Lightning cracked across the sky, the piercing streak illuminating a vast sea of armor that laid half sunken in the mud as the rains poured heavily down over the muddied base of Guwal's Fall. It was a storm that knew no end, continuing on and on in a never ending downpour upon the steel legions of corpses. Many of the deceased were cut to their core, gouged and bled to death, while some were trampled, drowned in the mud by the thundering steps of their own men or the enemy during a battle that has long since passed. There wasn't a sound to be heard apart from the hammering of the hefty water droplets upon the sorrowful remains, resonating out as a cacophony of uncoordinated ringing notes interspersed by the roaring lighting that split the sky and rattled the very foundations of the mountainous glass curtain of water pouring over the carved rounded spillway of Guwal's Fall, a high, neigh insurmountable wall that barred the eastern Mudlands from the interior of the nation of Dalbree.
With each flash illuminated a single swift figure that moved like a specter in the wind, graceful and light, not so much navigating as she was dancing in all earnestness of the word. She was a girl, short of stature, petite in figure, pale as the moon with skin that had never seen the light of Polygratheaan or the iridescent golden chains that bound the realm to his heavenly light. From helmet to chest piece to outstretched forearm and so on, she twirled with grace, with the placement of her feet never slipping, despite the horrendously uneven terrain, her white skirt twirling like a vortex in the wind, repelling all water before she stepped twice, from chest piece of helmet to an upright knee to pirouette on her toes, arms forming a circle before her as she spun with the momentum once, twice, thrice, before the sixth revolution brought her to a still. Right hand rested at her sternum, thumb facing her body, pinky away, the tip of her middle finger ever so tenderly making contact with the elbow of her left arm as the left hand mirrored the right with thumb dividing her face down the bridge of her nose.
There she sat, posture unerring against neither the pouring of rain, the chill of the wind, or the sheik of lightning that even the earth trembled beneath. All that moved were the digits of her fingers, little flicks, minor twitches, as if she was considering, musing and appraising… something… not so much physical as it was spiritual. Eventually she came to a conclusion, her head nodding in disapproval before stepping once more and dancing across the barren mud land again, spinning, twirling, dancing upon the slain ever so graceful, ever so beautiful, ever so perfectly with no slip in her routine, as if every step, every turn, even shift in elevation, orientation of armor and their odd angles were well practiced decades in advance, every day until the presence.
Every now and again, she'd pause, strike the same pose, right thumb to sternum, left thumb resting before the ridge of her nose and again, she'd shake her head and gracefully dance once more, repelling the water each time her dress would splay out whenever she twirled while her long silver hair followed her like a ribbon in the breeze that even the water couldn't catch and reduce to a matted mess.
Throughout this routine as she flowed through the remains like a river she heard a faint voice call out, weakened and dying. She was mid stride in her near ritualistic routine, but in a moment she pivoted with immaculate balance vaulting head over heels in a frontal areal, landing deftly upon the back mud-drowned armored soldier, hands stretched outwards from herself before she bowed down, one leg outstretched acting as a counterweight, perfectly balanced, and opened her eyes to the one that drew her near. It was a man, bleeding from his face that caked over one eye, helm crushed in ward, his body pinned by a dead beast, with a single wrist above the mud, while his head was propped against a fallen enemy, keeping him from sinking lower and drowning.
"Save me," was all he whispered, as he gazed into her soft lavender eyes that struck him with a deep profound fear.
One that wasn't conjured up under any threat she may have posed, but at mere glance at her majesty, the soldier felt at the very pit of his soul that he had been intimately known. There was a wisdom in her eyes, a profound perception in the calmness of her face, as though even her very thoughts were carefully measured and coordinated as the dance she undertook. She blinked once, and her left eye was no longer human, and as lightning split the sky, he saw the slit of a cat's eye.
She closed her eyes once more, as though disappointed, and answered, "you're not who I'm looking for."
She lowered her hands, taking his in her delicate palms, interlacing his fingers with his as if to offer him just a morsel of respite, of caring and consideration. But ultimately, that tepid union was broken, it had to be. Even he knew she couldn't save him from a sorrowful pit. The beast upon him was too heavy, the depths of the muddy oblivion that held him to firm. She was just a girl with strength unfit for the task, as she kindly stepped away and continued her search. She pivoted on one foot, and danced once more. His blood was dwindling, but her presence had comforted him enough to bring on a peaceful union with Vrueth, the god of death.
