Mariwa: An Ivian Tale

Holly couldn't move.

To call God a giant was an understatement. They were sky and earth, colossal arms spread above to consume her, innumerable spear-tipped legs reaching as far as hers, leaves like small suns glaring down. And their eyes! Black as the night, no pupils yet leaving no mistake on what they focused, the briefest flicker in her direction making her legs numb.

"Holly, we need you to fight! We need you to save us!"

They had gone mad, she and the Elder and everyone else. Today shouldn't be possible. Elder Seneschal's words had to be meaningless babbles, and her frightened mind was mishearing them, that was all.

"Lass." It was the lady's time to rave. "If not for us, fight for your sister, in the clutches of the Father. Don't you want to help her?"

Her sister! With everything else, it had completely fled her!

"Lady, what happened to Hazel?! Why does Elder Seneschal want me to fight?!"

The lady had not for a second taken her eyes of Elder Seneschal's figure, slowly crawling towards God, her expression severe. "Because we tire of the cull. Because we have no other hopes," she said.

"I-I don't understand! what-"

"Don't pay attention to me! Eyes forward, Lass, or you will end up like Elder Smith down there!"

It took her a second to make the connection, and then she remembered the bald old man, grappling with Elder Seneschal. She remembered his face, twisting from anger to shock to agony and fear as he understood what was happening, his struggles and how his body came apart when he was dragged-

Her stomach churned. She felt the bile rise up her throat, and for the first time felt thankful she hadn't eaten anything lately. She fought the nausea down, though the image refused to leave her.

"There."

The word brought her from her reminiscing, or, was it even a word? It was a strange sensation, like she was feeling somebody talk instead of hearing or reading, but she couldn't tell where, from where. It reminded her of that weird tension, that Will she had felt down in her room, but so much stronger, more solid.

Elder Seneschal obeyed. Even from here she could see his frail body shake, and wanted nothing more than to go rescue him. However, God's eyes flickered her way once more, keeping her pinned behind her cage.

"Seneschal, I am disappointed."

"Father, I have done nothing but fulfill your needs," the Elder said, voice croaky and pained.

"I forgive, again and again. Your blood, your theft of my Divine Intent."

"Was the bride not to your likeness? She was the best our humble village ever cultivated. Nobody had ever upheld tradition as much as her, and none ever shall again."

"You poisoned me."

"There was no poison, my Lord, the bride was raised as my own child, I would know. She was a perfectly healthy woman, and nothing else."

"Lies."

The word crashed upon them again with a force that was almost physical, bearing down on her shoulders and nearly dropping her on her knees. Elder Seneschal, with no strength to hold himself, was sent sprawling on his face.

A desperate voice broke through the haze of pain. "Lass, you must listen to me!"

"M-me?"

"You don't have the time to gawk! Do you think God will let Florid live for much longer?!"

"I-I don't know what I'm supposed to do! I don't know what's happening, or what Elder Seneschal is talking about, or-"

"Listen to me. Do you know what we, the Elders of Lesser Hollow, do here?"

She almost answered that she didn't, but thinking twice about it, she had an idea. The Elder didn't like talking about it, but she had heard about the brides of God, or felt the dour mood that used to overtake the village every solstice back when she was healthy. Hazel had been lurid with the possibilities, but she didn't want to believe the things she said, even coming from her sister!

"I-I do. I think."

"Do you know how much death lies beneath your feet? How many bridal gowns I have had to weave for the poor unfortunate girls we pick? Girls who can't even fulfill their purpose anymore, not without breaking down, and take their entire families to the mound when God deems their efforts insufficient!"

"N-no..."

"You want to know why we need you to fight? We are his captives, lass. We sacrificed too much to appease him, and it will never be enough! He does not care for our lives, for our wellbeings, always asking for more and more!" The lady ranted, but never so much as looked towards Holly. No, even now, her attention was reserved entirely for God and Elder Seneschal.

"T-then Hazel..."

