Chapter Text
After basking in post-coitus bliss, Andriel had ultimately felt the ever present tug to move forward. It had surprised her that Messmer had appeared to be the one reluctant to break the little spell they’d bubbled themselves in. He always seemed single minded in his focus- which was much like herself. Duty and service above all else, right? Yet, in those quiet moments, perhaps being one able to forgo duty was who Messmer could be when all else was stripped away.
It made her feel a gnawing guilt when she pulled away regardless. Messmer did not try to stop her, but you’d think she’d just poured frigid water on him with the way he evoked the image of a sad, wet cat. Andriel was starting to believe her earlier idea that Messmer simply must be someone of a gentler character was closer to the truth than she imagined. The painted image of genocidal horror was becoming more difficult to see with each passing day knowing the demigod, but the fact remains that such actions still stained his hands.
Andriel had made a noise of disgust when she felt the lingering sensation of their union on her skin, she’d have to clean herself up. She had to dig into her strangely magical bag that could hold everything she could ever need. It had caught Messmer’s curiosity from his unintentional sulking seeing as Andriel retrieved her beloved soap bar smelling of erdleaf flower and rowa fruit, a sad threadbare rag, and a skin of water she kept for the exact purpose of a quick wipedown.
The Tarnished tried explaining some of the more strange things she’d been given for her journey including the bag, her flasks of crimson and cerulean tears, and the wondrous physick. The physick caught Messmer’s attention the most and she allowed him to inspect it as she wet the tattered rag and lathered it with the precious soap to begin wiping herself clean.
Messmer had retreated from her to overlook the stretching cliffside and the strange boat structure that cleaved the fissure from the rest of the Coast. His clinging to propriety despite having claimed her amidst the grasses and enchanting flowers was a rather endearing trait, Andriel thought. He sought to give her privacy for her own cleansing despite having been the very same demigod to debauch himself between her legs. He was, if nothing else, a proper walking contradiction.
Andriel cleaned up as quick as she could by rinsing off the scented lather and drying her pale, lightly freckled skin. After redressing in the various layers of her under armor padding, Andriel fished out a thin strand of black fabric Boc had shorn from one of his many mending projects of her poor clothes and armors. Andriel disliked the pulling sensation that came with keeping her hair tied up, but she could withstand it to keep the dark red locks from falling into her face.
Approaching Messmer, Andriel had the tie gripped by her teeth as her hands haphazardly pulled her long strands into a messy ball of hair. The demigod had turned to face her on her approach, but quickly scowled at her unmannerly treatment towards her hair.
“Thou dost treat thy hair ill. It shall become tangled and harmed thus.”
Andriel raised an eyebrow at him, pausing in her mangling. She dropped the messy bundle to take the tie from her mouth and gesture towards him.
“If you say that, you best be offering to tie it in a more presentable fashion. I’m rubbish at plaiting. Otherwise, I shall do as I please.”
The Tarnished did not expect Messmer to take the bait when he scoffed and gestured her to sit on a nearby rock before plucking the tie from her fingers. He handed her the physick back when she sat and started dragging his long fingers through her hair to untangle what knots already existed.
“I find myself beset by ancient recollections by the physick. ’Twas a craft begun by mine own mother, for she was most skilled in concocting such elixirs. It hath been much time since I pondered such bygone ages.” Messmer certainly sounded struck by nostalgia, and perhaps this influenced his apparent need to see Andriel’s hair treated properly.
Andriel had assumed Messmer may know a great deal about Marika if she saw it fit to expunge his very existence from history along with the very Lands of Shadow, but she’d never thought to actually ask about it. She had figured it was one of those forbidden topics due to the delicate nature of his conflicting emotions towards the woman who birthed him. Now that he brought it up on his own, however…
“It makes enough sense, seeing as it was the priests who practiced such arts. I found this one in a dilapidated church to Queen Marika. You speak as if this predates the Golden Order, though.”