Men laid with spears ran through, limbs torn away, entrails spilled out, but each this girl considered, each this girl danced between and above, each she intimately appraised as the storm howled sapping at her body, and the rain battered her fair skin like a swarm of stinging hornets ceaseless in their attacks as she came to her pose of appraisal once more, perhaps for the hundredth, or three hundredth time since she first began her dance. Though her body ached and was oppressed by the very weather, her soul sensed an affinity near. It was a pull, almost magnetic, guiding her across the land of the slain.
There she found a man, indistinguishable amongst the thousands that surrounded him, but to her, he shined like gold amongst sand. Upon his right arm was a shattered shield bearing two of five pedals of the Rain Blossom Everweeper, the sigil of Guwal, the Ringing City that guarded against barbarians of the mud-lands to the east. The arm that bore it was twisted and broken, even the plate upon his body was dented inward, and when she looked to his face, the visor was sheared apart just below his upper lip, the sheered breathing slits now seeming to form an eerie skull mask of steel. His helmet was unique. Where the reast wore thick cowls over their head to protect and repel the rain, the one he wore bore a leather brim so wide in all directions it encompassed their shoulders protecting from the never ending downpour. It was fortunate that he wasn't buried or trampled into the mud as he laid amongst and upon slain beasts and their riders, his left hand was empty but pulsed shut before gradually opening again and again, as if his body was still driven to fight, grasping at a lost blade until his last. His breath was faint yet deliberate, still struggling, still with the latent strive to survive, even if it was entirely within his own mind.
"It's you," she murmured softly, bowing down to gently take his chin within her hands. His eyes didn't respond, lidded and empty. The man was on the verge of death. "My Custodian~"
She raised her left hand towards the sky above just for a ribbon of light to emerge from her shoulder and snake up her pale skin. It encircled her wrists, stretched down the front and back of her palm before branching into five shoots to snake and slither down to the tips of her fingers, forming a full sleeve of refined ribbons of light magic. She then turned her palm downward lowering it upon the man's chest, where it then fell through. Through the armor, skin and even bones, she reached deeper as if dipping her hand through a body of water. Once she found the object of her desire, the girl's fingers found purchase, took hold before beginning to pull.
She felt his body resisting, as many cords and arteries strained to keep it in place. However, with just a bit of strength and leverage as she used her other arm to push against his chest plate, the girl gradually began to pull his heart from his very chest. The upper half of his beating organ began to emerge from the metal within her hand, too big to fully grasp for her diminutive fingers but not so much she couldn't manage. However, the moment it threatened to leave his body, did that man suddenly spring awake as though there wasn't a moment he wasn't alert and ready to fight.
His left hand flashed upwards towards her face, and the girl raised her right hand to defend herself just to feel a piercing stab strike straight through her forearm, causing her to yelp in agony as a long shadow-black blade stayed from piercing her skull by mere inches. She gazed down to the man's broken visor, peering through the eye slits to find a gaze of pure rage, as right arm trembled beneath his strength and might, left hand straining to muster the strength to relinquish his heart from his body.
"You monsters-" he growled, his eyes erratic and teeth clenched beneath his broken visor. "Will be driven to the mud-lands! Burned in smoldering irons that cages your being!"
He wasn't seeing a girl in that instant, he wasn't seeing anything. Just a figure, the shape of an opponent, just another person, another thing, that needed to be slayed.
"S-stop…" she cried out with the last breath left in her lungs after her initial scream as she felt that blade cleave a wound up her forearm, the wound healing almost instantly under her own magic wherever the blade left. As she struggled, that refined ribbon of light magic around her left arm began to wane, dissipating into an unrefined aura and back to a ribbon whenever she attempted to steel her focus again. Her mind was too divided between the agony of the blade in her arm and quelling the overwhelming aggression and overpowering strength of the man before her. Maintaining such focus to keep such highly refined ribbons of light magic was becoming an impossibility, and she cried out, "Y-you'll Perish If I Can't Hewn Up Your Heart! I can bring you… deliverance!"
If her light magic technique was to end in that very moment, his vital organ would be left to meld not only to bone and flesh, but linen and metal too. It would be no different or be better off pierced by a knife instead, but there was no reasoning with this fiend of war before her. All she could do was steel her resolve as she mustered every last bit of strength she had left to pull with every bit of her remaining being.