"... Your sister is here, I'm afraid. She was as exhausted as any of us, of living under this tyrant's burden. She knew you were our last hope, and gave herself to leave you a better chance."

She felt like her heart was going to stop. "T-then..." The words didn't want to come out, "I-is she- is she-"

"She might still survive."

"S-she might?!"

"...We never knew what happens after God takes his brides. You are the only who might figure out how, lass. But first, you must dethroned him!"

Holly nodded, feeling some smidge of courage coming back to her. So this was it, like one of her chivalry novels, a battle to rescue the kidnapped damsel! Except she was no hero, no knight in a white warmare, no wandering swordsman of many years, bane of a thousand monsters.

"Alright, I'll do it! E-except, how though?"

"How can you ask me that?!"

"I-I never fought anyone before!" Not since she got sick, she had not.

"And you think I would be-" she grumbled under her breath, then shook her head. "Fight, lass. Follow your instincts! Cut, bite, kick, topple him if your might allows, do anything your body can to bring him harm then take his life!"

"But-"

"Don't think, go!"

The order filled her with dread. She didn't help any, but she wouldn't dare talk back to somebody with that voice.

She leaped over her cage, landing on all fours. Free from the cramped walls of her room, she felt faster and stronger than ever before! How long had it been since the last time she could run as much as she wanted?! With that elation carrying her, she aimed for Elder Seneschal and sprung forward, ready to take him to safety, then-

"Stop."

God's full attention fell upon her.

It was like crashing against solid stone. For a second she was at full speed, and the next she hit the ground in a great plume of dust and flowers, limbs seizing under the force of invisible hands gripping her from under the skin..

The next words came with a pity that made her spine crawl.

"My apologies, similar."

She tried to lift her head, to look at the deity at the top of the Throne in bafflement, but moving even a single muscle was agony, as if her flesh was turning to stone from sheer tension.

"Holly!" She could just barely see Elder Seneschal trying to get up. "Holly, love, you have to get up! You're stronger than him, I know you are!"

Since when? She though. How could he ever think of her as his last chance? Why?

"I recognize you now. I acknowledge you now," God said without saying to her, then elsewhere. "Seneschal, look at me."

"Holly, you-!"

And then the Elder disappeared from her view.

"I was once disgusted. I demanded your pyre. Yet, you are before me, similar. Tell me, Seneschal, why you kept her alive."

"Agh-! Aaaaah!" The Elder screamed.

"I understand now. I feel her weak Intent, as I felt the other's. I understand it all now."

"My Father, I- Aaaaagh!"

"I ask you to rise, similar. Use your Divine Intent as I do."

She struggled as she could, and finally managed to push herself up.

Elder Seneschal had been lifted into the air.

For a mind melting instant, she imagined the Elder like the other man, impaled through and bleeding freely like a slaughtered animal, but she was wrong. The elder was held by the waist in the grip of a wooden snake stained with pitch black liquid. His fists hit the thing again and again until they were bloody, but no matter what, it refused to let him go.

"Leave him alone! Elder Seneschal!"

"I will hear no vulgarities. Speak in Divine Intent as I do."

"I-I don't even know what that is!"

She felt God's Will crash against her again, weaker this time, only strong enough to numb her and send an unpleasant shiver down her spine. It felt violating, but worse was that she couldn't understand why.

"Intent. Desire as I do, then follow."

"How?!"

The Will hit again, hard. Like a punch to the stomach, twisting her insides, her senses, making her muscles weak and loose. It carried with it such disappointed contempt it made her want to to hide.

"Seneschal." The root squeezed, and the Elder screamed. "You raise a weapon against me, yet coddled her? She cannot imitate my Divine Intent, only feel."

"I-" He coughed. "Does anyone?"

"You, who stole it from me."

"I don't recall ever being a thief, Fat-"

He screamed again.

"I forgave, for you suited my purposes."

"P-Please, let him go..."

"Have you forgotten my words, Seneschal?"

