Sonya had attended services at temples affiliated with Duma for as long as she could recall. It had been a long time ago since her father had dropped her and her sisters off at the prioriy, where prayers were held on the dot three times a day. She slipped into a habit on as few occasions as she could— only during times when she needed something from the clerics— partly because the cost of shelter or healing was time spent inside the chapel and its rituals. No disguises were needed and no questions were asked at inns, and she preferred that way. But she would not trust an inn to check on the condition of the still-unnamed man.
"Where am I?" He had asked, as they walked to the church earler.
"The Kingdom of Rigel," was Sonya's reply. "And you'll learn what we're like very quickly." She had to do so to survive, and assumed that the same would be true for anyone, no matter how suddenly they had arrived on the whims of fate.
As she clasped her hands and joined the temple clergy in wishing King Rudolf long life and continuous victories against Zofia, her thoughts strayed to the man on the seashore. She had left him in the care of the healers, who had hurried him off to somewhere else within the temple grounds to recover. If he was a knight, and again, she was certain that he was, he was one that didn't look like he served any lord that she knew of. Mercenaries were keenly aware of the landed, overstuffed nobles that paraded across the continent like they owned everything and anyone. They would snap sellswords in two and have the backing of their fellow peers to get off scot-free. She had seen what people like him had done.
In gossip surrounding developments in Zofia, there were rumors and murmurings that a lady knight was terrifying bandits and serving at a high officer in some sort of Resistance, or Rising, or something similarly sunnily named. Good for her, smirked Sonya. Someone needed to shut the men up when it came to the conquests of the battlefield.
A serious-faced woman next to her narrowed her eyes as she caught Sonya's smile, her gaze flicking to the central altar where a priest stood over a holy book, reciting a passage. The suggestion to her was to pay attention, or else. Masking her face with whatever sobriety she had left to giv to the church of Duma, Sonya bowed her head and waited until the opportunity arose to slip back towards the medical wings.
The long hours spent trying to clean meaning from priests' admonishments, hopes, and fears had given he little to believe. But she knew that in times where everything outside the walls seemed uncertain that epople needed something comforting. As Sonya passed a group of young initiates, she thought to hours that she and Marla and Hestia had stolen away to play in the alcoves or sneak glances at the spellbooks that the temple kept for their initiates that trained in the magical arts. Those that took advanced orders learned holy magic to keep monsters at bay.
She may have left the temple, but its rituals and what her place in them lingered still.
"Well, how is he doing?" She asked, unconcerned if it sounded like she was ordering the man about. The middle-aged cleric that stood before her looked precisely the type that could be pushed about, if not by her then by priests that outranked him in the church. He was a gangly man with thinning hair who loomed over his patient's cot, all sticks and bones under the square, standard-issue priest's habit. Besides him was the injured knight, who was alert and retrieved a bowl of soup from another cleric.
"Er— well, I've found that really, it's nothing that food and water and a little pain relief poultice mixed from herbs couldn't fixed. It's actually quite remarkable. Really, most of it's just exhaustion."
"Mm," Sonya nodded.. "Did he mention a name?" She lowered her voice, glancing at the man and back. If he was inclined to be honest with anyone, it was more liely that it would be a man of the cloth and not to her.
"I was getting to it—" the cleric responded crossly, jabbing a finger at her as if hurrying him along was an insult of the highest degree. "That," he said, "is the chief problem." He scribbled something quickly and messily into the npad of paper at his side and stuffed it into the robes of his habit.
"This man doesn't remember anything." He concluded. "Not his name, not where he's come to Rigel from. And getting those recollections back may take days—weeks, months—I don't know." The cleric flapped his hands in frustration. "It's never consistent with these conditions, you understand."
Despite the ten thousand times she had been told that it was heresy to speak vulgarly in a temple of Duma, Sonya swore under her breath. Perfect, she thought. Three hours in prayer, and this was the best that they could do.
"But you're sure that he's unhurt otherwise," she snapped perhaps less politely than she would have said under ideal circumstances.
"This is a soldier, Sister. And a sturdier one, at that. It'll take more than being adrift at sea to break someone like that, aside from some cuts and bruises." Whirling around so that the crisp hems of his healer's habit snapped to attention, the cleric waved to his initiates and assistants, and was off to the next sickbed. By the time she turned to try to get some answers out of the man himself, he had already curled up in the cot and fallen back asleep.
It was night when he came to again, feeling the softness of a knit blanket pool across his torso as he sat up in the bed. He had been led indoors by the violet-haired woman, and fussed over by clerics that checked him and gotten him into a cot. As he awoke, he blinked awake, taking into account the quiet surroundings, save for the quiet hum of a hymn of someone— likely another cleric, working a late shift in the clinic.
Her face, set in an irate expression, was the first thing that he saw as she darted into the room. The habit disguise was still wrapped around her. It was an ill-fitting garb that would have suited a shorter woman than her, and more ridiculous still was that her high-heeled boots still clicked across the church's stone tiling.
She was watching him, too her appraising eyes running over him like a hunting bird studying his prey. For the briefest of moments, he saw her lips part and a slow, almost audible draw of breath. It was unmistakeable, and in the hazy corner of his memory he had sworn he recalled many similar reactions among women. But he was especially pleased that he had earned that sort of esteem from her.
"What do you suppose you're looking at?"It was something he wandered with some amusement, knowing full well that there would be hell to pay if his attention wandered too much towards the tight-fitting leather armor and skirts he had glimpsed briefly beneath her disguise.
