[Blasted with this, need to get it out. Not proofread. Not edited and vetted for character voice and vibe check]
"...Apologies. I will return another time--" Regill halted immediately upon stepping into the Knight Commander's room, seeing she was not alone.
Sosiel Vaenic stood at her bedside, leaned over her still unconscious form. Sparks of golden light flitted from his fingers to where he was holding her arm, the motes melting over flesh and dull scales into the limp muscles beneath them. A way to prevent atrophy, Regill recognized. She'd been unconscious for over two weeks now, her reconstructed soul still not yet coalesced enough for her to wake. Without it, she'd be too weak to hold her hammer when she finally awoke, much less wear her armor...
Something about that gripped his chest with an unbearable tightness. The Knight Commander was not weak. She--Arangeir harbored a strength he'd seen in no one else, and yet he could only think of what'd happened in the deepest depths of her dreamscape at that thought. The core piece of her fractured soul--her in the truest sense of the word--had wailed in his arms, a sound he'd never heard from her before that'd pierced him surer than any spear. It hadn't been real, and yet it had. The dreamscape was more truth than it wasn't, in a sense. Her hot tears had both soaked his neck and hadn't. The body that shaken against his was her essence at its most pure, and so his had been, too. She'd shivered from the cold and felt cold, but the cold had been the unspeakable despair trying to snuff the last light of her remaining which he'd desperately tried to kindle to keep from going out completely. His actual fingers hadn't threaded through the feathers on the back of her neck as he'd pulled her close, but he could still feel the cold and damp of them there in reality. His actual arms hadn't wrapped around her, trying to banish the chill of death with his own body heat, but even through the thick bandages and sling keeping his left arm secure he resisted a shiver. And though she lay there, so quiet in her slumber, he heard the wracking sobs she'd held in for decades finally finding their way out, sounding so utterly broken it'd made his breath catch.
He was not made for comforting. He had not made himself to be comforting. He'd made himself to never need it himself.
And the thought of her, awake, whole again yet struggling to even hold the hammer and don the armor she'd always been so proud to wear filled him with such a wrongness. It made him want to leave. He felt a sudden need to run-no, retreat, the roiling feelings about it all an unknown foe he had no idea how to handle. Even as many hours--days--as it'd taken to force himself to finally visit her bedside in reality, that dread creeped over him the same feeling as when he knew he was facing overwhelming odds. It wasn't that he was a coward. He was tactical, not wanting to rush in without fully understanding the situation. How he felt was impacting his sense of judgement, so he simply needed more time to figure out what exactly it was he was feeling and develop a proper defense. It was all too new. Foreign. Alien. His chest and stomach felt tight like someone had squeezed both with an ironclad fist, and his pulse thumped enough to threaten his already precarious balance, his cursed wounds stubborn in their refusal to heal.
He wasn't a coward. He wasn't afraid of her. The Knight Commander--Arangeir was--
"She would probably like to hear your voice, you know."
Regill blinked, stopping with one foot already out of the room. Sosiel had spoken behind him, a softness to the cleric's voice out of place with how he normally spoke to him. There was no condescension or disdain, fury or disgust so unbefitting a Shelynite as Regill was used to receiving from the man. There was only a patient, almost warm reassurance. He might've been offended, or at least annoyed in any other situation, but the twisted, confusing mass inside him left no room otherwise.
"You were the one that told us not to leave her alone, were you not? Everyone has spent time with her, but not the one she needs most."
'She doesn't need me', he thinks, but not out of any sense of self-deprecation. A part of him wants to assert that she doesn't need anyone. Not Arangeir, she's--she shattered to pieces and sobbed in his arms and clung to him so tightly he thought he'd have bruises on his actual body when he woke from the dream. The image of her proud and mighty in her Hellknight plate, a confident grin on her face and energy in her every movement clashed so harshly with the shivering, bare body crying against him...
She did need him.
He felt light-headed. He needed to retreat. He needed to be alone and think again and identify what was making him feel like this.
"...I don't want to interrupt her treatment. I can come back... another time", he made to excuse himself, beginning to continue his path out the door.
Behind him, he could hear the smile tinging Sosiel's words, holding him back yet again.
"I can finish after. With your wounds, it was no small feat to make it up here. No need to make you waste the energy it took."
The courage you finally worked up, Regill understood the insinuation clearly. He hadn't even any ire to hold his tongue, no energy left to continue denying anymore. He was a coward. The thought of approaching the comatose woman and just seeing her there in her sickbed had him on the verge of panic. He didn't know what to do about that. He didn't know how to handle what it meant about him. He... He just didn't know. He wasn't comfortable with not knowing. He wasn't used to not understanding himself like this.
"Please. It'll be good for the both of you."
The cleric was right. He couldn't argue. Leaving now would be a waste and, worse, a humiliation.
He sighed, exhaling more shakily than he thought. Bracing his good hand on the door's frame, Regill turned back around, finding that Sosiel had folded Arangeir's arm back over the thick covers keeping her warm. She herself hadn't moved a single inch otherwise, still as if time itself had frozen save for the subtle rise and fall of her sleeping breaths. His gaze didn't move upward, to her face. It couldn't. He could only see how it'd looked before they ventured into her dreams to find and save her, eyes pitted and nearly black underneath from weakness, scales on her face still tinged with Abyssal corruption, oozing blood and sloughing off, leaving patches of rot and pus beneath...
He looked instead at Sosiel, who merely nodded and stepped away from her bedside, ushering him forth. He even hooked his foot around the leg of the chair that'd been left close by for visitors to keep her company in her slumber, preemptively moving it close given Regill would've struggled to do so with the state of his arm and core wounds.