Messmer didn’t respond right away. Andriel thought maybe she overstepped when his fingers had stilled momentarily, but they soon resumed and started sectioning off portions of her hair. His soft timbre dripped around her with its melancholy as his form shadowed her own.
“It... was ere such a time. Verily, 'twas ere she did come to know her chosen Lord, Godfrey. She surely knew of it far beyond my being, yet I had but beheld her craft in service to mine own sickly form. Ever the burden was I to her.”
Andriel had to bite her own tongue to keep from speaking ill of Marika directly. His clear conviction to his existence being a burden ignited a righteous fury in the Tarnished. Instead, she closed her eyes to breathe in deep. She could smell the salted sea crashing against the jagged cliffside. The faint floral tinge from the blue flowers loosened the growing tension. Even the lingering ash and cinder scent from Messmer eased her into a more calm state to speak with careful words.
“Speak not so ill of yourself. Is it not the want of all mothers to see her child free of pain and sickness? There are many things we all face beyond our control, but how we view ourselves is our fate to control. We all must live with our own hearts for eternity, afterall. ‘Tis a cruelty to make that naught but misery.”
Andriel spoke as if it were an easy task when she herself still struggles with her own sense of self. That, at least, is caused more by her lack of memory and less by being tarnished. Being tarnished was what others saw her as, but she viewed it with a rather flippant eye. They could all tout her as lowly, but she was the one who stood at the end of battle while they were one with the mud, dead.
Messmer, who had started weaving a small section of her hair into a braid, had paused to process her words. One of the serpents, the one she had healed and had eyes a tinge greener than its twin, had come to curl up in her lap. It seemed to be quite clingy since she’d mended its burned scales. Snakes couldn’t purr, but she imagined it would if it could as she pet the length of its head and body.
Messmer had yet to respond when he began twisting Andriel’s hair once more. She could feel the tugging on her scalp, but it wasn’t painful. In fact, it had just the right pull to keep it uniformly tight. He’s done this many times before. She nearly questioned him about it when he finally spoke again.
“Thou dost speak with a gentle wisdom, and I thank thee for imparting it. I accepted and bore my load, my part, as one of ill repute, solely for her love bestowed, unshackled by Order.” The words were severe, yet his voice held a gentleness that spoke volumes to his feelings towards Marika.
Andriel still could not fathom it. She could not understand, fundamentally, why he holds her so high. Was it because she lacked the context given by having a mother? If Marika had a love worth giving everything for, what changed to cause her instead to cast omen-born children to the sewers and purge a son from history itself. What piece could Andriel be missing to understand Messmer’s devotion?
“I don’t understand… What little written history I could find depicted the Queen to be of a… harsher nature. I do not doubt your words, but my perceptions conflict. Please, enlighten me.”
Messmer nodded even if she could not see it. He’d made many smaller braids of her hair and pulled two that he’d started at either temple to create a sort of circlet. There were several slightly thicker braids that interwoven with one another to the back of her head. Here it all collected for him to begin braiding it in a manner that brought forth the image of a fish’s tail.
“The more the Order was wrought, the more she seemed to withdraw as our mother. The farther her separation, the nearer she did become to embodying Order's essence. Order suffereth no exceptions; we were but reflections of the chains she herself bore. The gentler mother I recall... ’Twas from an age ere her Order came to be. It was but myself she had, and for a while, only we two did things remain.”
Andriel digested his words and found more questions than answers. That he held such intimate knowledge of Queen Marika before the true Age of Plenty was more than reason enough for Queen Marika to lock him away to Andriel. Marika was not shy of committing mass genocide to those that threaten her, though, so was locking Messmer away to these lands a remnant of her tender love as a mother? Certainly there was more to things besides Messmer’s knowledge.
It did make one thing clear to the Tarnished, though, Ranni’s idea to remove divinity from the sights and perceptions of the people was the true path to freedom. Freedom for everyone, even Queen Marika. It seemed true godhood was a gilded cage; even the divine chafed from the shackles of it.
