Book 1: The Stagnation of Gold

Hope

Marika

The dawn felt so strangely comforting on her skin as she slowly raised her head. It ached far more than it had the night before, yet thought had again become clear and concise again. No longer stained in red or rage. It made her sigh in relief, hoping all she had done was faint. By the look around her, her own tent, and the cloak that covered her bandaged bosom currently that did not belong to her, told her much of the story of the prior night. Thankfully, lacking a painful ache between her thighs, it seems it also ended very briefly after her own thoughts had faded into dreams. Proof of trust in her would-be Protector. Yet the mystery of this person made her worry. Was she walking into a trap...?

Luna

She sighed as she hefted the deer onto the wagon she had stood beside. Quiet and peaceful was how she wanted to enjoy this world, even if the task she was given gave her such conflict. Marika was a goddess and a crooked, manipulative, genocidal one. Few were any less, yet damned would she be by her own empathy. Simply, by being near her, had her once easily boiling anger at another pompous god turned to sympathy, even empathy, and soft concern at the state the woman had been left in.

She knew the task before her would be arduous and thankless. Arguably, she had already decided to defy her task, but often her mother's words twisted and wound like riddles, and left her wondering if that was why her missive had once more been a puzzle of words. It was something she loved about their languages, for it had so many beautiful ways to be shaped. Yet, it also meant that even simple sentences could transform into riddles and puzzles to be unraveled. Marika was likely her greatest puzzle at all.

Her mother had requested she handle this, rebirthing Marika through her great powers as a trial of sorts. Her stated end was to be a slow and painful burning alongside those cast archways, monument to the terribleness of divinity, yet reading over the written statement, she found herself turned around by her own feelings. Her mother, Skithistalia, knew that for all her capacity as an executioner, she was far more a woman of mercy. She had not gained the moniker 'The Restful' through pure and brutal violence. She knew when a person was beyond saving, just as well as when she knew that they weren't.

She knelt down by the waters nearby, washing off her hands. She smiled, eyes lost briefly in all the small creatures. In such small amounts of water, her eyes spotted billions, trillions of tiny things that few eyes could catch as hers did. The way the fish moved with the waters. The countless tiny creatures that kept the flowing waters clean refuse. The way the very stones acted as slight filters near river mouths, and how they welcomed all forms of life to it to refresh. Water was what led them all in peace, and it often made her wonder if that was why the ocean sang to her so beautifully. It had since her earliest days of memory, though few they were before the days in that terrible cage.

She wagged her hands dry before resting a palm on the hilt of her blade that normally hid beneath her cloak. A pale white sheathe and matching hilt, tasseled with a single strip of silvery ribbon. Her oldest sword and the one that ensured this journey was fair. She was her judge and great equalizer. Sadly, like the seal and spells she had used to reacue Marika, it would fade. The last crutch before she was left here on her own.

Her thoughts drifted off as her eyes saw Marika standing at their camp, milling about slowly with the clear intent to reconstitute her bearings. Last night had surely been rough, and she was giving her the space needed to recover. She seemed to be fairing better now as her shoeless soles dug lightly into the dirt and seemed to calm the expression on her face from one of exhaustion to one of quiet relief. She truly was in many ways like a tree in her divinity, and it brought a small smile to her own lips. There was hope then to blossom that in her. It would be a long task, but one she hoped would end happily. Her last wish would be to end this journey with her great tragedy avoided, but she was realistic in her expectations.

Still, watching the golden haired goddess look so relieved by the simple act of standing in the soil and allowing the wind to curl at her cheeks brought the warrior a sense of calm satisfaction in her acceptance of this task. Perhaps even a kiss of intrigue, as her eyes found themselves briefly casting over that still loveliest of forms. The bandages and sores did little, in her eyes at least, to cast aspersion on what could clearly be seen. Beauty, golden, and glimmering, even if it was tarnished for now, by the pains of capture and recovery.

She watched the wind whip and swirl until suddenly, that mass of golden hair whipped about and whooped her right in the face with a sudden THWACK of wind swept hair. Luna couldn't contain herself and let out a hefty laugh that left the quickly noticing goddess to further flushed features.

"It is no laughing matter! I have simply not had time to fix my radiant locks, and I shan't have cackling rats howling at every misfortune befallen me til such a time!" Try as she did to maintain her composure, the furious and frizzed nature of her hair only made the display far more uproarious, and Luna behaved in accordance by dropping to the dirt, and laughing with pounded fist until the dirt had fully buckled beneath her in a small dent of earth just under her fist.

Marika

She was even more furious as she watched her would-be Protector pound the soil with greater humor than a pig that had just been introduced to its own shit for the first time, and her cheeks were ablaze as a result of such indignity. She stomped once, then turned and marched back towards the campsite with a growling grumble. What annoying behavior from one who was supposed to be her savior.

No matter those strange eyes, Marika would bolster herself from further insolence, or so she would tell herself. Even as the laugh made cracks in her hidden urn, so small, yet present, she lamented and tried to quell the sounds with a walk along the hillside, farther from the laughter and that quite growing frustratingly disrespectful knight. Had she no decorum around a lady, much less a queen and a goddess at that? It was as if she was dancing with a mere child who knew only her own left steps. She lamented that if this was her trial, it was a doomed trial. If this was to be her elden lord, that is.

Her steps soon began to trail the cliff, and the grass felt so relaxing. It felt like, perhaps, not all she had built was to be lost. Life had its way of springing back, and could she return to those great twin pillars, she could find a way to restore herself and re-make the golden order. The very thought brought a renewed fervor to her heart and a smile to her face. "Things need not fully tarnish... Perhaps.." as the wind gently blew along her skirt, and her eyes drifted to the distant lands that lead towards the Capital, a hint once more of gold was found in her skin, and hope, rekindled fully.

"We can make it even better this time."
'We can only ever make it worse.'

His rage would not be so easily silenced.