"I won't eavesdrop, don't worry. Just find me in the war room on your way out so I can finish up her treatment."
The cleric was past him and gone, the door closed, before he could change his mind, before his confidence could waver yet again. He'd be in the war room, a clear view of the hall where he could see anyone come and go. He'd know if he left too soon.
This was going to happen. This needed to happen. It had to.
Ultimately, it was not for his own need, or beating back the traitorous fear that Regill found himself at her bedside minutes later. It was only for the fact that he knew that she needed him that he bit back the pain it took settling into that chair, the stitches gracing his ribs making him gasp. And it was only for the memory of how cold she'd felt in that crumbling dreamscape that he managed to take her hand into his own after, in sudden, desperate, need to know that she was warm now.
He stared down at her fingers, limp in his own bleached ones. It was strange, seeing them bare, not protected with that familiar black leather and backplate she always preferred compared to the Hellknight standard gauntlets. A solid few seconds passed before he consciously realized that he was holding her hand, and the realization came with a sharp inhale that made him nearly drop it. He shifted backward, the brief moment of panic finally forcing his gaze upward towards seeing the face he'd avoided up until that very moment.
Arangeir--Minovae looked at peace. She looked more at peace than he'd ever seen since they reunited in that cave assaulted by gargoyles, not remembering him nor even herself then. Those deep bags beneath her eyes had faded almost completely. Her scales were almost back to their normal luster, a milky seafoam instead of their opalescent but no longer tinged by red and purple and ringed with pus and blood. The patches where they'd fallen off had mostly healed, and he could see a faint shimmer where they were already beginning to regrow. Even her lips, which had split in multiple places and painfully oozed had healed.
She looked almost how he remembered her. Not weeks ago. Not the months in the Abyss. Not even before then.
Decades had passed, almost a century of her disappearing from his life and the world, but the sleeping, recovering woman he held the hand of looked so very close to the one he'd known from Cheliax. Nearly eighty years ago, for over 10 years they'd fought side by side, bleeding together... dying together... surviving together...
Falling for one another.
He knew that now. It seemed so painfully obvious to him now that his feelings for her hadn't come about only in the past year. They'd been there since she'd left him back then, saving his life without telling him the truth of why. She'd loved him the whole time and it turned out that he hadn't been far off himself, because then he'd felt a pain with her departure that'd only came out as rage and bitterness without knowing the truth of its origins.
And now they were here. They were alive, and she looked so much more like the image that came to mind when someone said 'Minovae Arangeir' that he could only realize he'd loved her all along. Somehow, too, he knew that the version of her that would wake, when she was ready to, would be more like that woman too. The suffering and trauma she'd endured, more than enough for a dozen lifetimes, had come to light. She could heal. She could smile again, genuinely; that wide, dazzling smile bright as clear sunlight where a hint of fang would slip over her lower lip that he hadn't seen their time in Egorian nearly eighty years ago.
"...I've missed you."
His voice broke the restful sanctuary of her room on its own accord. He didn't start, not like before with the realization he'd been holding her hand. A calmness had washed over him, banishing the anxiousness and near-panic from the unknown feelings ravaging his usual discipline and disposition. He only breathed deep, and squeezed those fingers, warm and alive, the same as he'd squeezed around her arms and shoulders in the dream.
"I've missed you... Minovae."
He even used her name, finding it alien yet familiar on his tongue in equal measure. Not Knight Commander. Not Arangeir. Not any other rank or title or name to keep a level of formality between them. It sat there heavy yet... right.
Right here, at the Threshold of our fates, keep your promise... come back to me.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
[Absolutely gorgeous piece from @pauvre-lola featuring a scene from one of my favorite fics of mine! I'm just stunned with this piece every time I look at it. I adore it so much - the textures and background and THEM!]
My first entry for Owlcatober! (@owlcatober). I'd promised myself a min 500 words and ended up with 4,585!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: The Commander (Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous), Seelah (Pathfinder RPG)
Additional Tags: Owlcatober (Pathfinder), Heart-to-Heart, Armor, just girls having a heart to heart chat over polishing some heavy plate armor, Amnesia, Memory Loss
Series: Part 1 of Siren's Owlcatober 2023
Summary:
Not yet Knight Commander, Minovae Arangeir retreats to the quiet of Defender's Heart's stables to polish heavy armor "scavenged" from the battlefield. The weight of her missing memories sits heavily on her, having woken up only days ago in Kenabres with only a name and country of origin. Her steadfast new friend, Seelah, has her own thoughts on the matter.
The armor came apart easily under Minovae’s hands, seemingly remembering by muscle what she couldn’t by memory. The plackart and cuirass separated with some bolts, and next came the faulds; which she didn’t like, for some reason. Another word floated to her distantly from the hazy soup that was her thoughts: tassets. Something in her told her that she preferred tassets. The fact that she knew what they were—the sheets of armor that extended down the thigh from the waist—much less that she had a preference for them, made her sigh heavily as she worked. She hardly knew anything else about herself since waking at that festival however many days ago. Armor, though? Important enough to her to remember, apparently. No, not just remember but have preferences for! Was it because of her tail? That made sense, given the thought of reattaching the faulds to the plackart in her hands made the top of it ache and itch with phantoms. She must’ve had bad experiences before, confirmed as images flashed in her mind then: the sight of her ganzi scales, cracked and oozing from armor chafe, and said armor, so ill fitting, being replaced with a new suit of something… dark… Far darker than what was in her lap now…
She growled in frustration as the image abruptly slipped away from her, feathers bristling from the back of her neck all the way down her spine. Even the tip of her tail snapped, the sound of the plume at the end like a soft whip crack. She nearly threw the armor piece away, wanting to hurl it into the corner of the stable where the hay would catch it, but that strange, cold restraint from before washed over her again. It was the same as when the flash of rage had taken her in the Shield Maze at the revelation of what’d happened to the mongrels, towards Hosilla and Wenduag, who even thinking of now brought confusing feelings of guilt and mistake. But like before, with that burning heat of rage, icy discipline welling from somewhere else within her snuffed it out. The feeling, like gauntlets cooly alighting on her shoulder and wrist and curling underneath her chin, not to crush or harm but to guide and hold her head high, shut out the bristling chaos of emotion.