Messmer finished his braid and ran an appreciative hand along the intricate plaiting. Andriel reached back to lightly touch the braiding too, and found herself pleasantly shocked. He made it seem so easy. With him satisfied that her hair would not be a knotted mess, she was allowed up and able to finish readying herself. While questions still plagued the Tarnished’s mind, she knew not to break the comfortable silence between them. It would be ill advised to dig too hard and too deep into the wealth of knowledge he possessed.
It was a simple manner to pull back on the dark metal of her oathseeker armor and don the rich red cape bestowed by Messmer reminiscent of what his Fire Knight wore. Andriel sheathed her sword and approached the fissure’s edge as Messmer joined her in the glance downwards.
He reached his hand out to summon a slithering flame to dance its way down the uneven terrain. It illuminated writhing masses of a black, tar-like substance. Andriel thought she could also spot glimpses of white in the horrid things. Beyond them, she could see the glimmering light of a Site of Grace. It was there that Messmer’s exploratory flame settled to cinder.
“Why must I always plunge into horrid depths.” Andriel muttered to herself before whistling for Torrent.
The spectral steed walked into being beside the pair and nosed at Messmer’s arm for scratches. The demigod indulged the steed while raising a single, arched brow.
“Is't a common happenstance for thee? Dare I venture to inquire further?”
Andriel glowered at him before clambering into the saddle and adjusting things to sit further forward before reaching her hand out to him.
“No, it is best you don’t. I suspect this will be a most unpleasant venture. Come, get on. Torrent will see us down fast and safely. There’s Grace at the bottom.”
Messmer waved her hand away. He simply walked off the edge of the fissure much to Andriel’s startled yell for him. The shadowed stone reflected momentary red as a notable impact sound was heard by the Tarnished.
Andriel urged Torrent onwards with a snap of his reins and the steed leapt with ease from outcropping to outcropping. Looking downward she could see Messmer was already a quarter of the way down, burning away the sentient sludge. He practically looked bored doing so, weaving his serpentine flames around with a flick of his wrist. One of his serpents turned to look up towards her and Torrent and she huffed. Demigods and their lackadaisical attitude to gravity always grated on Andriel’s temper.
Torrent evaded any non-charred sludge things and even leapt over Messmer’s head to the next landing. Andriel gave a lazy salute as they passed, feeling a childish giggle bubble in her chest. She stifled it before it could escape. She shouldn’t be finding amusement in her one-sided vexation driving this imaginary need to “win”. Then again, this might as well be an extension of her slight towards all who would see her as the lowly, weak, valueless Tarnished. What better insult than to flaunt victory over those who thought her beneath them.
Messmer was no enemy though, and clearly thought of her far more than just the lowly Tarnished. Andriel needed to keep that in mind as she took the time to also rain down lightning on these foul-smelling things dripping and oozing along the stone walls, ceiling, and ground. The air was only growing increasingly worse as the light of day strained to reach them. That fading light grew an unease within Andriel.
The air was fetid with what Andriel knew all too well to be rotting corpses. Torrent was overly eager to dismiss himself the moment she was off of him, and she could not blame him. Her hand reached out towards Grace as the smell bore down on her. Grace seemed so far beyond her grasp at that moment for some reason. If Messmer was affected by the stench, he didn’t show it as he joined her at the bottom of the great fissure.
There were a great many things Andriel could stomach. It wasn’t a natural gift, seeing as she needed to push back the instinctive need to hurl at the moment. No, her ability to withstand the most repugnant things the five senses can endure came from someplace deep within her, behind that shrouding fog of her life before awakening as tarnished. Having the audacity to prod at the fog would give her a taste of absolute terror. The kind of terror one feels when they feel the caress of death upon their psyche. There was only one other word that came to mind when Andriel was suffocating on this intimately familiar fear.
Repent .
The surfacing recollection of this one word made Andriel feel so far away suddenly. She could see herself barely acknowledging Messmer, his almost protective closeness to her, and them treading deeper to where the light of day could not reach. Andriel could sense her own fear in leaving the light in that moment. She didn’t want to be in the dark again.