Elder Seneschal spat. "I wouldn't forget anything, oh Father. nothing that pertains you."

"You do not understand me. Else, I would ask you to repeat them."

God squeezed again, and this time, Holly heard something snap. Elder Seneschal's screams became cacophonous, his desperate scratching at the limb that held him tugging something deep within her.

So she tried again, against nausea and holy pressure. She willed herself upwards, but soon found it was like throwing herself in the path of a boulder rolling downhill and trying to push it back, every bit of resistance met with superior weight, until her momentum was completely stalled.

"Similar, await my judgment,"

"S-stop calling me that!"

"i said, speak with Intent."

Instinct told her to move, and she followed before she could wonder why. The signs had been so few: a little rumbling of the earth, a slight shift at the peak of the Throne, anger in God's Will.

It struck like a snake in the underbrush, as fast as the blink of the eye, a spear of wood lunging out of the ground, a filthy oozing worm that tore in her direction, coming a hairsbreadth from nicking the hard skin of her arms. Holly fell on her rear and quickly scrambled to her limbs as the thing retreat, taking position between her and the Elder.

Something had began to drop from Elder Seneschal, staining the earth below him in a mix of dark liquids. Despite everything, however, he had started to laugh.

"I tire of this farce, Seneschal."

"Have I ever offered anything beyond my utmost honesty, Father?!" he chuckled and coughed.

"Elder Seneschal, W-wait-" The boulder came back, but this time she managed to push it back, finding purchase forward. Another serpent of wood quickly whistled its way out from beneath, lashing at her at an unbelievable speed, cracking the hardskin over her forearm and sending her reeling back, howling. It had been years since she last felt this kind of pain, almost as bad as breaking an arm.

"I have been merciful, Seneschal. I succored and I nourished. You live because I allow you to."

"Ha! And we are so thankful for your mercy, Father! Were it not for you, where would we be, right?! Where would Lesser Hollow be?!"

"You mock me?"

"... Holly, can you hear me?"

"I spoke to you," God said, and Elder Seneschal whimpered, more liquid leaking from him. "Do you mock me?"

"Holly, I said, can you hear me?!"

She never answered. The moment words came to her mouth, another strike came right at her, choking her with dirt and dust, another lunge nearly taking her in the chest soon after. Her heart felt cold in her chest, for no matter which angle she tried to take, she couldn't get past God's roots, which were quickly growing in numbers.

"Holly, do you remember what's the worst sin for us Followers of the Sun?" Elder Seneschal laughed, and she didn't understand why when she wanted to scream, "So don't bother with this treacherous old geezer, alright love?! I'm not getting out of this one anyway!"

"D-don't say that, Elder Seneschal, I'll be right there!"

"No, Holly! That's what I'm trying to-"

Elder Seneschal screamed again, and God spoke. "Do not ignore me."

"Well, F-Father, you're not the only one here tired of this farce!" He cackled like a mad man. "Merciful! I hope I meet my sisters in my next life, just to tell them that joke! And you succor us too?! Not from yourself! Well, but at least I agree with your last point!"

"Seneschal."

"I would call you a moron, you petty little tyrant, but you know what fits you better?! You're an infant! A lordling drunk on your own power! that we ever called you a God is an affront to any good the word might have held, specially when you never saw us as anything but a servile meal!"

"E-Elder Seneschal, don't say that, they-"

"It's the truth Holly, and if I'm to die here, let me speak! After everything we lost, after everything you forced us to give up for your self aggrandizing, it's the least you can grant me, you putrid fucking stump!"

"I granted you choice."

"As if the opposite was an option any sane person would ever take, idiot!"

"Before me, you have."

"Ha! And after everything, I look sane to you?!" Elder Seneschal spat. "Tell me, do you really only ever eat women?! What happened to my brother, all those years ago, huh?! Why did you punish us for sins we never committed, allows us to ready brides you knew could never realize the Ceremony, pick them even?! Just for the pleasure of killing us, your Herd of dumb animals that can do nothing but blindly follow your every whim?!"

