrick… but…"
John barked a laugh. "Do not bother. He would not spare two lads and a mule even if he cared. He has the bridge locked down as if the world were contagious. Reports of Frenzied Madness in a village made him tighten his grip and call it quarantine."
Edgar's mouth thinned. "Aye. That town. A nightmare in daylight. I had men watching the wood around it to keep the madness penned, but the servants rebelled before I could set any true cordon. I will have to withdraw them now, else I lose everything on two fronts."
Melina's brow creased. "Leaving such a place unguarded seems… reckless. If the frenzy spreads, its rot will not respect your lines."
Edgar spread his hands, weary and unyielding. "I know, Lady. I do not like it, but I must choose the fight that saves the most first. If we retake the castle, we regain logistics, walls, signal fires, and a rallying banner. Then we can address the village with force and containment rather than half measures that bleed men for no gain."
Melina nodded slowly, though she understood his thought process, it still deeply disturbed her to leave Madness unattended.
In the quiet that followed, Marika's voice slipped into John's mind like a cool blade.
"A perilous calculus," she murmured. "To leave Madness unbound is to sow calamity, yet to divide thy strength is to invite ruin. See that when Morne's banner falls back to its rightful pole, thou turnest thy gaze upon that blighted hamlet without delay. Frenzy spreadeth quickest where men are tired and walls are thin."
'We were already headed that way.' John answered inwardly. 'Seemed like a bad idea to leave it as is…'
They bent over a crude map scratched into dirt with a dagger tip, talking patrol routes and chokepoints, who would draw the Misbegotten from the gate and who would strike the tower ballistae first. Edgar promised the last riders would return by tomorrow's dusk.
"We will be ready." John affirmed as he looked to his companions.. Melina inclined her head in quiet affirmation. Millicent gave a bright thumbs up like a soldier in a play.
"One more thing," John added, rubbing at his chin. "Can you procure a zweihander for me? I've been wanting one for some time. As fun as slamming shit into the ground or cutting it to shreds is, using a Zweihander would be quite cool."
Millicent leaned forward, raising her curved blade. "And if you can find another of these, with the same curve and balance, please get me one!" She asked, showing the style and weight with a deft flip.
Edgar blinked, then nodded. "I can. We have smiths in hiding and a cache at the ridge. For my daughter's savior and his companion, I will make certain of it."
With the plans set, the captain stood again with a hesitant stiffness. "There is one more favor. If I may be so bold."
John tilted his head. "Knock yourself out."
"Keep Irina with you tonight, please…" Edgar all but begged, words heavy. "This place is not safe. You saw what came sniffing already. I would have her far from here while we draw steel and gather men."
John blinked at him, then at Irina seated on a bedroll near the fire with a cup in both hands. Surprise tugged quick at his face. "You want me to take her with us?"
Edgar gestured to the war camp and the covered bodies. "You see my position. I do not ask lightly."
John exhaled and nodded. "Alright. We will take her to a sanctuary. The Roundtable Hold. No safer roof in these lands."
Edgar sagged with relief and bowed again from the waist.
John crossed back to the women and explained. Millicent lit up with a small cheer, already chattering about showing Irina the safe halls and all the stories she had heard. Melina's mouth pressed thin, a quiet pinch of something tight and possessive blooming and being smoothed flat just as quickly. She nodded nonetheless.
Edgar went to his daughter and spoke low to her. Irina listened, then reached for his hand and squeezed, trusting him to do the hard thing. While they murmured, John's thoughts snapped back to a task he had put off.
"Right," he said, fishing in his inventory. He drew out the still-warm heart of Agheel, the meat dense and ruby like a coal that remembered it had once been fire. The soldiers around the fire fell quiet as he lifted it, then bit in.
The taste was power and copper, ash and thunder. It burned down his throat and set his ribs to humming. His Immortal Heart shuddered once, then beat with a deeper bass, a new rhythm layering over the old. Energy poured through him until his fingers shook and his vision sparked with drifting embers.
