Every step is torture. She clutches the stab wound piercing through her side, but it's long since stopped dripping blood.
No, now it's dripping something white and viscous. Something that she's seen pour from the mouths and wounds of sin eaters.
Oul Uin flitters this way and that around her. "Sapling, you should--you should go to the mortal healers. They can help you!"
She'd been stupid. Careless.
Overly-aggressive. She'd seen...she'd seen a spear of Voeburtite design in the shoulder of the Sin Eater she'd been fighting, and she'd been so...angry.
So careless.
"I'm going to Il Mheg," she reiterates, wheezing in effort and taking another agonising step.
She feels white curling at the edges of her vision. Her senses feel...muffled. Broken, somehow.
"Why? Us Fae aren't likely to help you, even if we could!" There's an edge of something in their voice. Panic? Annoyance?
Concern?
"So just go back to the Crystarium! Or to that strange place in the desert, with all those smelly worms. Just...just go somewhere!"
Scarlet laughs, breathlessly, and takes another step. "Worried about me, my Branch?"
Oul Uin flies up into Scarlet's face and flicks her on the cheek. Scarlet barely feels it. "Of course I'm worried about you, you daft mortal! You are so fragile! Fragile, and easily harmed, and easily broken, and so short-lived, and...and...." Their lip quivers. "And can you just stop WALKING for a MOMENT?"
Scarlet meets Oul Uin's eyes. "If I stop walking then I'm going to turn into one of those things," she says, bluntly. "If I stop, for a moment...I'm never going to start again."
As if to emphasise her point, she takes another step. White liquid drips from her wound, hissing as it drips against the dirt.
Oul Uin shimmers, blinking rapidly. "I don't...I don't---I don't understand."
Scarlet grits her teeth, looking down at her injury. It looks...sickly. The skin around it has grown pale, hardening like porcelain or ivory.
There's no way of ignoring the truth of the matter.
"I'm dying," she says, simply. "So I'm going to Voeburt."
That does nothing to calm Oul Uin down.
"But I don' understand!!" They reach their hands into their hair, tugging at it roughly. "That's not...you're not allowed to die! You were meant--we were meant to be together! My loyal sapling and her branch!"
That's almost enough to make Scarlet stop.
As it is, it's enough to make her pause. Swaying on her feet, and looking at the pixie she has come to consider her closest friend. Come to consider...
No. She can't let herself think that. That makes it all hurt too much.
"I'm sorry to leave you, my Branch. I-" Scarlet swallows, blinking back tears. Her eyes burn, and she's pretty sure the tears are the same liquid that's pouring from the stab wound through her side. "I wish, more than anything, that I could stay. That I could see my oath to you through to its fullest."
"I don't care about the oath!" Oul Uin blurts, all desperation and wide eyes. "I care about you! So just...tell me, Scarlet!" They reach forward, grabbing at the top of Scarlet's armour, close to her neck. "Tell me how I can help! Tell me how to save you!"
Scarlet smiles so, so softly at her beautiful Branch. Her eyes are dimming, now, vision blurring almost completely. Drowned in light.
"Guide us?"
Oul Uin stops. Their eyes close, and they take a slow breath.
They nod.
"Anywhere." Their voice is soft. Peaceful. Scarlet feels, listening to them, that everything is going to be alright. She takes another step forwards, then another. The pain is dimming now.
Everything in this world is dimming, except their Branch.
Scarlet Willow, Knight of Voeburt smiles, despite everything.
Scarlet sits, in interminable fog, and she just wants to see. To know what has happened to her home since she left. She'd had such a long journey home when she'd heard about the flood of light approaching Voeburt, but it was a road worth taking. Getting caught by a pixie when she was so close to home had been sheer bad luck. Telling it where to go shove its errands had been a mistake.
Judging by the dark, murky nature of the mist, it seems like the Light hasn't yet reached this place. But she can't exactly be sure, with the fog surrounding her as it is. It could be almost dawn, for all she knows. Or barely dusk. Or anywhere in between.
She's under the spell of the Fey - she's worked that part out. She can't see more than a few feet in front of her face, the fog is so thick everywhere she turns. It would be one thing if they would simply face her and tell her what she needs to do to earn her freedom (not that pixies are wont to let their entertainment go without reason), but as it is, she hasn't heard hide or hair of them since she...woke up.