Her feet had come to a stop just before the mouth of the cave proper. Andriel was awash with confusion at her own self and actions. She’s delved into catacombs, caves, and all manner of undergrounds plenty before this, but there was something to this overwhelming putrid, lingering death that invoked that deep terror and that word. It echoed in her empty mind: repent, repent, repent.
There were other places that had evoked such fear, but each encounter was pushed deep within the recesses of her mind. The horrid volcano Rykard resided in, the blood swamps of Mohg, standing before Godwyn’s corpse, and the haunting remnants of the Great Caravan. Places that had become one with the stagnation of death itself.
Andriel had been frozen long enough for Messmer to reach out to her and gently shake her shoulder. The touch made her jump like a spooked animal and throw her arm out to hit away the offending touch. Messmer caught her wrist with little issue and proactively grabbed the other lest she lash out further.
“Whithersoever thou dost fear to be, banish it from thy mind. Thou art secure. I shall keep thee safe. Return unto thine self.”
Andriel felt a truly pathetic noise escape her. That disembodied feeling lingered as Messmer patiently awaited her refocusing. The primal fear still bubbled within, but each exhausting second allowed her the chance to break away from the all consuming need to reach for light and claw at invisible walls to escape the suffocating something that threatened to drown her.
The first thing she was able to focus on was his eye. It had a faint, golden glow to it, and Andriel had never truly noticed it until then. She had always thought it beautiful, just as much as the rest of him. The second thing to gain her focus was the serpent she’d healed. It brushed its head up against her cheek. The smooth drag of its scales made her release a breath she didn’t know she held. With that released breath went some of the tension that had ensnared her body. She could remember that they were at the bottom of the fissure again. They were looking for St. Trina.
With more of her mind returning, Andriel was finally able to take in the strangely concerned look on Messmer’s face. He was frowning down at her, and Andriel felt shame starting to creep up her spine for her lapse. More than anything else though, she felt so very exhausted.
“Hast thou returned unto thyself?” Messmer’s voice was still quiet with patience.
Nodding, Andriel pointed her finger towards the pooling Grace. She’d wanted to avoid resting at one for the selfish indulgence of preserving the marks Messmer left on her skin with his want. Now, she desperately needed the revitalization it offered. There was too much to do, and it was already too much that she’d burdened them with her fractured mind.
Still holding her wrists, Messmer continued to stare her down for another minute before relaxing his grip and guiding her to the pooling light. Vallus moved to support her body practically slumping to the site. Messmer stood over her prone form, spear resting in hand as she felt her strength returning to her.
Andriel knew Messmer had questions, but she had little answer to give even with the restoration helping to ease back the lingering dissociation. She didn’t know how long she made them sit there, but of course Messmer made not one complaint. Sighing deeply, she forced herself to her feet. Even with all Grace could fix, the exhaustion dragged on. Though, it was now in a manageable state.
“I’m… sorry for that.” She muttered with her head turned away.
“I don’t have answers for questions you undoubtedly have.”
Andriel heard the shift of fabric and clinking of metal as he turned back to her and urged her forward with a hand at her lower back. He kept his spear ready on the other hand while guiding them onward.
“It is not a strange occurrence to mine eye. I have beheld it in knights and soldiers alike. Mortal minds can endure but a while before they start to falter.”
Messmer’s words were kind, his actions displaying an understanding, but it festered an anger deep within Andriel. One she kept firmly under-heel for the moment. It was not his fault for her failure and lack of control.
“So you say, but I’ve not the memory to understand any of it. It comes from before.” She couldn’t strip the bitterness away from her voice.
Even now, the putrid scent tugged at that primal fear within. It made her reach into her bag and pull out several different herbs and flowers as well as the helmet to her armor. She slid the helmet on while shoving the hoarded plants inside from the small space under her chin. It didn’t fully mask the scent, but it certainly became more tolerable.
“Is't the scent that doth summon forth the dread, then?”