[New Innate Draconic Rite Acquired: Agheel's Flame]
[Draconic Fire Affinity: Potency Increased]
[Stat Boost: All Stats (except INT) +3]
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a slow breath that smoked a little in the cooling air. 'Good… Now it should be worth it to use flame breath every now and then. Though… Frost breath might still be the most cost efficient when it comes to Mana…'
Around him, men stared with the raw fascination given to saints and monsters. A few made the sign of the Erdtree on their breast. One whispered that communion required a cathedral. Another whispered back that maybe the cathedral required him.
Melina gave him the sort of look that said she would be lecturing him later and that she already knew it would do no good. Millicent's eyes shone with delighted horror. Marika, unseen by all, smiled the smile of a queen who watched her champion sharpen himself with taboos and did not flinch.
"You showeth not a trace of dread, nor the slightest tremor of caution toward the changes wrought within thy flesh," Marika observed, her golden gaze softening with the faintest shadow of concern. "Art thou so unshaken, mine champion?"
John exhaled slowly, a sigh laced with faint embers that slipped past his lips. 'Whatever changes will come… I think the benefits far outweigh the risks.' He tilted his head, a small grin tugging despite the heaviness of his words.
'Besides, I have you and Melina watching over me. I have not forgotten our promise. Have you?'
"Nay, I have not," she answered, her voice quieting to something warmer, almost intimate. The regal cadence softened, the weight of her station giving way to the tenderness of a woman. "Forget not, mine Champion… promises are the cords that bind destiny. Pray, let not thine heart wander from it, nor let thy memory falter."
A small, comfortable silence washed over the two of them.
"...Right then." John then said lightly, as if he had not just eaten a legend and spoken with a Goddess. He clapped his hands once and let the sparks die in his lungs. "You lot finish your preparations. We will be back by first light after we tuck the lady somewhere safe. Then we take back a castle."
Edgar straightened, the weight on his shoulders a shade lighter now that a path lay clear in front of him.
"Tomorrow evening," he said. "We move at the bell."
John nodded and called out for the blind saintess. Irina stood when she heard it and found John's arm with an ease that made something in his chest soften without permission.
"Ready to go home for the night?" He asked, placing his warm, unarmored hands over hers as she reached for him.
She nodded once, blindfold catching the glow of the embers of the nearby bonfire.
"If it is with you…" She said quietly as Melina and Millicent approached the two of them. "Then yes."
The warmth of Grace flared around them, cloaking John, Melina, Millicent, and Irina in radiant gold. A heartbeat later the world folded away, the air crackled, and with a sound like rushing wind they were swallowed whole by light.
…
When their feet touched stone once again, they stood in the Roundtable Hold's grand, hollow chamber. The faint echo of crackling flames rolled through its endless halls, the great tree's light casting its pallor through the fog-stained windows.
John sighed before turning to Melina, he pulled a clump of shimmering runes from his soul and held it out. "Get us a room for the night. Should be more expensive with four of us, so… Ten thousand ought to cover it, keep the rest for whatever you'd like."
Melina accepted the runes, but her thin brow arched upward, golden eyes narrowing. "And where will you be going in the meantime?"
John smirked faintly. "I'll pay a visit to the merchant, pick up some smithing stones. Then have old man Hewg fix up my blades. These Uchigatanas of mine are crying out for attention."
Without waiting for objection, he waved a lazy hand and made his way through the hall, leaving the three girls behind.
The cloaked merchant sat at his post as always, half his face hidden in shadow. His cockney drawl rasped out as John approached. "Well, look what the bloody cat dragged in. Thought you'd scarpered after the last lot ye bought."
John grinned, dropping a heavy pouch onto the table. "You got stock, I got runes. Simple exchange."
What followed was long and tedious, though worth it. Smithing Stones by the handful, all added to his inventory, though the price gouged his reserves heavily, 56,400 runes total. Even for him, it was a hit.
