Marika
The queen was rather annoyed when they set back out from the grace to find themselves so far up now. She could see the forward path was lined with rusted and rather hastily assorted barrels and hiding blade-footed birds with a rather nasty and unfed demeanor. Clear and rather blarant traps for anyone who has gotten so far. Down to her right were patrolling guards and a knight, leading to a larger courtyard that she suspected was on their way to their goal.
"It has been some time since I navigated Stormveil, but if memory serves..."
They had come to hopefully get through to Liurnia and put down a second demi-god. She had heard the stories of Godrick's crimes, but she knew they had to be exaggerated. She had not yet seen any of these so-called grafted people, and living abominations supposedly ripped right from her own haunted nightmares. Amalgamations of forced fused flesh. Such insanity. Perhaps it had simply been fear mongering.
She glanced at her knight, sighing as she saw the soft flex to her fingers. This far up was quite enough to make her shockingly height aversed knight rather shakey. There was slight sweat at the edge of her brow, and she couldn't stop tapping the index and thumb of each hand together in a pattern the gilded queen could not quite keep track of. The sooner they were back on mostly solid ground, the better.
"Hm.." she grumbled as she examined the terrain.
"Not many options to us, is there?" Her knight eesponded with a soft tremble to her voice.
"Actually.." the queen muttered. She saw a damaged portion of the rock wall with a few small planks laid down. She walked to it, looking over and seeing that one could make a jump across to the nearby roof. After that, a small hop down would let them avoid the entire possible path of trapped barrels and guards. At least a good chunk of the resistance they'd surely face.
"Over there." She knelt forward with a hand on her knee and pointing. "We can jump to that roof easily with a good running start, and we would be quite a bit closer, I suspect, to our goal."
Her knight gulped a little, peering over the gap and looking down a little faster than the queen suspected she meant to. Her eyes visibly shook whenever her anxiety spiked briefly, and the queen would admit that the sight was somewhat precious."Ya... jump across that..."
"Well, if I must jump and carry you across. So be it." She finished with a grin.
"'Scusi?" The knight turned only to audibly yelp as Marika lifted her into her arms like a blushing bride. It was likely that in that moment, the knight remembered that she was not the only one benefitting from Melina's new aid of compounding runes into strength and that the goddess was no slouch. With a few steps back and a quick run, the queen lept across the gap in a flutter of robes and a rather loudly screaming knight before landing with a crunch of her boots onto the tile.
The knight shook for a moment or two before she slowly set her down back onto her feet. After a moment to stop chittering like a rattled chipmunk, she smoothed her hair and dusted off her cloak to try and play it off. "See? No biggie. Easy."
Luna took two steps forward before falling over with a heavy gasp on her hands and knees. She giggled softly, covering her mouth at the sight. This noble warrior who had taken on her most powerful son alongside a group of real heroes was currently shaking in her boots over a small leap over a high gap. She was beyond strange, and yet the queen felt endeared. Heights of all things when she had faced the very starbane himself.
"Air... aaaair... ne need.. Hooo- I, I'm okay! I am so okay," standing back up with a sigh, fixing her golden hood softly.
"As right as rain, even." She teased her knight with a soft poke and a giggling smile.
Both worked off the small roof to the landing beneath with less difficulty, but still a little encouraging, before sneakily slipping through the open cavern as the nearby patrol went the other way.
Inside, they saw they were standing on a small scaffold of wood that oversaw a large open hall that likely was for celebrations. Weapons decorated with wings and great plumes of blue, and standards of Stormveil's in matching colors, covered the walls. A beautifully made painting of her first husband, Godfrey, sat on the far wall. He stood proudly with the magnificent lion upon his back, axe at his side with a truly regal bearing about him in the light of the Erdtree. She smiled a little at the memory of the man.
"Fond memories?" Luna inquired softly.
"Yes. He was a good husband for what he was."
"What was he?"
"An animal. A savage brutish beast whose home was as much the battlefield as the bottom of a mug." She chuckled warmly, her face a painting of old joys.
"And yet you are smiling." Her knight returned, a warm grin on her own face.
She blushed softly, tucking her scarf over her mouth more with the hurriedness of a teenager. "He was not without his talents.."
"Ohhhhh, that kind of Beast." Luna poked now with a teaskng grin.
"I have n-no idea whatever you might be implying!" She furiously retorted, scarf flailing slightly.