"The traitor deserves no truth from me."

"... Holly, you're hearing all this, right? This is a god! This is the creature that is suppose to be our superior, our greatest benefactor, our protector, slaughtering us for petty vengeance and amusement! Did my grandfather's trick with the Guts really damage you so badly you had to kill half of us?! that you had to kill my baby sister, who didn't get to see her tenth year?!"

"Enough."

"... You're right. What's the point of airing my grievances to you? If you were going to care, you would have cared long ago!" Heaving a heavy sigh as if relieved, Elder Seneschal slowly turned towards her, "Holly, love?"

The sight of him was worse than any blow, any metaphorical boulder pushing her down.

She had almost expected to see him with a cunning smile, a plan about to go from his lips.

He was grimacing, his mouth and chin dripping with so much blood she couldn't believe he could still speak, the front of his robes dark with red under God's light.

"Holly, I leave the people in your hands. Your sister specially. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid, alright? And-"

"I have granted you final words."

His mouth opened and closed a few times, as if he didn't know what to say. he struggled for a short moment, until his face suddenly twisted, an expression of unimaginable grief taking over. He took a deep breath...

And finally did smile.

"And good luck, alright? I believe in you."

"Now, I purify you."

Elder Seneschal was Crushed.

The noise echoed through the Throne and carved itself into her mind. Wet yet brittle, a crackling squelch, like an overripe fruit with dry skin being stepped on, Elder Seneschal burst with a choked gasp, spraying the ground beneath and staining it dark. Two objects fell from God's grip as Elder Seneschal flopped back, limp.

Not a second passed when the fire started, consuming the black ooze covering the root and quickly igniting the Elder whole.

She watched in mute shock.

She almost convinced herself this was another nightmare, that she would soon wake up in the dark of her room, hungry and lonely, eagerly waiting for her family to visit with more stories and tasty meats.

But that dream refused to end. The comforting dark had never come.

If anything, the light grew stronger, the crimson leaves above growing like fed embers.

The root holding the Elder bent, then launched him with casual disregard. He passed above the cliff's edge, over the dry patch surrounding the Throne, and disappeared into the vegetation beyond.

The boulder returned, commanding her down.

"Similar, now I demand you-"

She did not understand Intent, or Will, then.

She simply wished it destroyed, so the boulder shattered.

The ground flew beneath her, a blur of brown and fading purple. A noise unlike any other she had ever heard deafened her, a mixture between a roar of fury and another of surprised agony. God and all their roots convulsed, trying to lean back and away from her in vain

She unfurled her nails, wished God harm, then struck.

She tore through the wood of a root like a knife through a fish, gouging it to the middle. Black ooze didn't pour but flowed freely like a river, squirting the ground she had been just a moment ago as she dashed to the next target, already trying to flee underground, the root that once held Elder Seneschal.

Not minding that it was still alight, she struck again, cutting through fire and wood and jumping back again. The noise grew louder, until it felt like the one and only thing in the world, but she fought it, had to as another wooden spear, this time thicker around then even Julius, tried to take advantage of the moment to skewer her. Dodging, taking a small gash up her flank, she cut it down its length.

Only to be blown back by a heavy hit from out of sight.

The pain was immediate. She had been caught in the joint. The hardskin over her left arm had fixed itself already, but her right had now burst to the flesh ruptured up to its limits close to her shoulder, her ribs breaking under. She rolled downhill, eating dirt and flower mush as she struggled to get a grip.

Finally, she stopped herself, digging into the hill with her good arm, as the haze clouding her mind ceased. She throbbed with pain, her fingers so badly burned some of them had burst open, now freely leaking onto the dry soil.

The roar of fury had stopped.

But the baffled, terrified noise that was not a noise hadn't. God held their leaking roots in the air, staring at it in obvious disbelief. It eyes shifted towards her, holding nothing of the instinctive superiority they once brought, but now carrying something worse.

"I commend your fast learning. I commend your fast recuperation."