Breathe, it told her, and so she did.
She reclined backward with a deep inhale, looking up at the stable roof where she noted the holes in the thatching that would make this place into a puddle should the sky open. Stars twinkled through the holes, and something in her squeezed at the sight, like she… she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a clear night sky, a thought that carried with it some horror she had no recollection of.
And breathe again. She followed the order, exhaling deeply and shunting those star-born feelings too, away to someplace else.
Calm descended upon her once more. She relaxed back into the position she’d been in previously, where her violet eyes—unnervingly bright—stared back up at her from the now much cleaner cuirass in her lap. The weariness in them was apparent.
There was no point chasing these flashes of memory, she reminded herself. The harder she tried, the more elusive they became, like trying to grab a bar of soap from the depths of the tub. They came to her only subconsciously as nagging reminders, or the opposite of when you walk through a doorway and forget what you’d just been about to do. The most she could do was continue what she’d been doing before that’d caused them to appear in the first place—even as much as she was terrified of knowing the truth of herself. Waking up with no memory in the middle of demonic invasion, knowing how to fight, knowing instinctively of demons and cults and how they worked, with this wound on her chest that ached like nothing else and being… what she was, given tieflings seem to fill the cults’ ranks in droves and she was something similar enough…
And knowing that that gripping, snarling, devouring rage that came over her in the Shield Maze had to have come from somewhere deep down within her; from the parts she couldn’t remember. Even if that discipline that’d corrected and steeled her resolve had come from the same place, the fact the former existed at all filled her with a disquiet she couldn’t bear to think overly long on.
She was afraid of herself. There was no denying it.
But there was no denying this armor had to be cleaned, either. Fear over the self she didn’t know resurfacing through muscle memory be damned.
And so her hands moved over the pieces of armor once more, their names and purposes coming to her idly, as she scrubbed them cleaned with the rag. From the same places that knowledge came did the knowledge that demonic viscera had to be cleaned out fast, something about the acidity in the blood causing rust, even with proper solvent and oiling routines. She somehow knew what those were too, having grabbed containers of both from the meager equipment ‘armory’ in the inn’s pantry, which were now both sitting off to the side next to her here in the Defender’s Heart stables. She could have done this in her room, but the bustle and din inside the inn had quickly grown suffocating at the thought—especially with the risk of their newest ‘recruit’ seeking her attention while in the midst of it.
Count Arendae seemed to have figured out quickly that nearly everything about him repulsed her, to her chagrin. Which, combined with the fact he seemed particularly infatuated with her ganzi-ness, meant that he couldn’t seem to leave her well enough alone for more than an hour at a time. All so many insinuating euphemisms disguised as questions about her scales and feathers and fangs! She could hardly remember more than her name, and yet the answers had come as easily to her mind as easily as she’d told him to shut the Hells up and make himself useful about the place. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, though. His healing abilities paired with his shocking willingness to lend them made him just tolerable enough to keep around.
He very much was like the second-hand armor she was currently working so hard to get into serviceable condition, in a way. The cultist that’d been wearing it had barely been dead on the ground for an entire second before she’d clocked that he hadn’t just been wearing half-plate, but enchanted half-plate. Something in her had called out for it, had been calling for it since she’d woken only with scalemail at that damned festival, the lightness having made her feel as naked as a babe. This half-plate wasn’t perfect—she craved something even heavier, her limbs without a doubt accustomed to more than even this—but, much like with Daeran, desperate times called for desperate measures.
Like wearing a dead man’s armor. That she’d slain herself.
At least the chalk and blood scrawling of Baphomet’s unholy symbol had come off with barely any elbow grease needed. She would just… try not to think too hard about where the armor she would be wearing came from.
Suddenly, the sound of approaching boots, heavy, snapped her out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a familiar smile, as radiant as the sword on its owner’s hip, approaching from across the Defender’s Heart enclave. Even over the din of survivors and guards and crusaders shoring up the inn’s defenses, distributing other recovered arms and armor to those that could bear it, and the mixed chorus of bitter laughter and desperate sobs, Seelah’s footfalls could be heard as clear as the support drumbeat in a tavern song.
“There you are, Minnow! I was wondering where you’d gotten off to”, she beamed at her as Minovae gave a short wave and dip of her chin in greeting.
The paladin, coming to the side of the stable’s half-doors still closed, rested her forearms on the sill. She seemed about to say something more, a question on her lips, only for her smile to falter to bewilderment upon seeing the pieces of dismantled armor surrounding Minovae on the stable floor. “Woah! Careful, you know that stuff isn’t easy to put back together. Plate armor is in short supply around here.”
“In such short supply that I had to take this off of a dead cultist, yeah”, Minovae cracked a grin in response. “You don’t think they’ll miss it, will you?”
“Uhh, given how you smashed his head like a melon on a summery holiday, I think the only thing he’ll be missing in the Boneyard is a helmet.”
