"Something about his presence is amiss.
Is it the contrast of his worn armor with an unused blade?
His apparent determination with such damp spirit?
He isn't the first; he certainly won't be the last.
What is it about him, then? This lone, solitary warrior...?
"There's TWO of us, you jerk!" a girl's voice pierced the dreadful silence in the fissure with an even more dreadful shriek.
It was followed by a loud splash mixed with the metallic clatter of heavy armor. "What the heck, Allessa?!" a half-drowning knight gurgled, tearing off his helmet in a frantic endeavor to breathe.
Allessa winced at her companion's desperate, almost comedic struggle to regain his footing against the murky water and his heavy armor. "Sorry, Allen... It was-"
"Yeah, yeah," Allen cast her a squinted glare, affixing his helm once more on his head, "You heard 'the voice' again, right?"
His rhetorical remark, muffled and accented with the vibrant whine of his helmet's iron, stung her nonetheless.
"Yes, I did, if you must know." Turning away from him in curt reply, she trudged forth through the mire with the unmistakable clank of her own armor, endless walls of colorless fog obscuring her path. She sincerely hoped her snippy remark had not thrown her off track.
Allen hastened to catch up, oblivious to the possibility that they were now even more thoroughly lost, if that was even possible at this point. "Those stupid voices are going to get you killed one day."
He could almost feel Allessa's eyes rolling. "Maybe it's the voice of God." she gripped her halberd tighter, her annoyed tone unobstructed by the open face of her white metal helmet.
Now she could feel his eyes rolling. "Right. God was so bloody merciful as to plant soul-devouring monsters all across the world. Yep, makes perfect sense he'd send us here if you think of it that way."
Obviously not the first time the entire issue of theological disparity had been addressed between them, but Allen conceded to let this one go... for now.
Allessa stopped dead in her tracks. Her armor's rhythmic plodding ground to a sudden halt; even her breathing seemed to all but cease.
This wasn't just hesitation.
This was fear.
Allen glanced about, unsure what possibly could make her—dauntless, faithful Allessa—freeze in terror.
"...Allessa?" he crept towards her, his hand instinctively reaching for his blade as his heart began to race.
A brief, ephemeral voice blackened his senses.
"Brave soul, who fears not death..."