"W-why?!" she cringed from the prickling pain in her hand. The hardskin over her arm was already slowly fixing itself, clotting up her blood and recreating the space between its cracks, but the burned parts remained damaged. "Why did you hurt him?! E-Elder Seneschal was the Godspeaker, the only one who could hear you!"

"I see another, his thieving daughter."

"M-me? No, I would never be-"

"I speak of his true daughter." The wounded roots retreated underground. "Enough. Similar, I demand you to leave."

"No! I-I won't let you get away with this! Elder Seneschal was a great man, a-"

"Traitor. Unforgivable."

"You heard him, you were hurting us, killing us!"

"I demanded a fair price. I took select, unwanted few and I gave back a fruitful life."

"H-Hazel was not unwanted! She was the best person ever, and we loved her a lot!"

"My guardian spoke otherwise. She relayed to me much of my people."

"These are not your people, they are-"

"The fruit of my land, my nourishment, my domain," God said, and she could feel a strange discrepancy in the way they communicated and the maddening concoction of wrath and fear they emitted. "I have seen your true kin, Similar. This village is mine and not yours. I ask you to return to them."

God's roots stood at the ready, but for some reason refused to strike. Never had them looked more like serpents, the way they quivered in the air, looking for the right moment to bite. Or more blasphemously, like worms wriggling out of the ground, called by the blood, some now emerging covered in flames in some mockery of the divine.

"I won't go anywhere! E-Elder Seneschal told me to defeat you, so I'll defeat you! I'll free my sister, and I'll topple you and, and-!"

"I have left nothing of your kin."

She paused. "N-no, the other lady said that she, that she might be okay!" She searched for the old lady with the steel hair, but there was nobody around else around them, everyone else had fled. "I-I don't believe you!"

"Similar, Your throne bears no ill with mine. The Seneschal wished my death, you shouldn't."

"Why not?!'

"Useless. How do you plan to topple me?"

"I-I'll hit you really hard!"

"Useless."

"Got you scared, didn't it?!"

Another emotion entered God's Will: surprise. "I give you one last chance. Your true kin pester me, and I shall lead you to then. End this fight and I shall let you live."

She swallowed dry. For all she talked big, she could feel her members shake beneath her. But how could she leave now?

"I said no."

God and sick girl faced each other, and she almost reconsidered. Almost. Elder Seneschal was so smart, but how could he think she was capable? She had to believe he had seen something she couldn't. Not like she actually had the opportunity to actually take it either way, as the moment the though popped into her head, a growing hiss spread all around her, as the moat broke into ravenous tongues of fire.

"My mercy has been rejected, then. Perish."

All the roots lit on fire at once.

A mere distraction. Too late, she felt the earth rumble, and as distant as she was from God, a lunge erupted out of the ground, tearing a burning chunk out of her flank.

She screamed, and God didn't miss the opportunity. The enormous serpent descended at her, its fiery tip ready to eviscerate her. She narrowly evaded, only to feel the tremors again, further away now. This time, it came low, lashing at her legs, but she jumped just in time. A third root whipped over her head, painfully severing a few of her hairs.

Back to the roaring flames, heart in her throat, she realized she had made her fate here. She had nowhere to flee, and could only move forward. Her legs, however, disagreed, and froze in the face of another assault.

"Move, come on!" she whined to herself, but found her wishes ignored. Only a vertical swipe that would leave of her nothing but another red smear convinced them otherwise.

"I command my domain. None inside may dethrone me."

Finding her right hand too hurt to carry her weight, she pounced over a lunge and charged forward on three limbs, much slower than before. Strikes came from all directions, burning and heavy. She struggled to dodge them, pieces of her nicked with every poor judgement until the density of attacks grew so much she physically could not advance anymore.

It was then she was taken by surprise. She jumped, expecting the next wooden spear to pass her by, only for it to suddenly coil around her, constricting her from waist to neck with an inescapable grip as she was hauled up and before God's eyes.