Still, the math (courtesy of his patron Goddess) soothed him. He'd been stockpiling runes for two days now, holding back from leveling. He still had a mountain left. He reminded himself quietly to do the leveling later tonight with Melina's help.
From there he strode straight into the forge, the clang of hammer on steel ringing before he even entered. The smell of hot iron filled his nose. He spotted Hewg hunched over an anvil, his chains clinking faintly. Beside him stood Roderika, bright-eyed, her golden hair catching the firelight.
"Oi!" John called, raising a hand in greeting.
Roderika's head snapped up, her face instantly flushing crimson.
"S-Sir Tarnished!" she stammered, straightening. "Good to see you again!"
"Actually, I go by Johnathan now. But you can call me John for short~!" He corrected, drawing a surprised look from the blonde girl that was shortly followed by an eager nod.
"O-Of course, J-John! Nice to see you're alright!"
"Pfft.. Yeah, likewise, Roderika." John chuckled, noting the sparkle in her expression and her flusteredness. "In any case, it looks like you took my advice. Spirit tuning suits you."
She beamed at him with a grin wide enough to brighten the forge. Hewg, however, groaned, rubbing his temples with one scarred hand. "Of course it had to be you that set the lass on this path…"
Roderika puffed her cheeks and pouted, stepping forward. "Don't say it like that! Don't you want to train me?"
Hewg's grumble softened. "I said no such thing. It's just… Aye, never mind."
John's smile widened. It warmed him to see the two together, two lonely souls finding companionship. He pitied Hewg more than most, knowing his fate as a prisoner bound to forge until the end of days. His gaze lingered on the blacksmith's chains, and silently, inwardly, he asked the goddess. 'Marika… is there truly no way to free him?'
For a moment, there was silence. Then a sigh, heavy with memory, echoed in his mind. "There is a way. The key lies buried within Leyndell. If thou reachest the capital, I shall guide thee to it."
John's chest tightened. He gave her a quiet, thankful thought, then turned as Hewg called out.
"Well? You here for idle chatter, or you got work for me?"
Blinking, John pulled both Uchigatanas from his back and his obsidian greatsword from his inventory, laying them down with a solid clang beside a pile of the newly purchased stones. "These three. Think you can sharpen them up for me by morning?"
Hewg examined the weapons with a grunt. "Possible. I will need ten thousand runes to get started."
John opened his palm, summoning forth a shimmering cluster of his stored runes. 245,679 by his count. More than enough. He peeled off ten thousand and handed it over without care. "Done."
The blacksmith nodded. "Then I'll begin now. Best leave me to it."
John smiled faintly. "Thanks. Don't work yourself too ragged." Turning, he shot Roderika a playful grin. "I'll see you later."
Her cheeks went scarlet. "Y-Yes! I'll, um, I'll be in the dining hall at dinner!"
John gave a small wave before heading off. The moment he was out of earshot, Hewg rumbled lowly as he inspected the katana's blade. "You like him, don't you?"
Roderika spluttered, her face going red as the forge she sat by. "W-Wha-?! N-No!"
…
When John returned, he spotted his companions waiting where he'd left them. Melina stood calmly, Millicent fidgeted with her sleeve, and Irina tilted her head at the sound of his approach.
"The room cost little," Melina reported, holding out the room key. "Only twelve hundred runes for the night."
John stopped in his tracks. "Twelve hundred?!"
"That's correct." Melina's brow furrowed faintly. "I thought it strange. Last time, the cost for two of us was two thousand for but one day."
Millicent huffed, folding her arm. "I was about to knock some sense into the clerk and get him to admit why, but Melina wouldn't let me."
John rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then muttered inwardly, 'What do you think, Marika?'
The goddess hummed before answering. "Mayhaps it was Gideon. That man would not so swiftly forget the slight thou gavest him. He holds authority here, does he not? I would wager he pulled strings to fleece thee whilst sparing my daughter. Petty, but not unlike him."
John's frown deepened, it made sense… Too much sense.
"That Odin wannabe cunt…" he muttered under his breath.
