Chapter 26 - Recollection

Water flowed over Luna, following the curvature of her figure as it did the river she had sourced it from. From her head, tracing the path of her long blonde hair to her ever-tense shoulders, then funneling between her shoulder blades as they contracted, her outstretched arms allowing yet more water to flow and join the stream that was now making its journey across the hills of her muscular back and down her spine. Inevitably, the water fell from her body, returning once again to the river where it had begun. This cycle continued tens of times over.

Luna liked to be clean, even in an occupation where bloodshed was a necessity. Perhaps it was her royal upbringing or her stern personality, but she simply could not stand feeling dirty.

And since the fight with Blüt, when her mind was ravaged by the screams of that mysterious young girl, she had felt unclean. She had seen something that was supposed to remain unseen, leaving her tainted. Like a child whose innocence had been lost when walking in on a parental conflict, desperately trying to forget it and return to a comfortable sleep where no such pain existed. Only Luna was no child, and she did not wish to forget. She wished to remember, to burn the imagery and awful noise ever-deeper into her mind.

Beyond that though, she wished to be clean, so she washed over and over, passing enough water over herself to drown an ox. Ultimately, she could not shake the feeling of filth beneath her skin. She supposed it was simply her burden to bear.

___

After a day of travelling, following the path of the river Renos, Sol and Luna crossed the border into the Flanders region. Flanders was infamous across Gallia as a no-man’s land. Scarce few travelled there, and scarcer few dared to call it home. Aside from a handful of hamlets, it was untouched by man, abandoned and left to the elements for decades past.

It was beautiful. Fields of flowers sprawled as far as the eye could see, growing taller and thicker than sunflowers in all varieties. Roses with thorns three inches long and an inch across stood taller than men, bountiful bushes of fragaria that would soon bulge and bloom into strawberries the size of one’s fist littered the ground, and poppies, redder than red, rose nobly in rows as far as the eye could see, like an impossibly large army standing to attention all at once. Paradise was the only way to describe it, so why had it been abandoned by Gallia’s citizenry?

Flanders sat closest to the border with the Rhine Empire. Only short decades ago, it was the frontline of the bloodiest war ever seen on the continent of Grus, perhaps even the world. Countless bodies, as plentiful as the flowers that had taken their place, littered the plains of Flanders, piled higher than even the tallest elves could see. The sheer number of corpses made trenches and mazes of the battlefield, perpetuating the very conflict they had died in.

The bodies of those who died on the North-Western front were never recovered by either side after the war. The sheer number of casualties was too large, the corpses too intertwined to ever be separated and returned to the grieving spouses and children in their homelands.

Left to rot, they rotted, of course. Their blood became iron, their bones calcium, their flesh the finest fertilizer. The life they had lost seeped into the earth, becoming the roots from which the plentiful fruits and wildflowers that now carpeted Flanders grew from.

Despite their beauty, they had long gone unseen by any human, the trauma too fresh for either nation to face. Amongst Gallian high society, it was still merely a rumour. Flowers supposedly from Flanders took on a mythical status and earned incredibly high price points at auctions. They became sought-after wedding gifts for royal and noble marriages. Sol and Luna had only seen them once before. They were given a rose each, a gift for their 18th birthday from their uncle Mercury. The roses became precious to the two, still kept alive and held in high regard by the castle staff to this day.

As such, it was an incredible sight when they first stepped foot into Flanders and saw their most prized possessions as such a commonality. Sol’s eyes practically exploded from his head, almost being left behind by his body as he rushed out to inspect them closer.

Luna followed behind, equally impressed, but less so affected. Her mind was too sharply focused for her to truly feel the wonder of the sight, instead all she could think was how perfect of a place this was for Blüt. Materially, of course it provided easy access to both Gallia and the Rhine, it was abandoned even by the government, allowing his abuse of Lillinberg to remain unnoticed, but beyond that, it suited him in an unspoken manner. It was a boundary, a place between life and death. It fit an immortal like him.

“Luna, are you seeing this?” Sol skipped around, taking in everything he could with all of his senses. “It’s amazing, just like Merc said it was!”

Unresponsive, Luna poured over Detect Magic, musing over their path. “He’s stopped about two days away… No, one day if we don’t stop for any breaks.”

“Luuuuna.” Sol chirped, leaning over his sister.

“It’s likely he's still near the river, something of his size would need a lot of water to remain hydrated…” She muttered.

Sol sighed. Though there was no one to watch, he made a show of wiggling his fingers, before forming them into a V shape and prodding Luna's forehead with them.

“What?” Luna shouted, her voice likely the loudest thing the plains had heard in years.

“You okay? You’ve fixated on that spell for a while.” Sol’s upbeat and mischievous tone shifted quickly to one of concern. A one-eighty only possible amongst siblings.

“Of course I am, our whole objective is to track that monster down, isn’t it?” Luna snipped. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“No, that’s fine, it's just that you’ve been a little off lately.” Sol’s lips pursed, he breathed only through his nose.

“What do you mean ‘off’?” Luna’s eyebrow shot up on a hair trigger.

“I mean, you had that whole big argument with Clint.” Sol’s eyes darted away, followed by his entire head.

“Yes, because he nearly got me killed! How is that off?” Luna snapped, sure enough Sol was right to avert his gaze.

“No, not that one, that was fair.” Sol waved a hand dismissively. “I mean earlier, in Lillinberg.”

“He’s being a coward! Am I supposed to just clap and cheer him on for that?” She flung her hands into the air, Detect Magic dissipating for the first time in hours.

