Mavi came running in, saw Helim on the floor, screaming as much as her lungs would allow, while covering her ears, rolling on the ground.
She then held her closely and tightly in her arms. Helim lashed out at her, and after taking her fury, fear, and confusion, she stopped and just cried a little. After that, Lady Mavi calmed her down with her voice.
She then laid her down, sitting next to her until she woke up again.
She woke up trying to sit up. Mavi's hand pushed her down, keeping her down.
"Stay there please – I'd rather not get another beating."
Helim stopped resisting. "What happened?"
"I don't know – I should be asking you. Knight Bachelor Esrin said he saw all of you guys running senselessly – but somehow orderly. You carried me on your back and the others in your hands. He said he was impressed – no-one normal should be able to move that clearly towards escape like you did. Even I was shocked. Have you been holding out on us and you're some hotshot?"
"What?"
"I'm just kidding okay – but seriously what happened?"
She then explained what she remembered. Surviving the wreckage, the traveling, and suddenly covered by the night, and her strange certainty that she knew where out was.
"All of that – and I was out for all of it."
"Don't worry – you should be glad you didn't experience any of this."
"Why would I be glad over that? I should be glad, but then it means I would bear no mind to your suffering."
Sudden dark circles appeared around Helim's eyes, Mavi looked at her trembling hands.
"Even still – I say this with full certainty, you really should be glad you did not experience any of it – If you knew what we had been through, you would be crying tears of joy – knowing you had not. It was like watching someone's life in a nightmare and waking up – but This was all real."
Tension filled the air, until Mavi touched Helim's shoulder, making her flinch. Helim's dark circles vanished and spoke.
"Tell me about what happened after."
"Oh… I woke up just a few short days ago. You seemed to have survived by reaching the front lines of the battle, even surviving an encounter with the darkness. After that, they knocked you guys out and restrained you on those beds."
She then finally noticed the locks, chains, and belt constraints on her bed. and that all of them were in tethers. She had torn right through them like they had not even been there. This is when she finally realised just how much stronger she had gotten.
She had not even noticed her restraints. Then she looked at the bruises on lady Mavi and finally understood her earlier joke. The Lady then continued.
"Ai-Yin has been like that, unresponsive. Tzic is outside, she is looking out into the beach."
"Where are we?"
"The Squires carried us to Revel Arc, they said they would rather not let you guys wake up at night, and see the darkness, even if you'd be seeing it from the outside. They also told us to restrain you guys. Both of those orders were supposed to stop you guys from killing yourselves."
"How long have we been out?"
"Two weeks yesterday."
Helim sat up slowly. She then looked at Mavi, who nodded, telling her that it was okay to go outside. Helim might not be totally stable, but she had finally gotten her bearing.
They were on the residence side of the city, but closer to the beach. She walked around trying not to flinch from the smiles of the people. All this normalcy just chilled her to the bone. She was a simple push away from running and sprinting as far as she could.
She reached the beach without much incident, excluding her long and disturbing glares at everything she passed. All this calm was the most nerve-racked she had ever been. In those short few hours in the night, her mind had been rewritten – her beliefs removed – her concept of reality shattered. It was so bad that she was sure that all of this was a lie – the calm.
'How could such peace exist – it shouldn't, it really shouldn't. It is they who are mad – finding reprieve in a world in which darkness existed is a fool's errand.' – such involuntary thoughts clouded her mind.
At the beach, she found Tzic, seating there on the sand, her hands on her lap, starring into the waters – obviously lost in deep though. Looking at her made Helim feel calmer – she was the first person, she had seen, since waking up, who was actually acting normal – she also was one of the only one who understood her.
She got to her, sitting there next to each other, neither of them moving the entire day. They waked back inside the building on pure instinct, as soon as the sun lowered. They were weary of nothing more than the truth that lay in the night – the truth that lay in the darkness.
A few days like this passed like this. Simple routine. Wake up, head to the beach and come back at night, sitting on the bed still until day. Occasionally they ate something and said a word to Lady Mavi. The lady had experienced some of this as well – but all of it in her mind – and nowhere else – so she had not been as affected as them – but she herself had her fair share of nightmares.
The people around that part of the beach had actually come to recognise them, but due to their presence, everyone made an unspoken agreement to not bother them and let them be.
A few months later, Ai-Yin woke up.
Unlike them, she was numb – all the way to the core of her soul. She did not throw a fit. She did not scream; she did not do anything. She was not brain dead either – she could speak, listen and even hold a conversation – but she did not bother.
Then Helim and Tzic began to speak; they were slowly adapting to the truth of their being. "I couldn't help us at all – and I'm supposed to be the strategist, ridiculous…"
"Don't worry – I just happened to act – I couldn't even form enough thought to check."
"Even if Bex had told us to leave immediately, we would have still been in there for hours."
And for the first time in half a year, someone asked.
"Who's Bex?"
"He is… is…? I don't know…" – they moved on.
"Strange things have been happening – I almost didn't recognise Ai-Yin when I woke up."
They had not lost memories of Bex. Bex had not just been erased like how most are – Bex had met an even worse fate, his existence was unwound and destroyed. Everyone knew that he existed, they knew his name too. Even still had memories of him, but actually trying to remember him as the topic of a conversation brought out nothing.