For a moment, she felt amusement in God's will. She knew what came next, so instinct won out.

Scaring herself with her own strength, she managed to wrestle the torso sized root until its tip was close to her face, opened her mouth wide, and bit with everything she had.

It was like biting into crisp fruit. Like biting into the most foul, rotten berry in the bush; the liquid that filled her mouth was the most acrid thing she had ever tasted in her life, half disgusting slime and half chunky pulp, but it had worked: God yowled, loosening its grip and shaking her by the head until her jaw's strength won, tearing a large piece out of the root. She flew, edging the hill's sheerer sides and by a miracle not falling into the moat.

She spat out the unpleasantly warm wood, and readied herself for the next volley of attacks.

But it never came.

God's eyes were stuck into the bite wound. Their roots stood at the ready, a living wall between them and she, but none made a move.

She didn't get it. What could God have to wonder from such a tiny wound. She had no hope that that would do anything to that colossal monster, but had she actually? How?

"My wound does not recover," they said, simply.

Need did hers, when they should. The earlier cuts and nicks were healing as fast as they had always done, but the burns remained, pulsating stabs of pain worrying her badly.

"I have been wounded. My wounds do not recover."

She had no time to ponder, as God did not so much as looker at her, but laboriously turned its entire trunk to face her, a move that sent small quakes over the entire Throne and shifted the sky.

"Die."

She shivered. The boulder came at her full force again, but this time it did not break so easily, no matter how much she willed it gone. She moved, knowing that soon she would be assailed at all sides...

But the roots stood in place.

Only too late did she notice the area around her growing brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. She looked up.

The sky was falling over her.

No, she noticed, it wasn't the sky. Swirling, dancing through the air with almost lazy twists and turns, innumerable burning red leaves were falling in her direction, each and every a perfect mimicry of a plants own, down to the shape and details, sculpted from crystallized embers.

The beauty transfixed her for a second.

As the closest ones approached, however, she hopped to the side, trying to avoid them.

And as one, the swarm followed, gaining speed and unnatural direction.

Dread took her. She fought against the overbearing Will of God to run, but their roots finally moved, emerging one after the other in a forest of sharp flame-covered stakes. She tried to duck under and around their sinuous shapes, but there were always more, ready to prod or beat her away. If she struck back, she knew she would come out the loser of the fight, so she tried to back away, find a way around...

Only to learn she was completely surrounded. Distracted, she hadn't noticed the lazy circle the swarm had done around her, sloppy yet with no gaps she could use, as it spiraled closer and closer.

Finally, as one last desperate measure, she tried doing to them what she was doing to God's Will, trying to will them away, move them somewhere else, anything!

It worked, for a second. The swarm visibly slowed, but never lost track of its prey. The boulder crashed into her a blink later, undoing all her efforts.

The first leaf, a stray that had gone ahead of its companions, touched her on the shoulder.

It was painful, but not the horror she imagined. It was a burn alright, as any other she had got back when she was a kid, playing too close to a bonfire or some such, but it paled against the fiery blows from the roots. Once they had met, it quickly disappeared too.

Then came another.

Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another.

Dozens. Hundreds.

She tried to run, and found her back against the swarm's main body, closing in from above and below and besides.

Thousands.

She curled up into a ball, covering herself with hairs, hands, anything she could to protect herself as the tempest hit in full force, nipping at every exposed centimeter of her body. Her skin boiled, her body an indistinct mess of pain, her Will worn down to nothing trying to fight two battles at once, useless against both.

She didn't feel when it ended, her consciousness only returning when something grabbed her by the ankle and hoisted her up.

She opened her eyes, and through a world upside down she saw the Throne aflame. Purple and red intermingled as the wilting Ring Flowers were caught in God's rampage. A great serpent of leaves glided under her, spreading a trail of fire wherever it passed.

"Similar."

She tried to respond, but all she managed was a hoarse whine.

"Intent."