"Oh certainly, my queen. Forgive me for assuming you enjoyed anything at all." She snarkily remarked.
"Ohhhh!" The queen growled, swatting at her knight in a playful manner as the knight laughed and held up her own arms. "Okay, okay, haha! You win already!" She surrendered.
"Hmph," crossing her arms and turning around, "S-so impudent sometimes." Her eyes opened, and every fiber of her body flipped.
They landed on the ceiling of the room, and all she could see were corpses. Dangling bones, bleeding limbs, and hung corpses lined the ceiling like strung up decorations. Individual bodies had been strung out and dissected for specific parts while others laid in piled and broken heeps. Far more than would leave any soul pleased looked barely older than their first decade. The air stung with the scent of the unwashed dead and decay. "What... is this?"
"The consequences of the grafting." The knight said somberly, walking to the ledge of the scaffold. Her demeanor had shifted to one of a very dark presence, and even the form of her face almost seemed... different. As if the muscles had adjusted. It hadn't been the first time she had witnessed it, either. "The cost of power."
"These... there are... infants... children..."
"Those are the ones intact enough to hang." There was a coldness to her knight's voice. Not the coldness of indifference. Closer to a cold and building rage.
"Surely... it is just... come," She shook her head as she began to dismount down the scaffold, desperate to leave and to forget she ever saw this place, "That door leads to the courtyard. Surely it will -" she was interrupted by the sound of something wet and wriggling being summoned.
Her eyes turned towards the space just beneath the beautiful painting as a swirl of magic formed out of golden light that seemed to almost drip with an inky, cruel blackness. Some thing began to crawl out, a vision that instantly shook the golden goddess to her very core. Her brain became a hot buzz as her skin itched and began to feel tight. Heat bit intonher scalp and a clutching weight suddenly clamped down on her chest. Her eyes shook, and her mind lost all sense of direction.
A writhing, crawling figure of flesh and weapons emerged from the twisted light. Limbs upon limbs smashed and fused to flesh upon flesh, body on top of body, barely draped by a cloak and armed in each forward arm with a weapon of war. At the very front was the head of a woman, whose face screamed as they writhed themselves out of the hole. The thing was a walking cancer of life.
She saw them all again. She saw the limbs crushing her, the lid closing as light faded, and the dark began to surround her. Her heart was a surging storm in her ear drum for which there was no safe harbor. All she could do at the sight was scream. A shriek ripped out of her throat that could have ripped flesh and fielty alike, and feel the wetness on her face fall like a deluge of eons past. Her world bled fully away, and she was right back there again. Screaming, kicking, and wailing in pain from within the urn.
You always were so weak.
Luna
As the knight landed beside Marika, she heard the sound of something spawning. When she started to turn, she was instantly hit by Marika's scream. A hot and pained wail that resulted in the goddess falling right over. The sound of utter panic and fear. No. It was more than just fear, but she did not have time to think of why. Instead, Luna quickly picked her up and jumped right back up as a slamming spear and rapier cracked the stone work where they had stood. "You have excellent timing for this, my queen...." She muttered with perhaps a small amount more affection as she leaned the fainted queen against a wall. A pause, watching her sweating features and snapped braids. The knight took a second to brush some of the loose locks from her queen's cheek, allowing a moment of worry to streak along her features. "Don't worry. I'll handle it." She whispered.
The beast below did not sound particularly pleased, but she didn't have time to think over what it was. Luna took a running start before leaping off the scaffold with a knife hurled and planted into the left most arm of the massive grafted monstrosity. The knight rolled along the floor as she landed and dodged a rapier that chipped slightly as it hit only rock. Two more thrusts were deflected and slipped between, barely managing through the whip like speed it possessed.
Two more knives struck the creatures face, and it did seem to pain it. It lurched back, two lombs holding its face as it clawed and wrenched to dislodge the painful tools, clattering with an sour brown blood splash across the stone floor. However, on closer inspection, there were no eyes on this creature. At least, not any on the head up at the front she had presumed was in control. Its aiming strikes told her quickly that, even if it was, blinding its senses was not an option.
Twin smashing blows of a hammer and axe shattered the sole wooden table that divided them before the creature actually lept up and attempted to stab its armaments onto the knight. It seemed entirely driven by rage, savage and flailing like a rabbid animal. Each limb moved with a soft kind of independence, making it unclear if she was being attacked, or if it was simply repeating the motions of its pieces. Neither was a great answer, but the latter possibility made knots in her stomach.