With a cry resounding from the pit of her throat, she lunged off that man, propelling herself back. The black blade was ripped from his hand as she crashed upon a mound of armored corpses. She held her wounded arm close with the blade still lodged deep in her flesh up to the hilt. Whimpering in agony as tears flowed down her face, her other hand tentatively reached for the withering handle before ripping it out of her flesh and tossing it aside. Channeling light magic, to mend the wound shut her eyes glanced back to her chosen Custodian, his hand outstretched to her, straining to even just sit up as his body pulsed once and again. His breathing was labored, his consciousness slipping fast, and before he collapsed back, the girl noticed a distinct presence within his eyes. That fury, that animalistic murder was no longer there. He was sentient once more, and the last thing he saw beneath the flash of a spear of lightning was that girl holding his still beating heart within her hand as the black blade dissipated and evaporated from her wound until there was nothing that remained.
"I'll forgive your transgression…" she whispered beneath the endless downpour of rain. She held up the man's heart to gaze upon, admiring its strength, its form, its clear health. "Rest now, and recoup your strength. The path to deliverance beyond the bounds where Polygratheaan rests is long and seeded with the hordes of our enemies."
When the man next woke, he sprung from his rest, body taken by an instinct to fight. In an instant, he was on his knees, head darting around as his eyes glared beneath that brimmed cap of his helmet keenfully scanning the barren deadland of the battlefield. His right arm hung limp at his side, twisted and contorted beyond what Ioxo intended, yet the pain didn't get to him. Instead, all he clung to was that dark summoned blade in his hand with an aura of pitch blackness that faded whenever the lightning from the storm above screamed out leaving behind a semi transparent yet distinctly bronze hue to the weapon's blade. Once that light faded however, the dark weapon returned to an inky blackness that mirrored the storm clouds above.
Eventually, that man's initial aggression subsided as he slowly stood, guard still raised, ready to kill as he turned on his heels. Nothing but the dead and icon of death all around for as far as his eye could see. Glimmering metal, pools of blood, pattering rain upon tempered steel, sinking a bleak melody as the rains never ceased. Then his eyes fell upon that specter curled up against a beheaded beast, arms folded to her chest, dress stained red in her own fresh blood. As her eyes met his, what once had been a dissipation of aggression all but coalesced in his being once more as he stumbled towards her, and then sprinting like a starved beast of predation and the girl the prey.
Her eyes went wide, seeing this wounded warrior with a broken visor whose breathing slits formed an eerie likeness to a toothy skull rush at her spiked her heart with fear. She shrank in on herself, eyes clamped shut curled as tight as she could knowing this would be her end as that man barreled right at her knife raised high before plunging down. She felt the impact of that blade stabbing down straight to the hilt, the piercing stab to a blunt thud as that crossguard bashed into flesh just like when he stabbed her arm during their first encounter. However, she felt no pain in her being as that man began to rip and savagely rend.
When she opened her eyes, she found why. He wasn't tearing at her, but the beast she laid upon, cutting open its belly with several savage rending swipes of his arm. Once a great gash was made, he plunged the blade into the beast's thigh to free his good hand before plunging it deep and ripping out its innards upon the muddied grounds. With a satisfied growl, he knelt down, sifted through the entrails before picking out an organ with his hand just to raise it to his maw before biting down into the raw viscera like an animal. He groaned with delight, swallowing the mouthful of flesh after just a few bites, before biting down again for another filling. Once he swallowed that, his ferocity seemed to temper, his reasoning returned as he set the organ aside, and snagged that black knife from the beast's thigh. Only now he manipulated it less like a club and more like a tool of precision as he flayed the belly of the beast with one arm, and cut out slabs of red meat as that girl sat just next to him.
"Famished, were you?" she asked. However, aside from a quick terse glance through his eye slits, the man paid the girl no mind as he huffed and growled with his labored exertion to render meat from that beastly carcass. "My Custodian?"
Again, no clear response, and this time, not even a glancing acknowledgement as he slung slabs of red meat over the shoulder of his broken arm, before slinging them over his left arm once that was filled. She watched as he cut a slab of meat as large as his palm, before discarding the black blade, letting it dissipate and dissolve into non-existence as flakes of black magic peeled off its form. He then took that hand-sized slab of meat in his palm only for a flame to erupt across within his grasp. She didn't doubt the man had much fury to draw on to muster such a heated scorching fire and with a satisfied disposition in his eyes, the man finally stood tall, right arm still limp and twisted before sauntering west towards the wall.