She tried to will God's grip away. A sharp pain suddenly germinated from the depths of her mind and made her see black, reminding her of that one time when she was a child and a boy threw a rock right to the back of her head, but a blow to the face brought her back.

"No."

"Wh-whaaaa-"

"Intent."

Was it as easy as wishing herself understood? She tried, but they didn't respond. She tried to thinking as hard as she could at them, and that moved them none either. She tried imitating them, but didn't know how to even start with that. She felt herself being shaken, the hot wind prickling her skin like thorns.

"I have seen you learn. Again. Intent."

"Aaaaan'..."

"Failure." She was struck again, hard enough to see stars.

Her sight was growing weaker, but even through the blur she could see slithering shapes rising towards her, slavering with dark dribble, ready to render her apart. A few broke from the group early, and began to rain blows at her. She tried to defend herself, swiping at the air, but she couldn't follow their movements, couldn't even bend enough to hit the one holding her.

"I shall leave what remains to your true kin."

"Iiii-"

"I judge you, fruit of treachery. Though you are not mine, you were made against me. I grant you final words."

And what would be the point of that, she thought to herself.

She wanted to apologize to Elder Seneschal for how badly she had failed him when he had given her so much, yet he was not here to listen anymore. She wanted to apologize to Hazel, who she couldn't save, and Cassia, who she couldn't protect, but they weren't here either. She wished she hadn't gotten sick, that she had been a better sister, but what did it matter? Who would listen to her?

In her last moments, she feared dying alone. Why did they hand her this burden, then left her to figure it out? She hadn't been disobedient! She hadn't left her room for any reason, she hadn't picked fights with the village's lads! She didn't even scratch her things anymore, didn't dig into the mountain when she got bored, so why was she being punished?!

"E-eeldddd-"

"So I have done. Now I purify you."

She cringed, hoping it would be fast.

The roots reared back, tips all in her direction.

Then a black blur passed right by her hairs.

For a second, she thought it of no consequence, a final delusion to end the day.

An instant later, she fell from God's limp hold.

She hit the ground on her shoulder and quivered in pain as dirt entered her many sores. Seconds after, she stopped, when a howl louder than words could describe yet completely silent echoed across the Throne, across the forest, sending trees and shrubs into a frenzied dance.

God shook. The Throne shook and cracked, chasms opening around her as roots retreated underground and the leaf swarm returned to its master, spreading into a thin barricade.

She could just barely see through them: One of God's eyes had been pierced by something, sizzling and smoking almost as if-

Something heavy fell right besides her.

For an instant, she panicked, imagining an enormous man sized root missing its first blow, dragging itself across the ground to beat her right into the burning moat, but the shape that stood there gave her pause.

A short cloaked figure was watching God trash. She had never seen that pattern of fur before, a mixture of grey and white spreading from several central points, almost dizzying. She opened her mouth, forgetting that she couldn't sp-

The Stranger was at her the next second, seizing her jaw with a hand like iron, impossible to escape. Struggling was pointless, for before she could even raise a hand to try pushing them away, theirs reached into their hood, pulled something from within, and immediately slammed into her gullet. She choked on the vile muck, a scant few places better then God's own, trying to clean her throat-

She jolted back, every muscle contracting at once.

It was like slipping into the river in a hot afternoon. Like kicking a sharp rock and piercing your little toe, like tasting bitter medicine in your food, like she imagined being struck by lighting must feel like, a shock that awakened her every sense and made her more aware of her body then ever before.

For a split of a second, she felt like a living, walking wound, mangled and leaking from every opening, with an amorphous core boiling under her very blood and fighting to tear its way outside. She felt herself engulfed in the mouth of beast, sharp fangs digging in every soft nook and cranny of her body, dirty with decades worth of detritus. She felt herself at the cliff of an abyss, a bad turn away from falling for eternity. She felt herself with a body that wasn't a body.

The feelings, the images, they came and went like a dream, hard to piece together once they were gone but leaving the strangest sensation behind. The blur in her sight had disappeared, and so had the shaking of her legs; Her heart hammered like thunder, and her pain felt numb and distant, like it was happening to somebody else.