She'd wandered in what she thought was the direction of home, but had only found a pond - Handmirror Lake, most likely, but it felt like it was in the wrong direction. After that bit of directional confusion, she'd chosen to sit down. There's no way to make progress when the pixies have you under their spell. Any old wives tale will tell you that.
She looks at the topiary she's sitting next to. Its strange face stares right back at her in quiet astonishment. Or perhaps a silent scream. Poor bastard, frozen for who knows how long. She supposes it could've been worse. Instead of just making her have a nap, she might've been turned into one of those things. It seems the pixies had been merciful to her. She just wishes they'd appear and tell her what to do.
"Pixies?" She asks, quietly. "I don't know if you're here, and I don't know what I have to do to earn my freedom. So please...speak to me, and I will do whatever is in my power to help you."
She knows she shouldn't speak to them. That words give them power over your soul. But she was so close. She can practically taste the bread of her home, and she refuses to sit here and do nothing, or to try and flee. She's come so far, across Norvrandt, and she isn't giving up now.
There's a giggling next to her. Or above her. Or...within her? It buzzes in her ears like tinnitus, everywhere and nowhere all at once, and Scarlet reaches for the blade on her back.
"Now, now! You asked to speak with me! Drawing your weapon isn't a very nice way to say hello, is it?"
The voice comes from everywhere, just like the giggling, and Scarlet forces herself to take a calming breath. Flying off the handle when a pixie played its games with her was exactly what got her into this fine mess to begin with. She lets go of her sword's hilt and nods.
"That's better, isn't it?" The voice is uncomfortably close to her ear - far too intimate for her liking. "Now. Give me your name, little mortal, and I will tell you mine?"
Give me your name.
A trap, if Scarlet's ever heard one.
"You may call me Scarlet. I am a knight-errant of this land."
A whine of displeasure. "Oh, you're no fun, Scarlet!"
"I believe you promised a trade?" She ignores the jibe, quirking an eyebrow at the thin air to her left where she assumes a pixie to be.
"Over here, silly."
She looks right, and practically bumps her nose into the face of a pixie. She yelps and falls back to the floor, kicking up a cloud of pollen around herself.
The pixie giggles again, clapping their hands together in unrestrained delight. "Oh, I changed my mind! If you're that jumpy all the time, you will be quite a lot of fun after all!"
Scarlet brushes pollen from her armour and scowls, trying to regain her composure after that particular surprise.
"Oh, but where are my manners? I am Oul Uin!" They do a twirl in midair, demonstrating themselves. "A pixie, but you knew that part already."
They lean on their hands in midair, batting their eyes at Scarlet. "So, what is it that had you pleading for our help so earnestly, [idiot mortal]?"
Scarlet decides she isn't going to ask what that last phrase means. "I...I want to go home." She decides that honesty is her only way out of this. She can't trick a pixie - especially not one who's holding all the cards. "I was on the road back, after such a long journey, and I was almost to Voeburt when another pixie - or maybe you, I'm not certain - barred my path and started to play games with me."
"And let me guess - you didn't want to play mean old Thon Sul's games?"
Scarlet nods. Thon Sul. So this pixie she's speaking with knows who put her to sleep.
"Voeburt, you said? Such an ugly, mortal world. We call this place Il Mheg. It's much nicer."
Il Mheg.
She supposes the pixies would have their own word for the town.
"How long do you think you were, ah, asleep, little mortal?"
Scarlet blinks.
She doesn't like something within Oul Uin's tone.
"A few hours? A day, perhaps?"
She doesn't feel hungry or thirsty, so it can't have been that long. And her armour still looks the same as it did before (save for a little extra pollen coating it). No dirt or mess.
Oul Uin's face shifts to something approaching...pity? "Oh, [poor mortal, lost in time]."
The words are elegant. Beautiful. And completely alien to Scarlet's ears. "I didn't understand that, I'm sorry."
"You will, dear mortal."
Scarlet rubs her head, adjusting the circlet there a little to have it sit more comfortably. "What must I do to earn my freedom, Oul Uin?"
The pixie floats close to her face, humming before poking an eyebrow. "You're in luck, dear mortal."
She doesn't exactly feel lucky. And having a pixie say that to her fills her with a sense of deep dread.