"Pri-prithee!" she called, rotating onto her knees. "Heither here unto me, Custodian!" Instead, all he did was take a bite out of that freshly flash-cooked piece of red meat, savoring the cooked flavor and the feeling of an empty belly now not so empty and soon to be full. Frustrated, she simmered and cried out, "thou'st a barbarian!"
Her hand took hold of a drenched stone before throwing it at the man just to watch as it struck his helm in tandem with yet another streak of lightning illuminating the sky. Only then did that man pause, raise that meat up to his face before taking another bite. He turned around to glare at that girl, only now, paying her the courtesy to properly size her being with an eye of animus judgement.
"Crawl 'vack into whatever tower you fell fron', waif," a deep growling voice resonated from the pit of his throat. She couldn't help but discern the odd speech impediment that man had. "I've a 'vattle to settle. I'd rather not a dan'sel in'feed 'vy effort."
He couldn't pronounce is Bs, nor his Ms and Ps. It was of little concern to her however, he was able bodied, strong willed with a beastly temperament and all encompassing will to fight. Something of great value to her the eye of Trillionye was accurate to appraise.
She retorted, "where'st thou to go without thy heart?"
She raised her bloodied hand boasting the man's still beating heart. Each ventricle was tipped with golden bands, and encrusted glowing jewels. The veins themselves pulsed with a golden hue but even then, the man hardly seemed impressed let alone disturbed.
"Where'd you cleft that trinket fron'?"
"Why, thee - of course~" she insisted, standing tall upon the gutted beast, heels together, perfectly balanced with an unperturbed expression upon her face, fair, measured and with a knowing glare beyond her years. She outstretched it towards her would be Custodian and said, "shouldst thou liketh it restored to thee, prithee fulfillith my humble task."
"Find con'fort in dissatisfaction, waif," he suggested with a sneer, before biting down upon his cooked meat and turning away.
However, the very next step he took, the man instantly felt his body weaken severely. His eyes strained, his legs struggled to keep from buckling while his torso threatened to keel over. His sense of balance was awry as a stinging ring in his ears resounded through his head. He turned around towards that little spector, and as his vision grew blurry, he saw her holding that strange heart in one hand, while the other pinched at the ventricle. It was clear then, this was no mere mischief as he felt the life fading from his being fast.
He sneered, as he discarded the meat in his hand to dark summon a blade within his hand, stalking forward as fast as he could, stumbling across the uneven terrain towards her, now with killing intent. Yet, just before he could bring that blade down his body all but failed leaving him to crash down like a drunken peasant who couldn't hold his drink. The meat upon his shoulders spilled out upon the dead and the mud as he was ground to a halt against the wet furred hide of the gutted beast. The girl, however, deftly avoided the mass of belligerent armor and muscle with a swift pirouette to the side as the man came to a rest keeled over that animal. She began a new dance routine, heart in her hand, circling him with an elegance he was in no position to admire as he heard her speak in an almost melodic tone.
"To summit the Fall of the Ringing City of Guwal, through the nation of Dalbree, beyond the nation where the rain always falls. Thy will escort me across the Glass Desert to the empire of Carthol. Therein be thy task, my Custodian~" It was then, the circled back around to her Custodian's front, standing just before the leather brim of his steel helm as he gradually collected himself. "Should I parish, ye shall parish with. For that is how the hex I hath cast upon thy heart worketh." She crouched down, knees pressed to her chest, heart in on hand as the other reached down just for her tender fingers to take hold of that brim and lift it ever so slightly. "Prithee hath thy a name, yes?"
He felt his strength returning little by little, his body still in shock after having been deprived of blood flow for even just a few seconds.
"Gunner," he answered with a tired growl.
She replied with, "Gwynetherial Thalistoshial Yon Bolliar."
"Gwyn will do," he murmured as he gathered and pulled himself from the mud as his right arm dangled limp. "You wish to clin'e Guwal's fall and venture to Carthol?" he asked, tipping the leather brim of his steel helm to the west where the immense wall stood, surface running with clear water where it crashed into the midlands below forming a snaking river that split the battlefield. He then ground one foot beneath him into the mud, before pushing himself up to stand. "I can take you there, lil' waif," he assured her, moving to the from the belly of the beast to its front where a shaft with a crescent bladed crossguard guard lay buried in its chest up to the twin biting edges. "However, there's a legion of Ioxo's kin 'vetween here and there, whose souls I must rend and deliver to Vrueth, and the first is in Guwal," he told, reaching down, taking hold of that shaft and wrenching it from that creature's carcass, revealing a lengthy glistening spear tip drenched in beast blood. Resting it upon his shoulder, Gunner specified as he gazed at the flowing wall, neck craning upward just for his eyes to glimpse where it crested and the waters poured over high, high above. "They're in Dogun's keep."