They rounded the corner of the cave as Messmer questioned. Andriel only grunted her assent when the small cave opened to a truly gaping cavern. Dozens and dozens of those giant boat structures they’d spotted on the surface lay in their final rest there beneath the earth. They overlaid one another or were buried deep into the various rock faces.
What Andriel could see was black ooze dripping from several. The very same substances the sentient amalgamations of bone, sinew, and other flesh-stuff were composed of. It dawned on Andriel with a sickening dread. She recalls that strange tower she climbed to the top of soon after arriving to the Gravesite Plains. It had an engraving on it, saying it stood as the center of all the Lands Between. “All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed” .
“By the stars… these things are just full of liquified corpses.” Andriel breathed out and turned to face Messmer.
“Do you think… These mass coffins were of the same culture of Deathrite and Ghostflame? With the removal of Destined Death, even this melted rot would be made to live still.”
It was absolutely horrific and made Andriel all the gladder for putting space between herself and the rancid air. This place just made every hair stand on end and drove her so far as to stand a inch or two closer to Messmer. To be near somebody else living helped keep the creeping fear at bay.
“Putrescence. I do remember dispatching men and furnace golems to incinerate all that lingered above. Here, it doth fester. It hath grown bold to grasp at the surface once more. Miquella's presence, perchance.”
Messmer’s scant explanation hardly brought her comfort, but the thought that Miquella would abandon Trina here of all places was truly a cruelty that Andriel could not forgive. If she truly found the other half of Miquella within these depths, Andriel would harness her rage and hatred for Miquella so that he might receive the whole of it.
Putrescence was an apt name, at least. Messmer’s presence and the blunted scent from the plants in her helmet allowed her to press onwards and the pair descended further. The presence of blood fiends seemed to surprise even Messmer as he speared one through before Andriel even realized it was there.
Messmer yanked his weapon free with a sickening squelch while Andriel walked closer. The angled ground was from one of the boat-coffins and knowing she walked on something essentially full of putrescence was unnerving. This whole place was awful. She wanted to turn and leave and damn it all, but it seems Messmer was curious enough to press onwards. He stepped easily from the coffin to the stoney earth before turning to offer his hand to her. Her immediate reaction would be to slap it away and snap at him that she didn’t need help, but she knew her disgruntlement was no fault of his and her shortened fuse a consequence of her rattled state. If anything he was being sweet as molasses given her little episode.
Andriel took his hand and let him guide her down further. She didn’t immediately release his hand when she likely should have. Her maintained grip had Messmer half turning towards her in question.
“I… Thank you. Not just for this, but earlier too. I don’t know why this place pulls at me so, but I fear I’d be in much worse a state were I without your presence.”
Messmer’s reaction made her heart ache. It was so quick, hardly there at all, but she’d seen it. The smallest smile that disappeared just as quick as it’d revealed itself. The captured image would buffer against that simmering dread in her heart. Would he smile more if he knew he shielded her within too?
Messmer did not shy away from tugging her a little closer. They approached another ledge where the only option was to drop quite a ways down.
“I vow, thou shalt be shielded from harm whilst I abideth by thy side.”
Andriel was given no chance to dissent before he lifted her much like he had on their approach to the Cerulean Coast. This time, she held onto him before he dropped from the ledge. She felt the security of the ground leave them and felt her stomach flip as they dropped.
Just as before, he landed with inhuman ease. Messmer’s hold lingered for a moment longer than he needed to before setting her back on her feet properly. Even then, he stood close by. He was a silent guardian at her side, but Messmer did not treat her as something weak and fragile after seeing her lose composure and for that, Andriel was grateful. Their landing had caught the notice of the other bloodfiends in the area, however.
Their grotesque bodies lumbered forward. Dried, flaking blood painted their blackened skin. Their faces looked more like rats and that included their red, beady eyes, and she could tell they looked at her with an insatiable hunger. When she’d first encountered these horrid things, their use of bloodflame incantations startled her. At that time, she’d thought such practices were by Mohg and his followers only. They communed with this “Formless Mother” through spilling blood. Unlike the Mohgwyn Dynasty, these creatures were more than willing to devour one another to ensure blood was shed for their “Mother”. It was hard for her to reconcile those like Varré and Ansbach holding Mohg and this blood god in such high esteem when the bloodfiends stood as warped mirrors of the well spoken men.