"As it happens, we're having a little bit of a celebration at the moment. Most of the Fey are busy having fun everywhere else. I'm the only one who's noticed you bumbling about so far. Thon Sul was bored of having you in their garden and let you go. I don't think they even noticed you wandering off! But their loss--" Oul Uin circles around Scarlet's body rapidly, a high-pitched tinkling sound accompanying the movements as they lift one of Scarlet's arms, poke her cheek, and finally burrow into her hair. "Their loss is my gain, little mortal!"
Scarlet's feeling of dread notches up from horrified to apocalyptic.
"Oh, don't give me that face!" Oul Uin says, despite being burrowed in Scarlet's hair and having no way of looking at the Galdjent's facial expression. "The [Madbloom] has come home. They spent so long out in the world that it changed them! They had so much fun out there, amongst the mortals - and I want to have fun, too! So I'm going to offer you a deal, little mortal. A pact."
A pact with a pixie.
Every lesson she's ever heard tells her how bad of an idea that is. That pacts with pixies end with death, despair, and anatomically impossible unpleasantness.
But she's so close. Her home needs her. She's been away for too long already.
"What sort of pact?" she asks.
"A pact for the world!!!" Oul Uin fights their way out of Scarlet's hair, beaming and bouncing with energy.
Yep. Awful idea.
"The [Madbloom] left here and came back with the best mortals to play with I've ever seen, and then became the King! The King!! I want all of that! Well, not the king part, ruling with benevolence sounds terribly boring, but all the rest! I want to see what they saw, I want to see things they never dreamed of seeing! I want to have fun that no-one here could ever dream of having!" They float forwards and poke Scarlet's cheek. "And you are my ticket to that. A roaming knight! It's so romantic and old-fashioned!"
Old-fashioned? Rude. But...the idea doesn't sound awful. It doesn't sound like she'd be forced into anything she isn't doing already.
"Make a pact with me, mortal, and I will give you your eyes, that you might see the path laid out before you."
Scarlet takes a slow breath.
Is she really considering this?
"...You won't interfere?"
"I'll be as quiet as a stealthy mouse."
Somehow, Scarlet doubts that. "...I'll agree, on one condition."
"You need but name what you desire, Scarlet." Oul Uin smiles beatifically.
She holds up a finger. "I want to stay in Voeburt and help it, at least for a little while. I'll resume my quest, in time, but I must see to my city first."
Oul Uin's expression flickers to what it was before, when Scarlet had said she'd been asleep for a day. But, after a moment, they bounce a little again, shaking off whatever mood had overtaken them. "I solemnly swear to give you as much time as the people of Voeburt require."
Oh.
They agreed to that...rather readily. Scarlet hadn't been expecting that.
She supposes that means...
"...Okay."
Oul Uin makes a scoffing noise of deep dissatisfaction. "What sort of pact is that? Okay?! I thought you were a knight! You're supposed to be good at oaths and things, aren't you?"
Is this pixie seriously asking her to swear an oath?
Judging from the serious expression on their face, the answer to that rhetorical question is yes.
She reaches for her blade, drawing it from her back.
Oul Uin flitters backwards, alarmed.
Scarlet drops to one knee. She holds the sword up, resting on both of her hands. Looks down. Closes her eyes. "I pledge my blade to you, Oul Uin. From this day forth, I swear to protect you. By my oath, I shall not allow harm to come to you. In the name of Voeburt, and of my Lady Sauldia, I shall be your shield."
Oul Uin spins and claps, squeaking delightedly. "Oh, very good! Very, very good!!! Oh, is it my turn now?!"
Scarlet nods, just a little, but doesn't move.
"From this moment forth, I shall be your [beautiful branch], and you my [brave sapling]. Like the branch which sprouts the sapling, our bond will flow unbroken from one to the other." Scarlet feels a flow of energy pulsing through her arms, through her body. It feels...strange. "Oh! Oh, I've always wanted to say this part! Arise, Ser Knight!"
Scarlet sheaths her blade and climbs to her feet, opening her eyes to look at Oul Uin. The mist still surrounds them both, at least for the moment.
"'Tis done! We are bound now, my Sapling."
"I still...the world is still hazy."
Oul Uin looks around, crossing their arms and hmph-ing. "Some stubborn soul isn't respecting our bond. Thon Sul, I know you're out there, and when I find you, I'll tear your wings off!!"
