Their simultaneous accusations filled the odd scenery.
Marika narrowed her eyes. Not much aside from the glow of his eyes were visible beneath that helmet and yet, without a shred of doubt, she could say that he was confused. It was not due to untold years of watching and gauging others nor any obvious signs. No, it was something she felt.
His confusion was as genuine as her own.
She chanced a glance around.
This endless blue field of grass and tries stretched as far as the eye could see, distant animals running in mismatched groups of prey and predator. Schools of fish swam through shifting waters that somehow took the place of air yet didn't suffocate or drench them.
All of it was made up of the power she felt from him.
"This is realm is one of thine's creation." Marika said, gaze falling back of him. He'd made no move towards her, but he didn't need to. Anything within this realm was and would always be within his grasp so long as they remained within it. "Why have I been brought here?"
"Did it look like I planned this anymore than you?" He questioned dryly.
She would cede him that point. He'd been clutching at his chest just as she were her head, both enduring an unexpected pain.
Pain that set in only after their respective energies came into contact.
"But the creation of this place art thee's work, no? Surely, there exists some explanation thou art privy to." Marika said. She may have instigated what could have been the cause of this, but he was bound to be aware of something she wasn't. It was the only conclusion she could come to.
"What were you trying to do to me?"
A question she could not answer truthfully.
This place hadn't just revealed his true form to her but flipped the dichotomy of power.
In that physical form of his he'd been powerful and particularly willful. He was steadfast in the latter, an exchange of words and the look in his eyes enough to tell her he held strong convictions that would not allow him to serve another. But the former? That power had been a fleeting thing.
Forcing him into agreement, and perhaps bending him entirely to her will, wouldn't have been out of the question.
Here she had little choice but to tread carefully. The same battle forged instinct that demanded she flee from him in their first encounter begged for her to heed it now.
She drew a short breath, focusing not on him but past him.
Grace did not heed her command, this place bereft of it.
She opened her mouth and it fell shut, no words spoken. She tried once more only to get the same result.
The man snorted. "Trying to bind me to whatever agreement you were looking to make I bet." He said. "Let's just say that my soul doesn't take too kindly to anything foreign." As he spoke, he raised an armored hand. The sword and sheath at his hip burned away in the same blue flame of energy that been leaking from his much smaller physical form, reappearing in his grasp. He dropped its point into the grass, the blade still sheathed, then placed his hands onto the pommel. "Which is why it's a wonder you made it here alive."
He broke eye contact, gaze running over her form. None of that suppressed tension from before was present, the man just as aware of the flipped dichotomy.
And yet, despite accurately pointing out her intentions, he only stood ready to defend himself, no aggression or animosity aimed at her. Strange. If any had dared to so much as suggest attempting such a thing to her, their life would've been forfeit.
"But not without losing something, it looks like." He noted as his eyes found hers once more, curiosity at the forefront of his tone. "You must've noticed it by now. That power you were using. Its gone."
What was he-
Marika froze stiff all her attention pulled away from the unfamiliar surroundings and the threat across from her, focusing it solely on herself.
There was no Grace. No power. Nothing.
More than that, she could no longer feel the connection that tethered her to her physical form. Radagon's desperate defiance and efforts to keep her suppressed were gone as well. As she was now, there was precious little separating her from mortals.
Divinity.
Countless perished before and after she achieved it. Wars were fought in its name, her name. Horrid rituals forced upon many and endured for it. What little she held dear destroyed by the concept that so enthralled mortals.
And all that came with it was just gone.
A frighteningly mind boggling concept. One she wouldn't have been so quick to believe, the status a cornerstone of her existence.
Marika closed her eyes and took a deep breath, drinking in the ominously calming air of this place. Its soothing coolness gathered with her swelling lungs.
She could no longer feel It. That thing that plagued every moment of her divinity, looming just beyond on notice, but always watching. She was not just free of the imprisonment it forced upon her.
She was free of its presence entirely.
A prospect far more bewildering than her lack of power.
But she was not alone.
Curiosity. Confusion. Suspicion. The emotions perfectly mirrored much of what she herself was feeling though they did not belong to her.
"This is unexpected." Marika said as she let out the breath, opening her eyes.
"Figured something out?" The man asked, having patiently waited out her moment of revelation. He was sharp and, from what she could tell, sensitive to things that went beyond the physical realm, but he'd yet to understand the gravity of her, or rather, their situation, however it came to be.
"It matters not." Marika said. This wasn't how she expected to achieve her goal, but the details were of little consequence now. "This arrangement will still prove sufficient. We art left with little choice but to from a covenant to avoid future hardship."
"We?" He questioned. "I'd might have been willing to help with whatever you wanted had you just asked but now-" He raised his left hand as a cold sharp anger abruptly shot up from the sea of emotions drifting and mixing between them. Marika's breath hitched, all ability to breath stolen from her.
A moment ago there'd been plenty of space between them but now she hung in the air, the cold metal of his gauntlet wrapped around her throat. Had she moved? Had he? She couldn't tell. "-I might just kill you and put an end to whatever this is."
So he said, but even as his grip closed further, a suffocating pain spreading across her neck, she wasn't in any real danger. Not yet. His anger was no more than a drop in all that he felt compared to wellspring of curiosity still at the front of his mind.
More than that-
Marika raised her left hand, curling it into a fist. Her knuckles whitened, insignificant stings coming from hand as her nails dug into her palm, blood, an unfamiliar sight, oozing out from between her fingers.
At the same time, the clothed underside of the gauntlet around her neck dampened.
"Thou and I art connected. As long as that is so we shall share the same fate."
XOXO
Onyx laid motionless in the grass at the base of the dragon's corpse.
Melina stared at his fallen form, frozen.
That overflowing Grace. The golden haired woman of unparalleled beauty from which is spread from. The ethereal nature of it all. She'd thought it a hallucination, some side effect from being exposed to the power pouring out from Onyx but then he addressed her directly.
They spoke.
They suffered simultaneous bouts of pain.
Then collapsed.
All that power, neither having claimed a clear superiority over the other, was gone, no flames nor trails of Grace to hint at what just occurred. All that remained of the brief impossible encounter was Onyx himself and the taller than normal grass growing around him.
But she could not bring herself to move.
Queen Marika the Eternal.
To think that she would appear here. That she could at all. What did this all mean?
Blue mist gathered around Onyx, Torrent rising from the ground beneath him, his unconscious form taken upon the saddle. Torrent was right. Right now she should be seeing to it that Onyx was alive and well, the answers to such questions second to his wellbeing.
She joined Torrent, keeping Onyx steady as they made their way out of the ruins.
He was cold to the touch. So cold she instinctively jerked her hand away from him, the unexpected sensation taking her off guard. He still drew breath and the connection tying her to him held strong, so she was sure he was in no immediate danger but there was something she couldn't begin to decipher going on.
As they stepped beyond the ruins, Melina spotted Edgar and Irina, both slumped on the ground around their fire. Whether it was Grace at work or the effects of Onyx's power, the two were still alive, left unconscious by the events that transpired.
They headed over to the cabin, Melina dragging and hefting him onto his bed once they were inside.
He laid on its furs, cold and nearly motionless, chest raising only slightly to take in light breaths.
She did not understand what had transpired but Melina knew one thing.
Accompanying Onyx had been the right decision. No other, demigod or lesser, could have drawn the Goddess of The Lands Between to them.
XOXO
(A/N: No, Marika has not been made mortal. That's simply her interpretation of things after living for such a long time with so much power immediately at her disposal. )