Sir Ansbach was so refined and gentlemanly it made her truly wonder as to what the vision was that Mohg had garnered his loyalty with. There was no denying he was greatly skilled as a combatant, even if he claimed such days were beyond him. It was hard for Andriel to picture him mad with bloodlust or parading about those sickly blood-swamps full of mutated beasts and albinaurics. He regarded her as a “righteous” tarnished, and spoke respectfully of others. Varré was of a different kind of refinement.
The masked man had been the very first person Andriel had encountered upon awakening in the Lands Between. Varré had been so kind to her, speaking sweetness into her ears all the while assuring her that she would die alone, in obscurity. It was Varré who’d sewn the very first seeds of doubt in her fractured mind. He’d encouraged her bloodlust with a lulling voice and referred to her with affection, “Oh my dearest lambkin” . She could hear the words in her mind.
Varré had tried to kill her, of course, but Andriel was not of a mind to return the favor. She’d defeated him, certainly, but she had healed him from the brink of death. She just couldn't be the reason for a once-friend's death again. He was far from consciousness when she battled Mohg to the death soon after. It made her briefly wonder how he would continue onward now that she’d slain his Lord.
Andriel wasn’t allowed to ponder long now that she and Messmer were in the thick of a skirmish with the bloodfiends. Her blade sang as it met the bloodied instrument of one of the rodent-faced monstrosities. The dark metal skid down along the other fork-like weapon as Andriel moved with that momentum to roll just past the hulking monster. She spun on the ball of her foot the moment she exited her roll to swing her sword in a horizontal strike. A deep gash started weeping blood from the side of its overly large belly.
The bloodfiend howled its agony and lashed out in wild thrashing. Andriel had to make several quick backpedaling steps to avoid the rampage, but that was guiding her towards another bloodfiend ready to bring its weapon down on her. Messmer was engaged with three others at that moment too.
When fighting alone, she tried to limit how many adversaries she faced to no more than two. More than that spelled certain death, but the bloodfiends always came at her so aggressively that even one was a challenge. Andriel needed to do something risky, but if she could pull it off then these two fiends would be dead by the end of it.
Taking a deep breath, Andriel cleared her mind to focus on her incantation. She had to sheath her blade for this as she broke out into a sprint away from her two foes to gain some needed distance. They lumbered after her in clunky running, but she would always be faster. Red lightning started to spark from her body as she called it forth.
The arts of the ancient dragons were hers to command, but casting them often left her vulnerable. The red lightning started to pool into her hands when she spun on her heel to face the two bloodfiends. She could see Messmer fighting just a little ways away too. She was far enough he’d be safe from her incoming attack.
The magic pulled her into the air as two massive lightning spears formed in her hands. She stayed aloft to charge the strength of her spell as long as she could, but the bloodfiends were nearly on her. One of them swung at her, nearly connecting. Andriel released the incantation at that exact moment.
She threw the first spear down with a guttural yell, watching in satisfaction as it came down right on one bloodfiend and exploded in jumping electric arcs that spread outwards in a large circle. The bloodfiend hit directly on its head with the spear was dead before it fell to the ground in a heavy thud. The other had been thrown back by the force of the initial impact explosion. That’s when Andriel let loose the other spear with another shout as she put all her energy into its descending impact. The red lightning devoured the remaining bloodfiend, frying it so thoroughly the thing was left with an imprint of the strike seared in its flesh. It too fell over with an undignified thump as the electricity stopped its heart internally.
Andriel was trembling from the effort and the rebound effects of using the ancient dragon’s lightning. Such arts weren’t adapted for bodies not made of stone. Luckily, she’s become largely familiar with her limits and could force her way through the rest of the shaking. Redrawing her blade, Andriel charged at the last bloodfiend Messmer was fighting against. The other two laid in pools of their own blood with skin charred and smoking. Her hand traced down the length of her blade and left golden lightning in its wake before she struck low at the heels of their final foe.