Scarlet's eyes widen at the sudden aggression. Okay. Note to self: don't upset Oul Uin.
"Well, I suppose we'll have to find our own solution, won't we? That circlet of yours will do. Hold it out for me, would you?"
Scarlet obliges. She pulls the circlet from her head, holding the silver metal in front of her, next to Oul Uin.
The pixie's hands reach out, pressing against the metal. Another pulse of magic follows, making the circlet glow for a brief moment.
"'Tis done. This shall allow you to see through the illusions of this world. So don't lose it, or I shall be annoyed, my Sapling."
Scarlet lifts the circlet towards herself to put it back on, only for Oul's hand to hook around one of her fingers.
Scarlet awakes slowly. She's pleasantly sore, the sun is just barely peeking through her curtains, and she feels utterly...sated. Glowing.
She makes a contented noise, shifts on to her side, and slowly opens her eyes to see her bedmate.
...Oul Uin is lying down on her other pillow, staring at her.
Scarlet screeches and grabs the dagger from her bedside table, pointing it towards the troublesome pixie in alarm.
Oul Uin grins at it, like the smug Mystel threatened with a kitchen knife in a popular Voeburtite woodcut.
"Where the hells did you come from? Where's Zyrra?!"
Oul Uin sits up slowly, stretching their shoulders out. "The one with the big ears snuck out. I think they had to go to work."
Scarlet has a very, very deep sinking feeling in her stomach as she puts her dagger down. "...Please, please tell me you were not watching last night."
"You promised to show me such new sights, my sapling!" Oul Uin smirks, and damn it, that's what she was afraid their reaction would be. "And last night certainly brought new sights of its own. There were such wonderful, unexpected noises!"
Scarlet groans and buries her face in her pillow.
"Oh! That was one of the noises, yes!"
"Why did I agree to travel with you?" Scarlet asks her pillow.
Death would be preferable to this embarrassment and annoyance.
Mainly embarrassment.
"Come now, my dear willow cutting." Oul Uin floats over, petting Scarlet's hair gently. "In a choice between this or fey illusions, would you truly choose the mists in preference to my company? Or the insufferable, endless Light?"
Scarlet sighs. Damn it, that's mean.
She rolls on to her back and looks up at the pixie. "...No. Your presence is far preferred to that infernal fog."
Oul Uin spins in the air in delight.
"Oul Uin."
The tone of her voice makes the pixie pause, looking down at Scarlet seriously. Or as serious as they can ever look.
"Next time I bring someone to my room, I don't want you watching, alright?"
Oul Uin pouts. "But it was all so different! So new! Can I at least liste--"
Scarlet rests her gunblade on her shoulder, slipping into a combat stance as she stares down the pale white monstrosity before her. She's never seen a sin eater before. Never fought one. But, apparently, that's what this is. Just don't let it hit you, Oul Uin had said. Or you'll turn into one. Scarlet intends to take their word for it. She charges forwards. "Voeburt!" she screams, swinging her blade at the eater's head. "Voeburt!"
Morgane is making a flower arrangement to send to an acquaintance as Aurelien walks into the house. They exchange greetings, and kisses, and small talk. As he passes by with an I love you, he leaves a vial on the table next to her flowers. She lifts it up, examining the crystal glassware for a moment, then slips it into the centre of the bouquet. "I love you, too, my darling."
Octavian reads over paperwork, and signs away the record of the last of his caches to the Alliance. He's all out of bargaining chips with them, now. And Maxima is long-since gone. All he has left is bluster, bluff...and an arcanist. Not to be relied upon, of course. But...to be used. There is naught that Octavian trusts, save himself.
Fleur takes a long drink from whatever Eorzean drink she's been served here. She watches sailors come and go. At last, she spots what she's looking for. A trio of sailors, clearly hailing from the Far East. They're out of place, and they're exactly who Fleur's been waiting for. It's not that she doesn't trust Enforcing. It's just that it doesn't ever hurt to have a backup plan.
Max wakes up. She doesn't know when she fell asleep, and, for a moment, she doesn't know where she is. She looks around blearily, hand reaching for a weapon she knows is stashes somewhere in her waistband. She spots Victoria, and Wyda in her hospital bed. Oh. She must have been more tired from her adventures in Ala Mhigo than she realised. Victoria turns to look at Max in response to her movements, and Max lets go of her revolver. She's safe here.
