Marika returned, torch statues lit, and she collapsed instantly against her beloved. Her shoulder was seared shut with fire, but Luna recognized with silent horror what had injured her and that no sanctuary could recover her arm.
Ranni was the one, however, who was most stricken with horror. She remembered exactly what was kept here in this evergaol and what she had forgotten to prepare her mother for. "No..." she muttered in a shakey breath.
Fia was the one who approached her as Marika was carried back to camp by their moonblessed hero, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. "Princess..."
"Yes, Fia?" She turned and met Fia's eyes. Melina had brought this woman into their home in a manner of speaking. The platinum haired woman so closely shrouded in that cloak had still been some mystery to Ranni, but she would be lying if she had not already borne a fondness for her.
"I can feel your pain. You... knew what was here. Didn't you?" Fia spoke as her thumb lightly rubbed Ranni's shoulder.
"... I did. I let that information slip my mind, and... cost my mother dearly." She gulped quietly. She had practiced holding back guilty tears centuries aho. It did not make it hurt any less.
"I am sorry. Even if you had prepared her, there is no certainty that the outcome would not be the same." She tried to assure her new adoration, her hand now massaging her back softly.
"The blame still falls to me, Fia..." She quietly hugged herself before Fia's hand lightly cupped her cheek and turned her to face Fia.
"What failings came before are not to be dwelled on. Tis a secret we shall keep like a candle in the darkness." She lightly brushed a thumb across the cheek of the moon princess, whose eyes softened as her tears fell slow. "There is no need for more pain, more truths that shall only wound these most pained of hearts."
Ranni leaned forward, resting her face in the collar of the grim draped woman. Her arms encircled her, cradling her as she was so well trained to do. "Let me hold you for just a little while."
...
Three days later
Melina slipped through the gateway that the mystic barriers had protected. One hand settled on the dagger she kept tucked in her belt beneath her newer brown furred cloak. The gateway revealed a dark blue stone pathway. It resembled a cistern or a sewer that had been refitted into a type of sealed hallway with a couple of various directions she noticed she could go. A stairwell to her left once entering the larger open chamber with a chasm beneath it, or straight ahead towards a chamber, she swore she could see an item inside of. She decided that rummaging around wasn't the best idea when they needed a path ahead.
There was a soft step behind her as she moved toward the stairwell. Her eyes narrow, ducking just as a sweep of a long metal weapon would have taken off her head. She kicked back and found a small assailant. A tiny figure with what looked like stone skin and strange cloth style garbs she didn't recognize.
She spoke a word in the language Luna had taught her to help with the newer magic and raised a hand as two more attackers landed beside the crumpled body of the first. "Arntha!" Fire burst from her fingers that crackled with a deeper reddish orange hue than she had ever seen. Even the giant's flame and the frenzied flame were not so richly aglow. When the bolt of fire struck, the two small attackers were incinerated. Their weapons clattered to the floor in a red hot glow of superheated metal, even partially fusing to the stone beneath them.
"Woah..." It was the first time she had managed a full spell with the word. Luna had said that magic sometimes came more easily when in stressful situations. "She wasn't kidding..." A smile crossed her lips as she marveled at her progress just a moment too long.
"Raaaa!" She heard behind her as a swipe tore into her back. She rolled with it in a pained grunt, thanking her reflexed for saving her from that slicing something vital. Her shoulder blade ached, still.
"Bastard!" She turned, catching the next swipe with a slash of her dagger. A deeply curved steel edge with a metal hilt fused to the tang. It had a small hook at the hilt that helped it with catching and deflection, and she used that same hook to grip and then snap the tip off the half crescent like spear. The wielder was yanked forward by the motion, which eas followed up by a loud crunch as Melina's boot crashed down on its skull. She snapped her fingers, whispering, "Lilia Han-vu." And sighed in relief as her wound shut with a washing band of white fire.
"This magic is so versatile." She muttered to herself. "Ask the elements... instead of force. Be kind, rather than cruel." She started up the staircase while she mumbled with a gentle smile. When she got up the two stairwells to the main platform, she noticed a tunnel to her right and then an extremely loud shrieking.
Her eyes drifted up to the crashing body of easily the nastiest thing she had seen this week. It was a giant ball around six meters wide made seemingly of nothing but writing octopi tentacles that balled themselves into a giant knot with a snatching beak on front.
"Fuck. No." It let out a wail, and the instant its gross spittle got in her hair, the candle suddenly felt as hot as a furnace. "FUCK NO YOU DIDN'T NOT!" Ranni had spent all night getting her hair treated and braided for this trip, and now it was covered in slime.
The creature crawled towards her in a writhing mass of slipping and sliding tendrils as its beak kept snapping at her. She slashed one tendril as it got close, running her hand along her dagger as it began to glow gold and leaped over a swiping tendril. She swung up close, a beam of golden light slashing across its beak and tearing it in half along with a fountain of foul blood as the beast was launched back. It cracked the wall, dust falling from the roof as Melina raised her hand again. Dark orange fire crackled to life across her fingers as she spoke with a furious bite.
"Arntha."
...
The soldier slowly looked up from his spot upon the brace. His loose metal helmet lightly tinking as he did, gazing up slowly at the sky that was beautifully aglow with light by the Halligtree. The soldier, like so many here, yearned deeply to see their master come home. Yet ne'er had Miquella the Kind come back to their sacred home.
"Where arst thou, fair Miquella..." He whispered in a hoarse tone. He had not tasted water in so many decades. He pleaded nearly every hour for their lord to return. They all had begun to plead, but long had their prayers gone unanswered.
A soft footstep set down on the golden laid bridge that tied the outer layer to the brace that supported the dying godly tree. The soldier looked up slowly, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
He was Home.