The bloodfiend wailed as its tendons were cut, collapsing the monster to its knees. Messmer moved in with deadly precision to take advantage of her sneak attack. Standing over the fiend, Messmer used both hands to jab his spear downward and through the skull of its rat face. All movement ceased as the five bloodfiends all laid dead.
Andriel laughed from the lingering adrenaline pumping through her veins, digging out a cloth to wipe the blood from her sword. The lightning on it lingered a few moments more before dissipating. Messmer merely flicked the blood from his spear in a quick, but heavy handed motion.
The demigod neared her and one of the serpents, Vallus, leaned forwards to inspect her. Its flickering tongue tasted the air for any indication she might be bleeding herself, but all it could sense was the pungent ozone of her magic. Andriel sheathed her sword, feeling far better now that she’d expelled that fear-born stress in her body. She still would keep her helmet and the bundle of herbs and flowers, but her mind was the clearest it has been since she stepped foot into this godsforsaken hole.
“Did you get hurt at all?” Andriel questioned.
She didn’t have the same advantage of being able to literally smell the blood on people and distinguish between different types unlike a certain serpentine man she knew. Andriel hadn’t seen any indications of injury, but it could have slipped her notice.
Messmer shook his head before taking a moment to properly assess their surroundings with the aid of the twinned serpents. As the snakes explored the immediate area, Messmer tilted his head towards Andriel in question.
“This is the second occasion I have espied thee brandish the crimson lightning of the ancient dragons. How didst thou acquire such skills?”
Finding nothing, the serpents returned to settle on Messmer once more as Andriel shrugged. They walked further along where Andriel could spot another cross and the kneeled form of a ghost spirit. At least they were on the right track.
“I’ve encountered a few. Battling and defeating them seemed to impart their knowledge on me. They take quite a bit out of me, though. There was a tarnished before me. He had been the only other one to acquire more than a single Great Rune, but he also wielded the power of the ancient dragons. My understanding is that he was genuinely liked by them. A pity what became of him.”
Vyke was someone she’d first encountered in Liurnia. Near the village plagued by frenzy. She didn’t know his full tale until she’d mentioned her encounter off-handedly to Gideon. Encountering him in the gaol on the Mountaintops was far more sobering an encounter.
“What fate hath befallen this tarnished soul thou dost speak of?” There was a curious lilt to Messmer's question.
Messmer was cemented as a rather inquisitive figure in Andriel’s mind. Not that she could blame him. There were centuries of events he knew nothing of. She prayed it did not wear at him too severely.
“Vyke was his name… reached the same point as me. We both were denied entrance to the Erdtree, but learning he’d have to sacrifice his finger maiden to serve as kindling to burn the great Erdtree made something change. There’s speculation on if he couldn’t bring himself to do it out of love for his maiden and fell to despair or if he’d done what he did to try and prevent her sacrifice.”
Andriel shook her head, feeling intimately what Vyke might’ve felt when she’d met “Shibriri” puppeting Yura’s poor body. It was horrible, how that thing’s voice haunted her even now. He promised that she’d be able to spare Melina’s life and make it so that Andriel herself served as the needed kindling. The last thing she wanted was to put Melina to the flame, but such decisions were not hers to make. Melina had made that intimately clear.
“But now, I act of my own volition. I have set my heart upon the world that I would have. Regardless of my mother's designs. I won't allow anyone to speak ill of that. Not even you.”
Those words had been Melina’s retort to Andriel when the Tarnished begged for another option. It’d been soon after the initial visit of Shibriri. Melina had made her point, and she put a stop to Andriel’s wandering thoughts of the frenzied flame lest she repeat Vyke's folly.
“Vyke fell to frenzy.” She sighed.