Something dark had passed across the paladin’s gaze beneath now furrowed brows, and the normal humorous note in her tone sounded uncharacteristically strained. Something in Minovae sank at the sight and at some realization. It’d just come naturally to her, that way of fighting, and she hadn’t batted an eye at the aftermath.
“...Am I really that brutal in combat?”, she asked, voice having gone quiet.
Seelah blinked, and Minovae watched as she made a concerted, determined effort to reignite her dazzling smile. Even knowing the effort, it did make her feel better to see in a way. Seelah just kind of had that effect, like when the sun finally reappeared after a streak of cloudy days.
“In particular? No, I think that just comes with the territory of bludgeoning weapons, sis’,” she reassured her. “They tend to make a mess, which is why you probably fight with a shield, too. Helps catch the—”, a grimace broke between the words, “—splatter.”
Was it? Minovae considered it. The call to a shield had been as strong as the call to heavier armor, something in her accustomed to it like wearing normal clothing. Fighting without either throughout the caves beneath Kenabres and the Gray Garrison had felt like fighting in her skivvies. It wasn’t because of the blunt-weapon splatter, no, even though the grip of the warhammer she’d taken from a rack in the Shield Maze had been as familiar as breathing. All she’d known was that she was called to the front line of their little fighting group, that her rightful spot was in the vanguard, because the thought of anyone else getting hurt when it could—and should—be her filled her with shame and horror. You can’t keep everyone else protected if you can’t keep yourself protected…
“...You really still don’t remember who you are, do you?”
The question made her realize a few seconds of silence had passed, and that she’d been frowning, expression frozen into a pensive look. She looked back up at Seelah, noting that soft, concerned look in her warm brown eyes.
“No… Just the flashes here and there. Like—”, she gestured at the pieces of armor around her, “—I know the names of all these pieces, and how they come apart and go back together again. I know they have to be cleaned and polished and oiled, and I know demon blood rusts and rots even the most babied steel. I know how to wear it and fight in it, just as I know how to sunder it off the enemy… And I know how to angle a shield to drive it into the gaps of armor, and that if you bring a hammer down onto the edge, you’ve got a makeshift guillotine…”
A flash of disgust and horror shot through Seelah’s expression at that last part Minovae said almost unconsciously. She hadn’t even known that she’d known that. It’d just come out with all the rest, like more of the same. Not wanting to linger on that particular imagery for long, she continued.
“But as for why I know all of this…? Seelah, I don’t even know where to start”, she sighed with a shrug of her shoulders and an agitated rattle at the tip of her tail.
“Hey, that’s okay, you know!”, Seelah reassured, tone back to its cheeky self. “You fight demons like you’re born for it and you’ve got a heart of gold. You might not know who you were but I know who you are: someone I trust.”
Minovae balked at that. “How can you say you trust me? How can anyone trust me in this situation! I could be just another cultist that’s just forg—”
“HAAAAAAAAH!”
She jumped at the sudden howl of Seelah’s laughter, cutting her off.
The sheer oomph of it had thrown the paladin’s head back. Seelah practically howled in amusement to the night sky above, and Minovae could only stare in wide-eyed surprise. It carried on for some few seconds, before Seelah fell back over the stable half-door, shaking her eye and wiping a tear from her eyes.
“Minnow, seriously? I know you’ve got a dark sense of humor but you are not a cultist.”
Indignance licked like a little burning flame in her gut at how self-assured Seelah sounded, and how her concerns were apparently so outrageous as to howl in laughter. Her lips pressed together tightly before she snapped. “How can you be so sure? Waking up with no memory in the middle of all this and having just the right knowledge to survive what should be impossible odds is a bit convenient!”
Seelah just stared at her, smirk having gone smugly confident enough as to further rile that knot of annoyance the laughter had stirred within her.
“Because, Minnow, by the grace of Iomedae—”, Minovae swallowed down her atheistic distaste at the smugness in the declaration, “—I can sense evil. And you? You look like a decorated tree during Crystalhue with how brightly you shine with Goodness.”
That gave her pause. She felt a heat creep into her cheeks, could feel them reddening beneath the seafoam colored scales lining them. Figuring out how she could ever respond to that left the two warrior women in silence for some few seconds as she mentally puttered through her thoughts. Seelah only looked more knowingly self-assured in her smile with each passing one.
“I… I…”, Minovae eventually sputtered, before breathing deep and turning her attention back downwards to the half-cleaned armor she’d come out here to tend to. “...I’m just someone trying to do what I can out here, okay? I don’t know if that makes me a shining paragon of ‘Goodness’ in your goddess’ eyes or whatever. I’m just… doing my part, you know? Because I can fight and that means I can protect, even if I don’t know how or why or where those skills came from.”
Seelah’s own response was an amused snort, exhaled through her nose. Minovae didn’t bother to look up, suddenly feeling like she’d been thrown into a matron’s washbucket and churned all about with the washing pole. The feelings of fear over her unknown past and the unquestionable proof that was a paladin’s metaphysical senses—calling it confusing didn’t even begin to cut it. Instead, she reached for the solvent over her shoulder on the bale of hay she’d parked herself against and began to dab it on a particularly nasty clump of grime caught in the curves of where the plackart hugged the wearer’s sides. When was the last time this was cleaned? She’d gotten it off a cultist, she reminded herself, so probably never.
Movement in the corner of her vision told her that Seelah wasn’t done with her yet, though. The paladin straightened up, pulling herself off the sill, and rounded the half of the door already opened. A great clanking of armor sounded as she crossed the hay-strewn floor and subsequently unceremoniously plopped herself into a cross-legged sit directly across from Minovae, sending pieces of hay flying from the gust of air.