But above everything, she properly felt herself Will. Like having arms that weren't there, present but intangible, invisible, pushing against the bulk of a mighty beast that could crush them with a sudden turn in its sleep, a wall worth of them stretching and contracting with her desires in an indistinct mass. Its was so clear, she felt like an idiot for having never realized it was there.

"W-what?! What is-!"

"Can you move?" the Stranger said.

She didn't even know what to say, she just stared back, searching for a hint of eyes under the impenetrable darkness of the cloak's hood. Such a bizarre interloper had no rights to such a beautiful voice.

"I hope so. Listen to me and listen carefully, I won't repeat myself," they said.

"I-I don't even-"

"Are you listening?!"

"Y-yes!" she shouted.

"Good. There is nowhere for us to escape. The only way out is by killing the Blossom."

"T-the Blossom?"

"You know what I'm referring to. In moments we will ascend, and you will have to keep up with me, no matter how wounded you are. Not behind me, not in front of me, besides me, always."

"O-okay."

"I will need you to protect yourself as much as possible, I won't be able to help at all times. Avoid fighting if you can, but avoid getting too far away. The foe might be weak, but don't underestimate it anymore."

"I-I didn't! And what do you mean they are weak?!"

"It. And it is. now, take three steps away from me and come!"

She did so, in an ungainly limp. Even if the hurt was mostly gone, she still felt drained, mentally and physically.

"Who harms me?" God said, "Who has the Seneschal brought to me?" God said, it's Will, or Intent, she wasn't sure what to call it anymore, falling upon them, making her falter but not so much as slowing the other.

"Heir of the Crimson Tale!" The Stranger announced out loud, "Eternally infant Blossom, servitor of the long gone Sappling!"

"I know these names." God's Will quivered in against hers in a motion that made her nauseous, "Who?"

"Today, I cease your existence!" The Stranger's voice echoed, as they reached deep into their hood again

"No, I know." God's fear was infectious. She wanted to hide.

"My name is Agare III," The Stranger spoke, much quieter, just for her. "Remember what you are about to see, and let it define you."

"Faceless."

The stranger hand left the pitch darkness.

And with it, came an aberration.

It was a weapon, this much she guessed, or meant to be one. She had seen a sword before, and reminded her of that, or perhaps an oddly shaped club, meant for things much larger than a person. It was almost as long as Agare, so much so he had to use both hands to pull it out, and it was... it was...

It was horrid. There was nothing else she could think to describe it. It was terror incarnate. A glimpse was all it took to make her skin want to crawl away, to maker her spine wish it could do like the many centipedes who once lived in her room, to make her think God was a preferable end.

It was a thing of tumorous lumps and worm trails, with a "blade" so thick it was obviously dull, so wide it was almost comical, pointless with a rounded head, and a bent grip of leather wraps so thin it was fit for a knife, though longer than one itself. It was brown, and it was blotched black like lichen eaten bark, opaque from tip to tip with not the slightest hint of a shine.

But the worst of everything was the mold. or moss, or how could she even guess what it was called? Soft, gently pulsing patches of eye searing yellow, shallow, jiggling with an almost liquid like quality at every swerve of the thing, but never dripping. It had crystallized in places, bleached into the appearance of pus colored rust.

Once the weapon was fully unveiled, she froze. God froze. Even the wind stilled.

Childish giggles, cruel and mischievous, echoed from somewhere over her shoulder. Her head snapped, searching, but found nothing.

She forced herself to turn back, watching the thing as if it was a mad beast untrustworthy even in the hands of its master, until dark and multicolored stains appeared over her blurring vision, accompanied by the sensation of barbs caressing her corneas.

Even beholding it was torture.

That was too much. That was death, hers and everything else's, she knew from the bottom of her heart without having ever seen the thing before.

She shook her head and focused on God, hoping one dread would erase the last.

And right at that moment, God's crown exploded.