Of Elesis
How long ago had it been?
The question echoed in her head as she trudged through what remained of her childhood hometown, ravaged by the demon invasion. Rubble crunched under her dark boots as she walked through Ruben Village, long abandoned since the demons had taken over the entire continent of Lurensia, leaving only a few dedicated fighters to relocate the remaining residents across the Velder Marina to Fluone. Her footsteps disturbed the ash and dust that covered the ground, creating small clouds of sediment every time she walked and coating her footwear with a thin layer of brown and grey. She could feel the grit under her armor and taste it in her mouth—the remnants of her home.
How long ago had it been since she left? How long ago had it been since she greeted Hagus, Anne, and Lowe; how long ago had it been since she taught her brother how to hold and fight with a sword; how long ago had it been since Scar showed up on that fateful day?
The answer was—regretfully—years.
It was strange how quickly things could change—what had seemed to be a victory slipping out from her fingertips because of one miscalculation. It had only been a split second; she had turned to help a fallen comrade only to find herself pierced through the abdomen by a spear wielded by an unskilled Glitter soldier. She stumbled to the ground, straining to hold herself up by pushing her weapon into the ground with her right hand as a makeshift cane. It was pathetic, she knew, how weak she became against the excruciating pain as she attempted to apply pressure to the injury with her left hand. Blood flowed unceasingly from her wound and in between the cracks of her fingers, staining the ground where she lay. The more that gushed, the weaker her struggling became. She could only watch as the dark, crimson blotch on her abdomen grow, until it became the only thing she could see behind her heavy eyelids.
She wasn't quite sure how she was still standing after that fateful moment in Feita that happened over a year ago. It was inexplicably tied to the shard of dark El she had taken from Amethyst in an earlier battle. Perhaps some part of her wanted to cling to life so desperately that it was willingly to take the demonic energy from the tiny piece of El, no matter the cost it would be to her body or mind.
But what was the point?
She had awoken to the aftermath of a bloodbath, her skin and armor matted with the dried blood of her comrades and her face pressed into the cold, dirt ground. She was intact, with only an ugly, raised scar on her abdomen as proof of her transition into something greater than she could comprehend. She pulled herself upright, feeling stronger than she had ever been before. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest from adrenaline, showing that she was alive. She was herself, but, at the same time, she wasn't.
Her sword stood in front of her, the black and red of the blade gleaming sinisterly at her. It was still pushed into the ground where she left it, and the ground surrounding her weapon was stained with the blood of both humans and demons.
She stood up slowly and flexed her fingers, testing her strength. Blood rushed back to her limbs as she moved, as if life were being breathed into them again. But it wasn't just blood that flowed through her veins. Anger and bloodthirst coalesced under her skin until it became part of her essence as well. She registered her surroundings, registered the mass slaughter of her unit, and finally understood.
The answer was—simply—vengeance.
She could feel it: the pain of the victims, the grief of the survivors, and the desperation and fading hope of the warriors. It bubbled within her, and all she knew was her desire for revenge, to cut the demons down like they did to her comrades and friends.
And she did.
She never returned to Velder to report the status of her squad—they probably assumed she and the rest of her comrades were dead. Instead, she worked her way inland, from Velder to Elder, picking off as many demons as she could. She raided demon camps in the daytime and killed scouts and messengers at night time. She harnessed the dark power that lurked beneath her skin, sacrificing her sanity to give in to the grief that fueled her. The way her sword bit into the rotting flesh of the demons, the way they stopped moving with just a swing of her weapon, the way the demons' black blood trailed after her as she continued her slaughter—it was easy, too easy.
And of her own injuries? The brief stings of pain she felt when an enemy landed a lucky scratch on her were nothing compared to the pain that her squad had felt—that she had felt—on that fateful day.
She pressed on, continuing her accursed journey past Elder and back to Ruben, where she was raised.
Home.
But one she didn't recognize.
Every fiber of her being could remember the exact road and the exact number of steps to get to her house. Yet, when she arrived, there was no structure; what remained of her former house was a bare stone foundation and pieces of broken, rotten wood that had once held up the structure she had called home. She entered through what was left of the doorframe—a vertical piece of wood, pitted with termite activity, that only reached up to her hip. It was pitiful, but it was enough for her to know that something had remained.
In her grief-stricken mind, she replaced the desolate state of ruins she was standing upon with a romantic image of a grey-painted house complete with walls she used to draw on and hallways she used to dash through. But reality told her something else. She walked up to a piece of wall that only reached her calf and recognized the fragment of crayon mural that she created when she was only four years old.
She bent down, recognizing the wax lines that crisscrossed the leftover plaster of the wall. Reaching to touch the wall, she could make out a roughly drawn boot and brown pants—a drawing she had made of a knight, what she had aspired to be then, what she had been a few years ago . . .
And what she wasn't anymore.
She punched the wall abruptly as she came to terms with what she was. The wall, already weakened with constant stress, disintegrated and blended with the grit that was already on the ground. This was her house, yes, but it wasn't the same house that she grew up in. To her, it was no longer a place she could call home.
She was homeless, alienated by her quest for revenge.
But she didn't know how to stop.
What else was there to fight for? What else did she have? For the first time in a long time, her thoughts were clear, untainted by her constant thirst for blood. She looked around as she pondered, hoping for some sort of memory or reminisce to trigger whatever remained of her humanity.
What else? A flash of red hair appeared in her mind's eye, similar to her own but much shorter.
Elsword.
How long had it been since she had seen him? Was he still alive?
She could only hope because it was the only thing she had left of herself—of Elesis.
A/N: First Elesis story ever because I really have no idea how to incorporate her into the same world as the rest of the El Search Party. I tried to use text as line breaks, but I don't know if that was successful. The "line breaks" are also sort of a question/answer thing that I didn't notice until I pushed them to the middle when I was still writing. Quite a coincidence.
Thank you to [Fanfiction] guild for joining me on this writing challenge (insert dripping sarcasm). The theme of this one-shot was supposed to be "The house wasn't the same to her any more," but I don't know if I captured that correctly.
In any case, thanks for reading! Comments and criticisms are always welcome, especially because I haven't written anything in the longest time.