Irina gasped softly, cheeks warming under her blindfold. Her hearing was sharp enough to catch him.
Millicent tilted her head. "What'd you say?"
"Just remind me to prank a certain know-it-all later." He shrugged it off with a smirk.
That was enough for Millicent, she didn't care to know the details; she grinned. "Deal."
Melina sighed, though her lips twitched with faint amusement. "Hopeless…"
They entered their room together. John removed his armor piece by piece until only simple clothing remained: a dark, fitted shirt and plain trousers. His broad frame and the sight of him without the jagged obsidian plates made Melina's face bloom faintly red.
"W-We're using the baths first," she blurted suddenly, crossing her arms. "So you'll wait outside."
John smirked at her flustered tone, but chose not to tease her just this once. "Sure."
Millicent made to follow him, but Melina grabbed her sleeve firmly. "You're coming with us."
Millicent frowned. "I don't even smell that bad."
Melina didn't budge. "You're still coming."
John chuckled as he slipped out, leaving them behind with their bickering. Dressed down in his comfortable shirt and trousers, he walked down the hall, their banter trailing behind him. He sighed, amused, shaking his head with a small smile as he went to find something to do.
John wandered the Hold for a time, slipping past quiet corridors he had never bothered to open, brushing by tapestries that smelled of old ash and oil. Somewhere deeper, a door sat ajar, just enough for lamplight to leak through like a held breath.
He eased it open and found a small theater hall, long forgotten. Dust motes drifted in the air like sleepy fireflies. Row upon row of empty benches faced a lonely stage where a grand piano waited beneath a wrinkled, half‑thrown cover.
His eyes lit. He crossed the boards, tugged the cloth free, and set it aside. The wood was scuffed, the brass dulled, yet the instrument carried the quiet dignity of a knight's old cuirass. He lifted the fallboard, raised the lid, and sat.
The bench creaked. He laid his fingers on the keys and pressed a few gentle notes as if greeting an old friend. Soft, uncertain tones trailed through the still hall, and in them lived the weight of afternoons long gone, a boy and a metronome and a mother's patient voice in the next room.
A ripple of gold stirred to his left. Marika leaned over the side of the piano, her hand resting lightly on the rim, hair cascading like poured sunlight. The tilt of her body would have stolen his breath on any other day, but the instrument had already claimed his full attention.
"I did not take thee for the musical kind." She murmured, voice soft enough to disturb neither dust nor memory.
He chuckled, letting little figures dance along the white keys while he warmed his hands and coaxed his muscle memory into this newer, stronger body. "I'm not, not really. I love music as much as the next guy, but playing it was never my thing. My parents made me take piano lessons when I was a kid. Hated it at first. Then… I dunno. Something clicked, I guess."
Her smile gentled at the edges, growing somber in a way that felt like a secret apology. She had stolen him from one world to place him in another. Necessary, she would still claim, and yet the thought put a quiet ache behind her eyes.
He breathed out. "They forced a lot of classical music on me. Scales, etudes, and all that. But there was one piece that crawled under my skin and never left."
His fingers traced a simple figure, then fell still. "It came from a game. The first one, actually. The one that inspired the game where I learned about this world at all." He glanced up, amused at the strangeness of saying it aloud. "Want to hear it? And the story of the man it was made for?"
"Of course." She said, and the word was more caress than sound.
[I recommend playing "Gwyn, Lord of Cinder" by Motoi Sakuraba from the Dark Souls 1 OST for maximum effect.]
His hands fell into place. The hall swallowed the first notes the way a sea swallows rain. It was a small melody, almost too simple to bear the burdens it carried, and it walked with bare feet down a corridor he knew by heart. He kept to the pale keys, letting the tune find its shape on whitened ivory, letting the left hand rock like a tired heartbeat beneath a right hand that remembered grief without ever naming it.
"His name was Gwyn..." He started quietly as he played. "The Lord of Sunlight. In another world, when all this all began, a fire woke in the dark. From it, Great Souls rose up. Gwyn took a portion of that fire. He found lightning in his hands and made war on Ancient Dragons until the sky grew quiet."
