Currently untitled--suggestions welcome. You will be credited. .
The Lost Forest was no challenge to even an adventurer of middling experience, never mind a seasoned warrior. But Alicia was neither of those things. She was worse than townsfolk, who might have been taught constant vigilance; she was royalty, albeit royalty in hiding. Next to useless, ask anyone. Worse, she could afford no guards thanks to her current situation save for one, who didn't really believe she was who she said she was anyway.
'I've taught you,' Silmeria's voice reminded her, silent to all else. 'You've practiced these moves.'
"I know!" Alicia gasped quietly, trying not to let her companion hear as he picked off the skeletons from a slight distance with his bow and arrows, hardly even seeming to try. "But it was never real!" Nevertheless, she lunged forward, more habit than anything, and jabbed at her foe. It grunted, bending forward as she hit its torso, then popping back upright, seeming confused. She wished again that the Valkyrie whose spirit she housed in her body would just take over, but Silmeria had insisted she learn to defend herself. After fighting the first battle herself to test Alicia's reflexes, she had passed control in every new encounter to the princess.
'Now follow up!'
She did as she was told and whacked at the monster. He dropped to the ground and lay unmoving. She looked around anxiously but there were no more monsters to be seen. She looked down at the pathetic pile of bones, feeling oddly remorseful, as though it was she who had initiated the attack. "I'm sorry," she whispered to it, afraid it was truly to be one of many she must strike down in order to attain her goal.
Rufus came up beside her, and by the look on his face, he'd heard her softly spoken words. He put a hand on his hip, his weapon already back in place across his back. He regarded her with furrowed brows. "You seemed more confident in the tavern," he said skeptically. "You can hold your own in a real fight, can't you?" He eyed her. The wind blew his hair across his face, slender bangs decorated with intricately carved beads of unknown meaning. With the sun hitting him from the side, he was half in shadow, as mysterious as when they'd first met.
'Answer him,' Silmeria urged quickly. Alicia blinked, rubbing her thumb with her finger, noticing how sparkly his emerald green hair was and wondering how he came to possess such unusual coloring.
"Yes, of course," Silmeria said firmly, shoving Alicia temporarily back from the surface of consciousness. "I was merely distracted. It was unfortunate timing." She turned Alicia's body around and got her walking again on the faint path. The princess was glad she could no longer blush.
The Valkyrie and princess took turns passing back and forth from control, her body never once stumbling in this silent operation thanks to years-long practice, so they could talk privately.
'You must pay attention,' Silmeria lectured her life-long pupil. 'He'll suspect us.'
'I'm sorry,' she answered contritely. 'I was just…just…'
'Distracted?' The Valkyrie sighed. 'I suppose I can understand. You have not really been around men.'
They walked around a boulder in their path. 'What does that mean?' Alicia asked in as much annoyance as she could bring herself to use against the Valkyrie.
Silmeria didn't answer, as she often didn't, retreating into thoughts even the princess couldn't reach. She walked on silently between battles in which she coached Alicia laconically, until they reached the gaping entrance of the hidden path beside a waterfall. There her eye caught by a long-discarded staff resting against a rock in a shallow pool of water, as if its owner had risen for the rest of their journey without it. But Alicia knew immediately that couldn't be the case; no mage ever left their staff unattended, if they used one. The keeper of this weapon was dead.
'I know that staff,' Silmeria mused. 'Yes. We shall soon have another ally.'
Materialization, her host recalled, required an object holding the remnant thoughts of an einherjar in order to bring them into the world once more.
And she raised Alicia's hand, channeling the power of a minor goddess, calling up the birthright naturally hers as one of—the youngest, in fact—of the three sisters of Fate. Concentrating on the carved wood, she closed her vessel's eyes, and called forth an einherjar. A mage, bound to his mistress's physical form, which happened to be Alicia, answered. His was a voice the princess vaguely recognized as one of many in the loud cacophony that sounded when Hrist had first found them in Crell Monferaigne.
Rufus sputtered half-formed words of astonishment as a ghostly figure in a long robe manifested, sleepwalked towards his long-lost staff with his arm out, and knelt briefly to grasp it. He looked almost puzzled to be returned to the land of the living, and quickly returned to his place inside of Alicia's body in order to regain his strength.
'Mithra,' Silmeria explained to Alicia, which was more information than she normally offered. To the archer she said nothing, spinning on her heel as if it had never happened. Alicia wanted to glance aside at him, explain, apologize for the lack of explanation, but Silmeria was in control again. And anyway, the Valkyrie would have none of that. So much for secrecy. At least he couldn't know why 'Alicia' had these unusual powers.
"You're no ordinary princess," Rufus mused, shaking his head as she passed, and they resumed travel. Alicia thought of the distance ahead of them, of sleeping on the ground in dark tunnels and under open skies. Suddenly she realized both she and Silmeria had forgotten her cloak in Solde.