“He’s not a coward. He just wanted to help in a different way.” Sol crossed his arms, posture closing up in a way that was rare for him. He only ever got like this when things were getting serious, and things only tended to get serious between him and Luna.

“Help? Rebuilding houses that beast will inevitably destroy all over again? It’s meaningless! He’s wasting his time! And he has the gall to tell us that what we’re doing is pointless?” Luna ranted.

“He had a point, Luna. I know I backed you up then, but I did think he was right. We really don’t have any sort of plan.” Sol tapped his fingers against his armour.

“I’ll figure out a plan!” Her whole body twitched toward him, barely repressed anger willing her every cell to move in a frantic burst of energy. “If you don’t trust me, then you can go back to the village and waste your time fancying up Blüt’s firewood!”

“See, this is what I mean! You’re never usually like this.” Sol threw his hands up in frustration. “Charging in without a plan! Getting all mad! It’s weird!”

“Oh, what? I’m not allowed to be angry now? That thing destroyed that entire village! It ate all those people!” Luna protested.

“No, it’s not about you getting angry, you do that all the time.” Sol’s hand went to his hair, before falling to his face, words struggling to come to him. “I agree we have to do something, and yeah, I’m pissed off and want that monster dead too, but…”

His hand dropped from his face, revealing his red eyes, soft with concern. “I’ve never seen you so… Fixated.” Finally, he had found the words. “You’re so focused on him, on hurting him specifically, it’s like there’s nothing else even going on in your head…” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “It’s like that time when we were kids; With the dire wolves.”

The memory flashed in Luna’s mind, just an image. She was young, 12 or so. Her arm bore a large gash, all the way down to the bone. It had long since been healed, every fibre of muscle repaired, but even now she swore she could still feel it. She was coated in blood, blonde hair tipped and matted with red, droplets of ichor dripping from her fringe and onto the ground, somehow invisible to her eyes.

Her eyes which were wide, impossibly so, like craters on the moon filled with untouched ice. Perfect and absolute, glazed over until they were impossibly smooth. They didn’t waver once, her dilated pupils didn’t dare flicker. She just stared, somehow with both pinpoint focus and an omniscient awareness of all her surroundings.

Her surroundings were dark and snarling, shadows and black fur indistinguishable from one another. A pack of dire wolves, mad beasts propelled by all the instinct to hunt but none of the purpose. Their beady yellow eyes provided the only glimmers of light in the dark sea their bodies formed around her, but Luna did not need that light, she knew in that moment that she could thrive in that darkness…

The memory dissipated. Just a snapshot. The rest didn’t come easily, and it was perhaps best if it didn’t come at all. She shook her head, as if to shake the image itself from her mind. “That was different.” She said quietly, shrinking from her anger all of a sudden.

“It doesn’t feel different.” Sol replied, matching her softer tone.

“What would you know?” Luna sighed, brushing past him, far crueller than she had intended. “You were already unconscious by then.”

Sol didn’t dare correct her.

Sol sat cross-legged by the fire, toying with it. He knew he should be in bed. Luna was no doubt soon to return from her nightly training, and it would no doubt hurt her pride if she were to find out that he had in fact, always known about her midnight battles with the shadows of her past.

He was far more observant than she ever gave him credit for, and far smarter than anyone tended to think. He had little patience for books or study, but his mind worked quickly and thoroughly, his ability to intake the subtleties of situations and the world surpassing his sister’s, though he’d never let her know that. For that was one of the subtleties he had long since picked up on: Luna didn’t like to be shown up by him.

It was largely why he neglected magic, reducing his respectable abilities to only last stands and parlour tricks. He didn’t want her to feel inferior. Even if his magic did pale in comparison to hers, demonstrating his capacity to utilise it would certainly demoralise her, make the divine gift given to her by birthright less special. He couldn’t do that to her, he was far too intelligent and far too kind to.

The main thing he had observed about Luna was that she perceived herself as weak, and tended to spiral when she felt those thoughts were validated. He had seen it countless times before, most recently with the Slime Queen, but now was different. Luna had lost completely to Blüt, failing to do any lasting damage to the beast. Normally, Luna would be distressed, she’d train even harder, work herself until her stomach sank and her body screamed, until her tears ran and her breath hitched. She would exhaust herself, physically and emotionally, hardly sleeping, becoming distant and agitated.

In the distance, he could hear her footsteps now. He patted his hands down, settling the fire to a low ember. After a few glances, he ensured the coast was clear, and stealed away into his sleeping sack.

Luna arrived. Though his eyes were closed, he could hear more movements clearly. She walked with firm, slow steps, each one rhythmic, still with whatever exercise she had spent the night drilling. They fell onto the forest floor gracefully, subtle rustling coming from twigs that rolled amongst the leaves beneath her feet but did not snap.

They stopped, water flowed, came crashing and hissed as it doused the remaining embers of their campfire. Then came only a quiet rustle as she slipped herself into a sleeping sack. Within minutes her breath was soft and consistent. She was fast asleep.

Luna was unlike herself, these last few days. She slept just fine after her training, no tossing and turning, no rising and falling. Just rest. Her irritability in the day was different too, she less so snapped, moreso burst. Her rage was no longer directed inward, but instead laser focused toward a singular target; The Immortal Ogre.

Luna had changed, but she remained so familiar. Familiar to a specific frame of time, to a self long lost. As Sol had recounted to her, he had only seen her this way once.

Unbeknownst to Sol, Luna too was recalling that time. Not just the incident with the dire wolves, but everything that led up to it, dreaming her way back ten years to paint a full portrait of who she used to be.

Current Party: Luna Dragoneart, Sol Dragoneart

Bullets Remaining: 5