His luck – he must have ran into a general of the void.
"What are they doing up there?"
"where?" asked Tzic.
Helim then pointed at the battle happening on the wall of Revel Arc.
"Oh, those are the dark knights. The ones who had been blocking direct passage to this place, the ones that earned us this mission."
Both of their minds had been at such strain that thoughts of blame and reason had no place in them. They saw no reason to do any of it – they felt nothing towards them. The only thing they wondered was about their reasoning. In fact, they understood…
The more they thought, the more they realised, why they were dark knights. The reason they had abandoned their post, and in shame, and misguided pride, chosen the path on which they were on. The more they realised how sane the dark knights were for it.
"I almost forgot why we were here."
"Me too."
A year later, they finally came to – still not mentally stable – but enough for them to pretend they were, enough to fool even themselves.
Right now, at the table they were currently planning the mission, the escape. Sure, everything had turned to hell, but there was no stopping the mission – each had their reasons for being here – how they got here had nothing to do with anything.
"The prince is somewhere in the city, and before we go looking for him, we have to make a clearer escape route."
"Remember – we will not be receiving any back up or any help."
Then everyone split up, each on their missions. One made an assessment of the entire city, it was almost as big as an ancient kingdom, so this took a few months. This was Helim. Mavi went to meet up with the prince and their convoy. Tzic was exploring the city for possible usable leverages and not for information like Helim.
Ai-Yin was a registered adventurer and thus took up the mission to help out the adventurers with defence. There were quite the number of adventurers, at a stale mate against the dark knight.
A year later this all changed. The dark knights not only managed to butcher the adventurers. But after that, more of them joined the assault on Revel Arc, making their whole struggle even more futile. Not only had they lost when they had the leverage, but now they had lost the leverage, and even faced with a wider gap in forces and per individual strength.
But Ai-Yin had accomplished her goal and left. She was able to ascertain that the dark knights had no intention of actually wiping out the town, they held a lead but still maintained outside specific limits – their goal was not victory, but instead wearing down the defences of the city, which aligned with their nature.
They were so strong, she was sure they could probably do more – meaning an alternative escape route had to be made.
Soon they all gathered. Revised their plan – their strategy had to allow them to leave without alerting the city folk, the people trying to end the prince, and even the dark knights, because their destination was the Home continent.
It took them three years, the best they could manage with just the four of them. Elleria had been an incredible success, only losing three members caught in the cross hairs of the random attacks. It was the queens battle, the monster, a random battle in the calmer parts of Elleria too.
"Let's do this okay."
"Don't forget I'm still a roo…"
Helim stopped as she saw a familiar figure, she could've sworn she saw someone – but "what would the awkward Knight be doing here?" – she blurted to herself softly.
"Come on now."
"Sorry, just thought I saw something."
She then pushed it to the back of her mind.
Later that night, on the same day. Her, Tzic, and Ai, had stopped hiding from the night by going inside for the past year. So, tonight they all sat on the calm beach, dark as it was, it was bright compared to the darkness, not to mention the sea reflected the stars and shone even brighter for it.
It started with the silence from the battle above. A noise that they had grown accustomed to, suddenly vanishing, alerted them instantly. Lady Mavi's eyes were able to pick up on something before they could hear it.
"The battle stopped."
Everyone except Ai instantly got up. And a few short seconds later, Ai stood up too… this was the first ever expression she had made in the last half decade as the flood of darkness blurted the night sky, soon swallowing them and the stars whole. This expression was one of unbearable agony.
They panicked, Helim tried to do it again, but this time was different, they were stuck in the city walls. She might know the way out, and could, but she could not open the door. An unidentifiable guilt consumed her – the same guilt she felt over being unable to save Bex – even if she did not know who that was.
She was relapsing, and so did everyone. Lady Mavi, Tzic, and Ai-yin, became all lost once again, on the shores of the same ocean, just trapped inside the walls of Revel Arc.
***
Ten Months later.
The entire town woke up in a roar of anxiety and relief. An unusual feeling of dread that had a comfort to it, and a random skill they all seemed to possess.
This was different for the four of them, even Lady Mavi felt this difference. Their second time was just as dreading, but for the time that had passed, they felt like things should have been worse. Almost as if something was even more wrong with the world now than it had been last time.
"You too lady Mavi?"
"What do you think about it, Tzic?"
Tzic gave her a note in her hand and the Lady read it to all of them.
"…The Dark Hunter has cleared your city of this plague – enjoy the peace…"
Helim though back, pushing her mind hard to remember anything from her last memories.
'Hero? It must be… So, he was here…"
She looked at the note – wondering if the princess was with him – after all the whole nation of Elleria had been told about her departure. This had inspired her partly to also go with lady Mavi. She was also curious how they crossed the oceans of Nhoils.
'I guess the dark knights could not stop them, figures – something is strange about that knight, well most of them are.'
She was thinking about how she had heard the dark knights were supposed to be superior to the knights, only losing to the darkness.
Tzic put the paper down, and said: "Let's get the prince home, the dark knight might be gone, but we still have to deal with them."
Lady Mavi was a little more shaken about the strangeness of all of it – now having been through it live. But as the lady, she quickly gathered her bearings.
"This just means the sea is available for our escape, but we the plan doesn't change."
Then they left for the prince.