Azette looks at her bare hands. A long, jagged scar runs across the back of her left hand, arching around the flesh between her thumb and forefinger. She rubs her fingertips across the scar, looking at it and just...feeling it, for a change. One of the guards stops by her cell, and taps on the bars. "Got a visitor," he says. Azette doesn't make any moves to wrap her hand back in the grimy bandages she's kept. There's only two people who might be visiting her. And she doesn't need to hide her sins from either of them.
Wyda sits at the edge of her bed. She's staring into the darkness. Every moment hurts, a splitting in her mind and a bone-deep ache that leaves her feeling drained. But there's no way to shut it out. The window's been replaced with inky blackness. It's starting to slip into the room. Her last sanctuary. She breathes in, slowly. Feels the creak of her bones. Feels the nausea flood through her. She just needs to hold on a little longer. Em will send the message. The Bellworks will save her.
The weather in Amh Araeng is frigid, and the nights make it even colder. Her breath comes out in wisps, frosting the air in front of her.
It feels like winter at home.
She's taken a job for the Crystarium, to scout for Sin Eaters in the region. Not...not that she'd really know how to fight a Sin Eater, if she encountered one. But she's determined to make herself useful. She doesn't want to be dead weight hanging around the Crystarium and getting drunk at all bells of the day.
Besides, she swore an oath.
As if on cue, Oul Uin shimmers into existence next to her.
"Thinking of me, mortal?"
Oh. It really was on cue, then.
Oul Uin leans their chin on their delicate fingertips, hovering at the edge of Scarlet's line of vision.
"Thinking of my promise to you," she answers. "To show you the world. How's this?"
Oul Uin looks out towards the vast desert. They skitter away, far into the distance. Poke a rock. Poke a giant cactus-monster. Poke a bridge.
Darts back across the landscape to Scarlet's side.
"Oh, Sapling, it's wonderful! This land is so different to my home, it's like a new world!" They clap excitedly. "I mean, it's a bit samey to look at, but 'tis still a land unlike any I've seen before!"
Scarlet smiles, a little.
"Full glad am I that one of us is having fun."
Scarlet looks up, towards the wall of Light in the distance.
The flood halted here, she knows. Gods, she can't even imagine it. A raging torrent of light, burning away everything that it touches. Destroying life and history and culture, until everything is...wiped clean. Like taking acid to armour.
Oul Uin follows Scarlet's gaze.
"The Flood..."
"It almost took the whole world away, [dear lost Sapling.]"
"I know. But the stories...the stories don't compare to seeing it before me now, with mine own eyes."
Oul Uin settles on Scarlet's shoulder and stares outwards.
Scarlet blinks up towards the enormous pillar of crystal jutting out of Lakeland.
The guards at the front gate had called it the Crystarium, after questioning her armour. Questioning where she'd come from.
There's no way anything this big can have been created in the past 100 years. It's ludicrous. Astronomical. Impossible. But here it is, nonetheless.
Oul Uin shimmer into existence next to her and joins her in staring upwards.
"So this is the Crystarium the [Madbloom] went and lived in for years? Well, it's certainly big. They always were a little bit of a size king, I suppose."
Scarlet keeps staring, barely acknowledging the pixie floating next to her and definitely not acknowledging whatever they're implying about whoever the Madbloom is.
"But it is impressive," Oul Uin seems to concede, eventually. "Enough crystal to breach the heavens. To tear through the sky, and bring back the witching hour."
"This is impossible," Scarlet whispers. She's still stuck on the impossible part.
"Oh, my dearest Willow Seed..."
Oul Uin floats over, sitting on Scarlet's shoulder and perching there, happy as can be.
"You will learn, so swiftly, that nothing is truly impossible here, or anywhere else you care to travel. You mortals do so like to claim the impossibility of your reality."
Scarlet smiles, a little. "We're stubborn, I suppose."
"So I am beginning to gather." They poke her cheek. "Do you intend for us to stay on this bridge until you become a set of stylishly-armoured bones?"
"I'm going, I'm going."
And she takes a step towards the city. One foot in front of the other. Until she finds a new purpose.