As he gauged a way or a method to surmount Guwal's fall, Gwynetherial eyes drifted down to his limp arm. The shoulder was popped at an odd angle, the inside of his forearm bulged with an odd protrusion where the limb bent. It was baffling how he wasn't in lost in agony and she offered him a service.
"May I mend thy lame arm, Gunner?" she asked. "Surely two shall be better than the one?"
He shook his head, mind still fixated on the fall.
"Undislocating the shoulder will 've easy, 'ut the 'vone, that's certainly already infected." As he spoke, Gwynetherial heard a noise of to the east, and her head pivoted around to see three figures stalking near. "Channel light 'agic through that and you'll flash the infection through 'ny faster than I can heal and I'll perish. Now," he muttered, turning to face the trio that were gathering, "who wanders near?" They were distinctly human, bearing mismatched armor, with bags of weapons strewn across their back as they approached. He knew at the very sight, that they were, "scavangers…"
The first spoke, pointing with a spear in his hand, shield in the other, "what's that you've there at your side?"
As Gunner's leather brim tipped low, obscuring his eyes from the three, he answered, "there's 'lenty of steel here to scavenge, lads. No need to fight for these scraps."
The second then spoke, one holding tight to a lengthy sword with both hands, one whose length he struggled to properly control and articulate as he said, "there's nothing in these muds like that."
"The waif is mine," he growled as he stepped forward.
He eyed each of their bodies beneath that leather brim of his helm while Gwynetherail retreated to his back. He ground the butt of his crescent bladed spear into the mud, sliding his hand down the shaft until it fully extended from his shoulder, before twisting his fist to take the weapon in a reverse grip.
Then the third spoke, one with a battle axe in one hand, and a spiked hammer in the next, who said, "what's a half broken whelp to do? I'll take those fancy gloves off your hands once you're dead in the mud."
The man with the great sword then answered, "I like your boots, whelp."
Then the one with the spear and shield stepped forward and added, "and I like your hat."
A bolt of lightning split the heavens.
In the blinding light Gunner's hand opened wide, releasing his crescent spear, before his arm flashed upwards over his shoulder to take hold of the weapon and choke up near its neck before darting the duel wielder and wildly leaping fourth just as their vision and hearing returned. The duel wielder wasn't ready and wasn't equipped with anything that could quickly stab as Gunner brought his fist down and the crescent bladed spear gripped within fist. That spear tip found its mark right where the neck and the collar of that man as he gouged him into the ground. The one with the greatsword swiftly lunged for Gunner, tip pointed for his back but embalanced as Gunner sprung upward, fist wrenching the blade free before his palm glided across the slick shaft until he clamped down near the its end and swung in one wild arc around his back.
The crescent bladed guard intercepted that greatsword as the momentum slammed it aside whilst the sharpened and pointed spear tip cleaved at the man's neck, gouging him three fourths of the way through, but sparing the spine. The scavenger fell to his knee, hands grasping at his bleeding mortal wound, coughing for air as lung filled with blood as lightning struck and the rains continued down as Gunner perched his crescent spear upon his shoulder and turned for Gwynetherial. Her eyes glanced to that first man with the shield and spear, wondering why he'd neglected to attack and why Gunner paid him no mind. Then her eyes saw it.
The same dark summoned blade Gunner had struck her with when she stole his heart was now embedded in that man's skull, tossed when that first bolt of lightning lit the sky allowing him to mask the throw in the transition between holds upon that crescent spear. As it dissipated, its form flaking off in black specks, that final scavenger fell dead. She knew then, the right eye of Trillionye, goddess of Fortune and luck, hadn't lied. It was the eye of appraisal, the eye that knew value, and as Gunner approached, there wasn't a doubt in her mind that she'd found her Golden Custodian, one not just befitting of the task at hand, but the only one that could see it through to the end.
"To Guwal, then," his brothy voice spoke as he strode right past on his way for the Fall. "I know of an a'cothecary, one that can heal 'vy ivory without infection."
"Gunner," she began as she followed right after, eyes now glancing to the ground to properly place her feet. "Why doth thy tongue speak in such a manner?"
"Don't worry for it, waif," he insisted as he continued on, limp arm dangling at his side. "Don't worry for it at all."