Minovae said nothing. She kept her attention downward to the armor, the piece already cleaned but not wanting to risk her reaching for another to work on as concession or acknowledgement of the paladin’s presence. Frustration and annoyance and confusion rolling in her chest like a tangle of cats. Why did she take so poorly to being comforted? Or complimented? Or reassured?
Because that’s your job, something in her said. You’re the protector. You’re the guardian. Seelah is your junior. You are the one that needs to look after her. It’s your job as her commander offic—But, no. She wasn’t. She was no one’s ‘commanding officer’... Why that word?
A rustling, clanking sound made her blink back into focus. She looked up from the work in her lap and hands to find Seelah in the middle of doffing her own armor, a flat, determined expression on her face.
“What?”, Seelah paused, flashing a daring, challenging grin. “You’ve already got all the stuff out for it. I might as well join you. Like you said, demon blood chews through armor like nothing else.”
Minovae merely stared at her, feeling suddenly very exhausted. Ultimately, she shrugged, and scooted the bucket of water and cleaner rags to within Seelah’s reach, knowing full well this was an excuse to continue this conversation further. “Alright, then.”
To her credit, at least, Seelah managed to pass some several minutes in silence; save for asking Minovae to pass the picks or solvent every now and again. It was almost calming, in a way, sharing the space with someone else working on their own armor.
Nostalgic, she realized. It was familiar and comforting. It felt, bizarrely, like home.
And then Seelah broke the silence.
“You know, when I made that comment about that cultist missing his helmet”, she said so quietly that Minovae second-guessed whether she’d spoked at all. “I wasn’t actually thinking about him. Or you.”
Minovae paused in where she’d been oiling up the now re-assembled breastplate in her hands. Slowly, she looked up into Seelah’s face, finding that the paladin was staring off into space, her expression now more pensive. A knot of worry clenched in her stomach. The last thing she’d wanted was to pass off her worries and foul feelings onto someone else—in fact, that’s why she’d attempted to end the conversation. Now it turned out that Seelah hadn’t been alluding to how Minovae handled herself in combat? With how easily she took the lives of their enemies, with nary a blink nor worry about the gore? She felt a rise of sheepishness at how self-absorbed she was to have assumed it’d been about her, but banished it handily; you are the one that looks after everyone else. Fix this.
She swallowed, and invited the connection.
“Okay… so, what were you thinking about, then? The way your tone had fallen, it sounded like it’d really troubled you.”
Seelah breathed deep—inhale, exhale, so much like how she had calmed herself earlier—and leveled her with a trusting gaze. “...Can I tell you a story? About who I was before I became Seelah the paladin?”
Where was this conversation going? Minovae held her stare for a few moments, realizing that Seelah was about to share something with her deeply personal. She was as touched about it as she was uncomfortable, but that internal command insisted yet again, fix this.
And so she nodded, and Seelah shared her story.
She listened in rapt attention, hardly touching the armor at all, as Seelah told her all about the mithral helmet she’d stolen from a paladin named Acemi when she was but a young thief. She listened as Seelah detailed the guilt that’d overtaken her, having stolen from the very people that’d come to Solku to protect people like her—yes, even the thieves and the criminals, because that’s what paladins do. She listened, and tempered her reaction as she knew where the story was going even before Seelah described how Acemi, who had been among the bravest of those paladins, perished holding the gates against the endless horde of gnolls a Solku’s gates; about she’d crumpled from taking a flail to the skull.
A blow that that stolen helmet might have saved her from.
“From that day onward I… I knew I had to make up for it. I promised myself to justice and goodness right then, and now here I am”, she sighed, shoulders relaxing along with her breath. “Seelah the paladin may not be the Acemi the world lost because of her stupid, selfish choices, but I’m just… I’m doing my part!”
She said the last part, parroting those words back at her, with a renewed zeal and bright smile.
Minovae couldn’t help but respond in kind, feeling herself smile wider than hardly anytime else since she’d awoken in Kenabres.
“You know, you really are the model paladin…”, she chuckled softly. “Climbing onto a funeral pyre in guilt and living for the woman that let you keep that helmet even knowing you took it.”
Seelah gave her a wry chuckle back, grin going lopsided. “You bet I am. Just as you’ve decided you need to protect all these people even when the only thing you remember is your own name and that you’re from Cheliax. Most would be more concerned with their own problems, you know.”
“...It’d be wrong of me not to”, Minovae shrugged. “Like I said, I’m just doing my part. The thought of abandoning any of these people—”
“—Even that Horgus Gwerm guy?”, Seelah interrupted, eyes shining mirthfully.
Minovae couldn’t help but snort in response, eyebrows waggling as she rolled her eyes. “Yes, even that selfish sense of ego with legs, and the sentient cockroach that is Count Arendae. Abandoning any of them to the demons feels like… it feels like… betrayal…”
The word came to her unwittingly, supplied by the void of memory deep within her. A betrayal of all you believe in.
Seelah sat up straighter at that. She crossed her arms, and beamed at Minovae challengingly.
“Well, there you have it then. Does it matter who you were and what awful things you might have done if this is who you are now?”
It does. It most definitely does, she wanted to say. Some crimes cannot be repaid with service, no matter how good. Seelah’s expression, though, so reassuringly confident and beaming as it was, stilled the words on her tongue, just as the true meaning of the question in light of the story she’d entrusted her with did.
“...I suppose you’re right”, she said instead, turning her attention back towards polishing the breastplate to a gleaming shine. “Minovae the maybe-once-cultist and Seelah the once-helmet-thief, what a heroic pair we make.”