This poor creature...
We need to put it down, for it's own good.
'Yeah...'
Barely rolling out of the way of the stabbing rapier, which sent sparks against the stone, but she was quickly grabbed and thrown across the room by several gripping hands in her ankle. "Not this shit agai -" before being cut off as the throw hit her against the painting with a painful crack. "E-KAAH!" shouting suddenly in an entirely different language.
Righting herself as she pried herself from the thoroughly ruined painting, she looked up. The grafted beast was already running towards her in a shambling display of clicking weapons and half rotted limbs that was a truly horrible thing to behold. It looked as if simply living was suffering, and it's every wailing expression was made all the worst by the bleeding lines down where she had tried to blind it, and only managed in making it so much worse.
It reminded her a bit, too, of what she carried inside. What price had been paid to make her, too many years ago. It gave her a sad kind of sympathy for this monster. It likely wanted none of this. She felt herself slip for a moment back to the cage, the beeping monitors, the pain, but Marika couldn't lose her right now. Not to the worst version of what she was. "I'm sorry."
Her hand found the sheathe of her blade, leaping over the terrible form as it crashed into the painting, blindingly lashing out at even fragments its own destructive assaults caused to fly about. Her own blade split a fine line across the top, dispersing its cloak and leaving a bloody gash as she landed behind it.
It was so much worse without its shroud. A true writhing mass of bodies that were stritched and fused with heat and thread with no regard for compatibility or pain. A writhing pile of crying faces and shattered bones held together by stitches and madmen' ambition. She felt her storm burn, daring to let out her rage and become that cold thing. The Eulogy her Mother always wanted.
Her eyes narrowed in focus, knowing that putting it down now was the only right thing to do. Her grip tightened as she quickly chugged a splash of her red flask, relaxing and then retensing as the feeling of relief washed over her aching muscles and bones.
She drew her blade and parried away the first stab of a rapier with her own dagger. Her blade tore through a seeking spear before delivering another violent slash that tore off three armed limbs. It screamed and lurched its entire weight up in an attempt to crush the knight. She lept forward into a roll, leaving behind a rope strung pot that fizzled and exploded when it landed. The blast threw up the creature for a second, angrily landing again with a seared thud before a second pot cracked against its open backwound and flooding it with a painfully seeping poison.
It flailed, swinging its limbs in a desperate attempt to scrape off the painful, burning feeling on its back. It became too distracted before three beams of moonlight painted across its body. It wriggled for a moment as the lines began to form a meter deep into its flesh as the knight could have sworn this look of relief come over the front face. It slowly fell to the ground, turning like all others into gilded dust.
"Rest in peace, all of you..." Before defying the rules, and not allowing the dust to return to the tree. She knelt silently beside the dispersing visage and stretched out her hand. The dust stilled before slowly chabging course and flowing through her. She breathed in the pain, the agony, the suffering of so many, before breathing out souls as they fluttered away as distant pyrflies. "Be at peace, wherever now that can be." She glanced towards Marika, relieved she had not seen, but suddenly very worried that she still had not awoken.
Marika
She panicked, looking in all directions. She felt hot. Everywhere was hot. Her flesh stung, her eyes bled with tears, sweat, and blood in equal measures. It was so very dark, and all she could see were the writhing corpses and squirming remains of other unfortunate victims. Her flesh was sore and felt as if she had been repeatedly whipped.
Then, a light began to shine on them as a lid was lifted from her prison. Eyes painfully looked up with fear at the sudden light, aching from so long in the dark. When she did, she saw two men with faces like ropes of squirming caterpillars. Between them was a small girl, wide and terrified blue eyes with teal hair.
She began to speak, but she did not hear a little girl's voice. "Marika, wake up," she heard her say in a more mature voice than her face would denote, "We have to get moving."
Her eyes snapped wide open, once more surrounded by wooden scaffolding and stonework walls of the castle. She gasped sharply, sitting up in a cold sweat as her knight slowly rubbed her back. She held her face, unable to look up again. Unable to be reminded of just how horribly wrong everything she had worked for had truly become.
How her precious golden order had truly become soaked in far too much blood, even for someone like her.
This is your fault, after all. This is all Your Fault.
She wanted to ignore Him. She wanted to tell him to shut up and to go back to his cage. To tell him she could have never known. That this was all not her intention.
Intentions did not change the children hanging from the rafters from dead to alive.