Marika
It was the last bath she would likely have before they departed for the Atlus Plateau. For the path leading to the Erdtree. To her home.
Was it really a home to Marika anymore, though?
She slowly leaned up from the water as golden hair fell down her back in a wet matte. Soft hands worked the conditioner that the scholars had prepared her into thick hold. It felt softer in seconds, and the color seemed all the sharper before she poured another few cups of water across it to rinse awat the oily texture it had created.
She sighed gently as the warm water fell over her skin and let her thoughts fade into the gentle steam that filled her nostrils. There was a creak as the door opened and shut, but she figured it was one of the attendees who came to leave a change of clothes or fresh toweling.
It left her unguarded when the smell of strawberries and iron hit her from behind before a pair of strong arms gently circled her waist. Any panic that could have stirred melted away with that soft kiss planted on her shoulder, and she knew then it was the touch of her knight.
"Luna..." the golden queen whispered as scarred, muscular breasts pressed slowly against her own back, and she felt the heartbeat beneath them grow calmer at the warmth.
"Marika..." her knight whispered as a rough and callused hand gently touched her growingly red cheek. "My golden love.."
"Are you sure...?" She asked, hesitation lingering on by a strand.
"More than I could ever put to words."
Their lips met, and the water grew so much warmer as their bodies fell against it, so enraptured now in the feeling of one another. It was so very gentle the way she touched Marika. Those rough, warrior's hands found such tenderness as they slowly unwound her every muscle. Every kiss was met with a warm gasp. Every grip, a tender coo. Soon, the queen of gold was lifted onto the edges of the large water pool, and her knight found her way between her thighs. Her works led to a cry from the queen that could likely be heard at the far reaches of all of Caria, and there was not a single shred of shame to be found.
Only love and passion were found in that pool, and the knight became one with her queen. There would be many cheeks painted that night in shades of roses. Even a certain queen beneath the moon felt a warm, gentle glow fill her cheeks as her halls resonated with such passionate cries.
...
Marika
She awoke to the warm arms wrapped tightly around her body and her face nestled against the chest of her savior. Her ears caught the thudding, gentle beat of her beloved's heart and considered returning to rest to the sound of that beat. It was so beautiful, and she noticed there was more than one thumping. Two hearts she could count based on how they beat. It made the at times dual natured knight seem a little more understandable, especially with her own duality ever at war with her own sanity.
She felt the bareness of her own flesh for the first time in what felt like centuries against another without any expectations or coercion. No drugs, no liquor, no lies. Simply warmth, affection, and love. She felt loved.
It was a feeling she had craved for far too long, and one she had grown convinced was lost to her as her face slowly grew moist against the breast of her now beloved knight.
She felt a soft hand stroke through her hair as another gently brushed aside the growing tears. "I am here." She whispered, planting a tender kiss on the head of her queen. "I am never going anywhere."
Her mouth felt dry at those words, and her arms clutched tight to the back of her beloved. Her face became flooded with emotions that overwhelmed any sense of control, and she wept against the chest of the only one who truly loved her now as those strong arms squeezed her in closer.
'She will betray us. She has seduced us!' His hot voice barely managed to pierce those golden bars as the arms of her knight squeezed her in and soothed her horrible tears.
"No one will take you from me. Not even oblivion."
....
Melina
She had departed again to the skies to seek out needed relics before the sounds rocked the halls of Caria. Her spectral trail began to fade as her boots found purchase on the plateau just beyond the Liurnia bridge that tied the plateau to the lakebed, or in theory it once had.
Crumbling stonework and ancient wars had turned this once proud connector into a broken ruin. It split the lands in a way that made passage forward difficult for those not vertically inclined or gifted with flight. Luckily, the scholars had a portal that would place her allies near where she was now landing when they would depart. They needed rest, though. She had asked that they take time to rest while she scouted ahead, and they had begrudgingly agreed with enough pestering and aid from the scholars.
That gave her time to seek out the last item they would need when they passed by the capital. She had not told them just yet, but she intended to dovert them towards the snow fields and beyond. That was where she was really needed, even if her mother believed there was another way. She knew her fate, and she knew what needed to be done. It was her choice now.
A few hours of flying more, and she found herself in the snow coated ruins of an old castle far beyond the hallowed halls of even the furthest church of her mother. The cold here was deep, chilling to the bone. It felt as if the very weather was as much a prison for what was here as the stone wall and bleak view. For miles, nothing but fog and white storms that clouded even the most beautiful of foliage from view. It was a land of death, sorrow, and madness. Far from the warmth and order of the golden order.
It was a forsaken land where the worst crimes and prisoners of that order were cast when not even the sewer of the capitalsbcould contain them. That was, at least, how Melina had grown to see them.
Yet each time she returned here, she felt a sense of calm. A peacefulness that was, or had been, lacking in the lands between. At least until her mother held her on the balcony but a couple of nights ago. That moment would likely become the final thought the candle had when the flames at last worked their power through her.
Her gaze briefly drifted to the east where the furnace of the giants burned. This was the last flame capable of her great task without completely resorting to wonton chaos and frenzy. A fate Melina would never allow to come to these lands.
She wandered through these halls, peeking in and out of spectral empty halls. This place had no seals to deter spirits, and she suspected that had her allies come, she would have witnessed why. Thankfully, it gave her an easy trip yo scoure its many passages before at last finding her prize. A corpse near the peek of the fortress ruins, clutching half of a strange, glistening medallion.
She reached a hand out to take her treasure, plucking it from curled and frozen fingers. It glowed, sensing its own other half that was waiting to rejoin it inside her satchel. It made the little kindling smile to have gained it so peacefully.
Right then was when the entirety of the land between began to rumble. Melina clutched the medallion and quickly took to the skies again just as a cry and shriek filled nearly every rattling, quaking corner. It sounded like a thousand times a thousand bones rattling, cracking, and souls whining in shock before a kind of washing rest came over them.
Melina watched in utter shock as every visible patch of death root her eyes could find through the white and clouding skies beginning to recede and shrivel. Skeletons, specters, and grave singers on boats began to crumble to dust in a way she had never seen before. It was as if a blanket of rest was falling over the lands between.
It was then that Melina felt the rushing gust of wind that was flowing by her as she fell. She was falling right out of the sky as she watched her own body turn to flesh and blood. As her burned corpse found tissue and breath, her mind raced with shock. Her thoughts only quieted their rushing whirlwind when her head struck snow, and she felt the rush of unconsciousness hit her. Her last thought before her, thankfully, mild crash landing was simply, "I have to walk all the fuckinh way -" Before darkness and cold took her to a world of sleep.
...
Melina
She rose to the smell of cooking fish and a warm cot. Sitting up slowly, she rubbed a hand through her pinkish hair as she looked around to find Ranni sat there alongside Blaidd by a fire. Not just Ranni the doll. She looked in utter bewilderment as Ranno, thick red curls and apricot skin that was spdckled frequently in freckles, sheltered in the cloak of her shadow for warmth. "We need to talk."