Seelah chuckled again. “Even saying that, I don’t think you were a cultist. If anything, I think you were much similar to me than you realize, atheism be damned.”
That soured her mood all over again. It wasn’t a joke either, she could tell that for certain. Seelah hadn’t said it in the joking voice. She’d been entirely serious about it.
Minovae snorted derisively. “I was not a paladin, I can assure you of that.”
“No?”, Seelah challenged, at the same time exchanging one clean pauldron for the one still in need of treatment. “You know how to fight demons. You’re braver than most every other Crusader I’ve ever met. You have a sense of justice and goodness like any of my brothers and sisters. And, you call out orders and tactics so clearly in combat that even Camellia falls into line without question.”
Minovae listened with increasing annoyance as Seelah listed off each example as if it were concrete proof. The breastplate beneath her oil rag squeaked from the growing force with which she polished it.
“None of those things are unique to paladins, you know”, she asserted.
“They aren’t, and normally I would agree with you”, Seelah nodded. “If it was just one of those things. But all of them?”, she clicked her tongue and chuckled. “Who knows, maybe ol’ Seelah will rub off on you.”
Minovae didn’t deign the unintended insult with a response, save for reminding her that she was most likely the older of the two. If there was one thing she knew for sure about herself, she most definitely had not been a paladin. The thought of serving the gods filled her with disgust, and it took another invitation of that cool restraint to keep the outrage of Seelah insisting on such a thing from gaining too much of a foothold.
But it did do one thing, at least. Thinking more on it, it wasn’t just the gods that the thought of serving sent her reeling. It was any divine power—demon lords included.
Meaning, she absolutely had not been a cultist.
The relief carried into her previously uplifted mood from before. She felt herself grinning again, and as she nodded in approval at her handiwork of the cleaned and polished armor reassembled in her hands, a mischievously dark thought crossed into her mind.
“Hmm, you don’t think it’s infectious, do you?”, she purposefully held the armor aloft, turning it around as she examined herself in the shine to catch Seelah’s attention. She felt the paladin’s questioning gaze alight on her, and continued before she could speak. “I won’t be struggling to spell the name of my ‘Lord and Savior, Baphomet’ like the cutlists we ran into when we picked up Nenio the second I put this on, right?”
Her gaze flitted past the armor to Seelah’s, who now looked at her with scrunched-brow concern over an uncomfortable half-smile. Minovae had learned pretty quickly in the paladin’s company that while she had a sense of humor, it wasn’t nearly as dark nor morbid as her own. She appreciated lighthearted jokes and optimism. Her own strayed way closer to gallows humor.
“Are… are you joking that you’ll become a cultist just because you salvaged some armor they had probably stolen themselves?”
Minovae pursed her lips, and pointedly returned her focus to the armor in question. “You never know, Seelah. What if the previous owner was the original cultist? And the guy we killed earlier had just been some bookmaker or something looking for some protection? Then, bam!—”, she rapped her knuckles across the polished breastplate for effect, “—suddenly cultist.”
She saw Seelah’s jaw drop out of focus. “What!? No! That’s absurd, Minnow! People don’t just start serving demon lords because of something like that!”
“Is it? Well where else do all these cultists come from, then?”, she challenged, leading Seelah along to the line of thought she hoped would make her choke on that insistence that she’d been a paladin, or would be, enough so that she’d never think it ever again. “You don’t think they just talk to would-be prospects? ‘Hey! I saw you’re a right backstabbing son of a bitch. You’ll make for a great champion of Baphomet! Want to enlist?’ ‘Sure thing! I’m so glad you asked! I will adopt an entirely new way of life now, just like that!’”
Seelah’s mouth opened, about to retort, only for realization to halt the words before they could come out. She grumbled, pressing her lips together with an annoyed expression before breathing a deep sigh.
“I get it, sheesh. You don’t have to compare me to a cultist recruitment scheme just to get to drop the paladin talk, though.You could have just asked.”
Minovae merely leaned forward and clapped Seelah on the shoulder with a wry smirk. “This leaves a much more lasting impression.”
Still giggling at the idea that Ssila'meshnik calls Regill "Prince Consort" and nothing else and he hates it sooooooo much.
The first time they meet, when Ssila' arrives after Mino purges her mythic powers just to force them all back into her and trigger her paradox ascension, Regill attempts to (futilely) slay the protean lord in a rare moment of rage. They nearly slaughter him without a second thought before realizing: "Oh! Yes! That's right, you're my heir's chosen consort! No hard feelings, those warpwaves look like they will do you good, anyway."
Ignoring that they are not together at all in any way yet lmao. Regill can only lay there in a heap, every sense swapped with another, unable to parse at all what that means... but he does have a smidge more color from the warpwaves!
I have something to share!!! The finalized (mostly) in-universe report of Minovae's arrest the night she pledged herself as an armiger to the Order of the Scourge. I'm actually really optimistic about getting this first chapter finished up soon!
Calistril 23rd, 4630AR
Ordered on behalf of Paralictor Jaisaide
Investigated and Prepared by Maralictor Argius Strawn
Incident D: Charges of suspected espionage; and secondary investigation of ghoul attack in proximity to Adivian security zone.
Location: Adivian Bridge security zone; and approximately two miles north and east of the Adivian Bridge.
Suspect(s): Minovae [Name self-provided]; “Survivor”/ “Suspect”; Human-ganzi [Assumed protean-kin], female, approximately early twenties, native-born Wiscrani. Additionally: four humanoids, alleged to be adventurers, now deceased; individually detailed within.