The melody circled back on itself, as if tracing old footpaths around a ruined keep. He never reached for the black keys. He let the tune stay narrow, constrained, almost monastic.
"Their age, his age, was the Age of Fire," he continued. "But flames die and his began to fade. He feared what would come after. A dark that was not simply night, but a new order he did not understand. He could have stepped aside. He could have accepted it. But he did not. He took his body and his soul and threw them into the First Flame, tied himself to a dying hearth. He bought time. He bought it by becoming cinder."
Marika slipped onto the bench lid itself, one leg folded beneath the other, humming very faintly, not to adorn the tune but to match its hollow light. The piano answered her with fragile resonance, the hall turning each resonance into a ghost.
"His kingdom withered," John said, "because you do not cure winter by stuffing the sun back into the sky. He gave everything to keep the fire going, and it still dwindled. He was a great king, a flawed one. A father who used his children as bulwarks against tides he could not stop."
The notes grew softer, almost transparent. His left hand kept its pulse. His right hand retraced the opening as if unwilling to admit it had already reached the end.
She watched his hands. She watched the pattern. When he let the final figure hang between bench and rafters, she spoke without raising her voice.
"It fits him." She stated plainly. "A hymn that pretendeth to be simple. There is sorrow in it, yet a stubbornness also, like a man who refuseth to turn his face to the night even as it covereth him."
Her fingers hovered over the keys without touching them.
"Thou didst never once touch the black keys." She observed, eyes tilted with that precise, almost cruel intelligence. "White upon white, a narrow road, a refusal to descend into the shadowed tones. A music of light that keepeth itself small, as if the very bones of the song flee the dark. It is a fear writ into its lattice. Pure, but not whole."
He smiled at that, a little crooked.
"That was the point." He revealed. "The composer wrote it with only the white keys. To make the player feel the fence he built for himself."
"Aye," she breathed. "A fence of light. A chapel without doors."
He let the quiet return. The dust settled where it had briefly danced.
After a time he asked, not looking up, "Do you see any similarities? Between him and you."
Her gaze did not waver and for a heartbeat he didn't feel the presence of his patron Goddess, only a woman weighing sins on two palms. "Aye," she said at last. "Kinship, and cleft."
She turned her eyes from the keys to him. "He was a lord who could not abide the end of his age. To stave it off, he bound himself to a pyre and made of his children kindling and bulwarks. He feared the dark most of all, for in it lay that which he could not rule."
A slow breath lifted her shoulders. "I, too, forged an order and bent a land about it. I, too, set mine own brood to purposes too heavy for any heart. I wore a symbol as a second skin and let men kneel to it as if it were truth rather than pact."
Her mouth tightened, then softened. "Yet where he clung, I broke. I feared not the dark, but the stillness. The calcification of law into a coffin. I sundered the Ring to undo a rot that had crept unseen, that all the burning in the world would ne'er purge."
She glanced back at the white keys. "He linked his flame until his soul was naught but ash and will. I unlinked mine law and made a ruin of a golden peace, that from ruin something living might again take breath."
The smallest smile touched her mouth, a thing more honest than any gilded mask and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen in life. "We are alike in burden. We are unlike in answer."
He let out a breath he had not noticed holding. His hands moved again of their own accord, playing the opening figure one last time, softer than soft, like a goodbye that refused to be a plea.
"Then maybe," he said, almost to the keys themselves, "your song should use every key it wants."
Her laughter was the quiet kind, the kind that warmed more than it cut.
"Mayhaps." She allowed. "And mayhaps thou shalt be the fool to play it."
He glanced up. She was already watching him, his eyes filled with that infuriating, impossible fondness, the kind that made all the white keys feel a little less lonely.
She closed her eyes and listened.
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Author's Note:
The parallels between Marika and Gwyn are too good to not show, what better way than this, no?
Anyways, stones please.
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Next Chapter Title: All's Well that Ends in a Cuddle Pile.
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