“He went so far as to be embraced by the Three Fingers. I faced him in a gaol upon the Mountaintops of the Giants. His armor was completely warped by the grip of Three Fingers and he fought like a rabid dog. There was nothing in him but madness. I pray he still has a soul that might find peace after all that.”
Messmer fell silent beside her, not questioning further. Often was silence his answer to her retellings. His inclination to think things over before speaking was a trait she rather admired, and so she left him to his brooding.
They neared the new cross of Miquella, but Andriel decided to kneel next to the ghostly spirit to hear his trembling words. Messmer opted to near the cross, reaching out to drag his long fingers through the ethereal gold that served as the makeup of the cross.
Andriel leaned her ear close and quietly asked the spirit for his words. The ghost spoke, his voice whispered and mournful.
“Kindly Miquella... I see you've thrown away... Something you should not have. Under any circumstances. How will you salvation offer...to those who cannot be saved? When you could not even save your other self?"
Andriel sucked in a quiet breath. She knew St. Trina would be down here, but to have it confirmed finally made for a great disquiet as the Tarnished stood to join Messmer by the cross.
“I abandon here my love.” Messmer supplied when Andriel reached an arms length away.
“Forsaking of his love... Alas, he knoweth not the worth of that which he hath cast aside so lightly.”
Andriel looked up towards the demigod, intrigued by his words. That mixed with the sputtered words of the ghost only cemented her own feelings on the matter. She touched the nearby Grace and neared the edge of a great cliffside. Down below where it all grew dark, the true bottom was masked by a heavy purple fog. She could feel St. Trina’s influence here without a doubt even if she were to not have found the cross or ghost.
“He sheds himself of all forms of love- even the love one deserves from themself. St. Trina is that love. She deserves better than to be cast off in such a rotted place.”
Andriel crossed her arms, deeply disturbed by the notion of simply being rid of such an emotion like love. It is a feeling that spans far beyond the romantic and familial.
“Love… Some of the greatest feats, good or ill, are a matter of course from love. It provides that level of intensity that allows one to turn the tide in a hopeless situation. It provides reason and purpose to weary hearts.”
Messmer had approached to stand just beside Andriel as she prated onward. She had a suspicion that he would share similar views as herself.
“Had I not encountered the many souls I have on my long journey, I fear I’d have fallen to hopeless despair long before now. It is their hopes- their love given unto me that offers me my greatest strength. I am an unstoppable force, for those I hold dear need of me a Lord. This will prove to be Miquella’s fatal folly, mark my words.”
Andriel, like always, couldn’t guess at Messmer’s thoughts. She knew he was taking the time to think over her spiel, but she was more so caught off guard by her own feelings coming forth. Nervous flutters in her chest gave away how she longed for his approval. She wanted him to agree and approve of her. It’s silly to consider at that moment, but he’d not actively retracted his disbelief in her reach for the Elden Throne. Why did it matter? Why did she want him to believe in her too.
“We are of like thought, little tarnished. This cross here shall serve as a noted reminder of the time he cast victory aside in the foolish belief he would be mightier without it.” Messmer’s level tone oozed with self-assured confidence and Andriel’s stomach was alight with delighted tingles.
“I spake but briefly of my mother's change, yet I do believe Miquella doth seek to hasten a process to which my mother slowly fell prey. To attain divinity in its fullest truth, one must forsake all that rendereth them mortal... to purge themselves of their humanity.”
A truly chilling thought. That Miquella would go to such lengths in reaching for divine power. Would he even remember his purpose in doing so by the end? Was this all not started, in large part, to save his dearest sister? It was saddening, in a way, that Miquella would go to such lengths reaching for an ideal doomed before it could ever reach fruition. Then again, such was the nature of the curse he bore.
Andriel slid her gauntleted hand into Messmer’s, craving that closeness shared in light of these haunting realizations. Messmer hardly hesitated or froze this time at her sudden contact and simply allowed the little gesture.
“Well then… let us go see that which remains of Miquella’s discarded love.” Andriel declared, even if the pair didn’t move from the cliffside edge for some time.