Summary
The surviving suspect, a human-ganzi woman of probable protean heritage, illegally entered the Adivian Bridge security zone maintained by the Order of the Scourge on the night of Calistril 21 at approximately one in the morning. Her entry from the surrounding underbrush bypassed designated security checkpoints, leading to her arrest shortly after. By order of presiding garrison commander, Paralictor Jaisade of the Scourge, the woman was detained for immediate investigation into suspected espionage and/or infiltration on behalf of hostile forces of Adivian Bridge fortifications.
The suspect maintained her innocence throughout her arrest, claiming only that she sought medical care for her injuries allegedly sustained from a ghoul attack that also led to the deaths of her four traveling companions. Immediate medical examination proved that the nature of her wounds was consistent with her claims, save for a single blade injury partially severing her right calcaneal tendon [allegedly delivered by one of her companions in the confusion of the attack]. In addition, her visible condition suggested signs of mildly progressed ghoul fever, later confirmed via appropriate testing. No items on her person supported nor refuted the pending charges against her.
An immediate secondary investigation was deemed necessary despite wartime protocol restricting operations not explicitly related to Order concerns, as the presence of ghouls in such proximity to the Adivian Bridge and highway poses a clear threat to continued Order operations. The suspect was temporarily detained, with minimum medical treatment needed to sustain life, for questioning and security, until the completion of the investigation, as per protocol.
Consistent with the suspect’s testimony, tracks from the scene of arrest led to a ruined campsite approximately two miles north and east of the Adivian Bridge containing four humanoid bodies in addition to the corpses of nine ghouls. All are suspected to have perished in active combat as suggested by their wounds, matching those commonly inflicted by ghouls and consistent with the weaponry found among the deceased. However, further investigation of the humanoid corpses and the campsite provided a clear contradiction of the surviving suspect’s claim of innocence. Evidence of involvement in guerilla activity that directly endangers or impedes Order operations and or aids known oppositional forces was discovered among various packs as well as on the persons of individual corpses [e.g. journal detailing Order patrol sightings along Adivian Highway; legal tender bearing serials known to be exchanged among known hostile factions; more individually detailed within.] None of the evidence connected the slain agents to a specific faction noted to be involved in the war, aside from the discovery of an Asmodean holy symbol upon one of the corpses suggesting possible Thrune affiliation. When confronted with the discovered evidence, the surviving suspect expressed shock before becoming nonverbal. Her physical condition at the time prevented the use of more traditional interrogation methods.
Ultimately, it is not believed the suspect approached the Adivian Bridge with hostile intent. As the torches around the bridge and battlements are both unobscured at night from the scene of the attack, as well as the closest sign of civilization, the survivor’s testimony that she only sought medical help is believed to be legitimate. Further corroborating her claims of innocence, the cadence suggested by the cadence of her tracks, her known injuries, and depressed spots along the trail suggesting the suspect fell and did not rise for periods of time indicate an approximate minimum travel time of nine hours. Aligned with the progressed state of her ghoul fever alongside the estimated time of death of both the ghouls and enemy agents, it is not believed she was able to deviate from her path to meet with a sponsor or superior.
The original charges are not believed by the investigation to be founded.
However, despite the surviving suspect’s cooperation throughout the majority of the investigation, and her silence and inability to produce evidence of both her uninvolvement and ignorance in her companions’ espionage, the investigation concludes that the survivor is yet guilty by extension of the crimes of the deceased. For subverting the operations of the Order of the Scourge and thus propagating further chaos against the interests of restoring a peaceful and orderly Cheliax, the investigation holds that the suspect be put to death.
Regarding the secondary investigation, thorough searching within the area yielded no further evidence of ghoul presence or activity. It is not believed that any remain in the area. In addition, no ghasts were among the ghoul corpses. The attack is believed to have been an isolated event.
The active investigation concluded after forty-five hours.
For everyone that loves Mino and Regill as much as I do, there's an amazing comic-rendition of one of my older smut fics involving a Reduce Person potion mishap combined with some Extend Metamagic (thanks Nenio!) It's funny! It's tender! It's sweet! It's the best kind of horny!
The rest of this eight-page comic (very Not Safe for Tumblr/Not Safe for Work) can be found on my Toyhouse and on Grey's NSFW Twitter "@afterdarkergrey"
As always I have to thank @darkergrey for bringing this to life! It was a huge undertaking and so much fun to work on 💜
[Link to this page (Page 1) on Toyhouse, the following pages are right after it in the gallery]
[Because I'm going through stuff, time to make my blorbos too. A flash of a scene: the immediate aftermath of Minovae using the aeon the restore the bulk of her memories in Act 3...]
Her mind burned.
She couldn't feel the stone beneath her knees. Couldn't hear the concerned voices around her. Couldn't see through the white flash gradually turning red. Couldn't feel the wet heat of the blood soaking her clothing from the mysterious chest wound that'd reopened, of the crimson streaming down her face from her nose and eyes and ears as the Aeon had torn off whatever magic had been suppressing her memories without gentleness or care.
All that existed to her then was that burning, of which two versions of her screamed in unison. The barrier keeping them separated gone, both suddenly occupied the same cramped, burning, bleeding mind. Both were the truth. Both made up her whole.
They should've blended, congealing into a solid singular her. Water meeting more water. Blood into blood.
But only one had stayed conscious through the agony, for agony was the only thing she knew.
All she, this Minovae, knew, was demons.
Distantly, she heard screaming. Distantly, she felt she was clothed. Distantly, she felt no pressure about her wrists and ankles.
No gag. No humiliation. No bindings.
Consciously, none of that mattered with the pain.
Her hands clutched at her head, trying to swat at the agony protected by the bone of her skull. Break it. Shatter it. Get it OUT! Panic and terror choked her from within at the feeling, all so sudden and new and familiar all at once. What was this?! What had they done to her now? Hadn't the demons found every way to have their fun with her by now?! Except—No. No. This pain like a smoldering briar had been dragged through her mind time and time again, like a poker left to turn white-hot in the fire had been driven into every crevice—she knew this pain.
"...Commander...?"
This was that pain. Memories flashed, each agonizing, of her chained in that dungeon in Egorian, of those false Hellknights, those pretenders calling themselves the Glyph...! Their clawed hands raked through her thoughts to find what she'd seen! To find her weaknesses, to find—! NO! They'd already found it: Him. And he was... was... The memories fractured and spiraled. Cold stone pressed against her brow as in reality she crumpled to her hands and knees but she wasn't in reality anymore. Two separate images overlapped in her mind's eye: skin warm as amber yet also grey as stone; molten gold irises turned pale as citrine in a single blink; all so much color and life bleeding out to lifeless grey and white.
"Arangeir! Can you hear me?"
She heard his voice then, too. She recognized it and didn't, because it was wrong. Too much gravel. Too much concern. He didn't feel for her like that to sound that way. She'd given up everything to keep him safe but he didn't know that. He'd never sound like that.
All of this was a trick, she realized. This was yet another cruelty from the demons in the only way they could know amusement and joy. It had to be.
"She's bleeding out! We need to—"
"Careful! Something is wrong. She's not... that's not her."
Different voices. Names welled in her subconscious like a plea to stay away as much as it is a plea for help. 'Seelah... Seelah don't let me hurt anyone... Keep Sosiel away... keep... everyone...'
But the half of her in control didn't know those voices. The half of her in control only heard around her the scheming of demons, watching eagerly to see how this new torment they've devised will play out.
"Minnow! It's okay! It must be so scary but you're not alone! We're here!"
Her heart squeezed in a vise at that high and bright voice. So encouraging. 'Ember, please, run—I can't—'. So clear through the pain, somehow, like...
"Focus, Arangeir! Pull yourself together. I know you can. You're better than this."
But then it was his again. The liar. The scheme. The trick. The torture—
She bolted upright in an instant. She needed to see what horrible creature awaited her in the direction of that voice, so wrong as much as something in her wept that it was the truth. The white flashing of agony had given way to smeared crimson—blood! Had they torn her eyes out and restored them yet again just before death claimed her? How they loved that one—and through them did she see the trick they'd planned for her.
How laughable. He didn't look like that: aged like decades had passed!? Bleached like he'd succumbed to despair?! Staring at her with that mote of concern in those wrongly pale eyes? Not him. Never. She realized the demons had found a way to read through her mind just like House Thrune had, but demons were clumsy and brutish beasts.
The illusion before her was not Regill Derenge. She knew it wasn't.
She knew it was.
Only then did the pain dull then, giving way to a rage she'd never thought herself capable of feeling ever again. All so much torture, everything she'd suffering from devil's hands to those of the Abyss had stolen from her such passion, she'd thought. But these horrid fiends had thought to wield against her the one being she'd never suffer dishonored in such a way. All that she'd given of herself to keep him safe, securing his safety with that infernal brand Thrune pressed upon her...
Her nails dragged across the stone so sharply she may have looked down to see they were still there had she been her other self. Blood filled her mouth from the clenching of her teeth into her snarl, and she realized the demons had also restored her fangs this time with her eyes. How long had she been without them? It didn't matter; time was meaningless in the dungeons beneath Drezen and she wasn't about to let their mistake go to waste.
She would remind them again why they'd torn them from her mouth in the first place.
Every muscle coiled as she pounced, far stronger than she should've been capable of. This body wasn't starved, wasn't weak from torture and despair and nothingness. But the rage kept her from seeing through that veil to the truth, so thin as to be nearly transparent. The rage only drove her forward, flaring even hotter as that face that was not his and yet so very much was briefly flashed in alarm before she made contact with him.
"Arange—!" His voice cut off with a grunt as she tackled him to the ground, as she knocked the wind out of him. He had yet barely breathed in more, barely shouted for her to "—what are you d—!"
Before it all choked into wet, gurgled, gasping.
And it struck her that the wet, crimson heat flowing around her fangs, now buried in his throat, didn't taste as it did the last time she'd wielded them against a demon. It tasted like the one and only other mortal they'd torn through before—of the Thrune whose throat she'd left a hollow ragged gape upon finding out what had become of her stolen Foundlings...
This wasn't demon blood. This wasn't demon flesh.
"Oh, gods! Get her off of him!" Someone yelled, coming to her in her haze as if through water.
She reared back. Everything was shaking. The blood filled her mouth. The blood was everywhere. Splattered across his face that was and wasn't—no, was. Something inside of her screamed, just screamed at her that it was. Arterial red gushed from the ragged gash she'd torn beneath him, covered now by his gauntleted hand applying pressure best he could. Even as blood spluttered from his lips, then streaming, his gaze never faltered. Pale, so wrongfully pale, those yellow irises glared up at her.
She could only shake, paralyzed by them.
"Y-you... fool..."
She wanted to scream. Wanted to disappear. Wanted to... to...
'Go to sleep, Minnow. It's okay. You're scared. You did something bad. But it's okay. Go to sleep and it will all be okay when you wake up.'
Sleep.
She wanted to sleep.
Ember's hex washed over her like a warm bath, taking his blood from her mouth along with it.