"Don't flatter yourself," the woman snorted, although he could see a bit of color bloom in her face at the implications of the remarks. "I was checking your clothing for an insignia. A house emblem or a royal seal. That's how most of Rigel's good little military lapdogs brand themselves, anyways."
"Find the insignia, and we find out about you." She ticked off the two points on long, elegant fingers, then looked at him as if to ask if she had used enough simple words to explain her idea.
He narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the sleeves of his black-and-gold coat, which the temple's clerics had tried their best to clean. The brackish water had ruined and warped the fine threads, and tears riddled the cloth, but there was a badge of some sort— gold, with a horse as dark as night stamping across the surface of the silk.
"Any clues that jog your memory?" She asked, examining the sleeve. He stared at it for a moment, brow furrowed, before shaking his head.
"Well, no use crying over the sea tossing you around like a bale of hay." With a resigned sigh, she clapped a hand over his shoulder. "So." Her voice was short and clipped. "As you do not appear to be dying, should we depart the temple? That priest already looked suspicious of you."
Sonya wasn't a short woman by any means, and despised being made to feel diminutive by anyone— man, woman, or monster. But at full height, she resented a little how the nameless knight towered over her. Ssetting aside her opinions on the rest of his appearance, she set off towards the ground floor of the temple, looking back occasionally to see if the mysterious knight still followed her. He did, in a gait that was far more at ease than his awkward, half-delirious walk towards the temple the day prior. Lfiting a torch off a sconce in the wall, she reached for the handle of a heavy wooden door.
"No one uses them, normally. But Every temple has an exit in case the main exits are attacked." She had taken the liberty of knowing the layout of holy houses across Rigel by heart. "Besides," she added. "Monsters are said to lurk these halls."
He took a torch of his own and followed her through the doors as they swung open with a rusted heaving sound. "Will the clergy be unprepared to fend off monsters if they venture out through the tunnels?"
"Oh, no," Sonya answered, feeling the beginnings of a wicked grin spread across her face. "You see, Duma is a god of warriors. If you cannot fight off your foes," she continued, "you do not deserve his mercy in the first place."
She looked back at him out of curiosity, but had an idea of what his reaction might be like. A grim acknowledgment of the faith passed across his face, but the man did not so much as flinch at the sight of the caverns.
As the temple grew further and further away, only the two torches illuminated the way as the tiles slowly gave away to the natural stone formations that were carved decades, perhaps centuries ago, by the makers of wind and water. Occasional lamps of carved stone flickered with flames as they walked past, but the tunnel, for the most part, lead them through unlit paths strewn with rubble and half-abandoned storage crates.
The unearthly hiss of something beyond the corridor drew their attention as two glowing eyes shone out through the darkness. Her heart skipped a beat it it, despite the fact that she knew what lurked in the darkness on their way out. The map that she had stolen from the temple library would guide them out, but it guaranteed nothing on what lived and lurked in the temple catacombs. Sure enough, the eyes were set in a skull that had been animated by some nefarious magic that she hadn't dared try herself. Out of the darkness the two skeletons crawled, wielding steel blades in battered sheaths of leather and cloth that must have been from another century.
"You carried no weapons out of the temple." His voice was calm and cool, which meant that unlike the vast majority of dolts that saw her on a regular basis, the knight didn't underestimate her. That was a wise choice on his part. The man, as far as she knew, remained unarmed.
"As I said, if you cannot fight off foes, you are not given mercy" snarled Sonya, drawing a slim tome from her bag and watching the carefully-lettered pages of the spellbook illuminate to life. "Now stand back." She threw her torch up in an arc and pointed her hand at it.
The fire spell sprang to life as it always did, the flames rolling off her fingertips, catching the lit tip of the torch as a fireball crashed towards the advancing pair of Bonewalkers. Their gaunt ribs caught afire instantly as they staggered back, almost by memory of the humans that they had been in the past. Another spell made quick work of the first Bonewalker.
"How fun," she purred, reaching for the blade left out on an outcropping."He's left a souvenir for you." Inspecting the sword for a moment, she pressed it into his hand and faced down the second monster, another spell at the ready.
Sonya never had time to finish it off herself as the flash of steel glinted brightly off the torch. His eyes sparked to life like nothing that Sonya had ever seen as he drew the blade and leapt at the second Bonewalker, slashing at it with the ferocity that surpassed the most ruthless sellsword. The sword cracked across its ribs with a sickening crunch as the Bonewalker emitted a deafening shriek. In one powerful motion, he drew his sword arm back and sent the weapon through the center of the skull.
Whatever glowing necromancer's spell had powered the Bonewalker to life fizzled out of it almost instantly as the skull cracked and split in two, its halves clattering onto the cave floor. Following suit was the rest of the monster's body, leaving only rags, a worn lance, and a few scraps of armor. He picked up the lance, strapped it to his back, and faced her with eyes blazing with energy, as if he had come alive in the few moments of battle.
Healers in either the Duma or Mila faith rarely exaggerated when it came to describing their patients. True to both her assumptions and the words of the cleric, the man had turned out to be a soldier, and a sturdy one at that. It was almost funny how easily and elegantly he had made an action as piercing the skull of a demon appear to be.
"Have you ever considered work as a mercenary? You've a knack for it." Grinning, she snapped her fingers as a small glowing fire lit the way before them. It was a gross understatement, but she never gave compliments very freely to men. No— as with all things, her favor had to be earned.
"Is that the uniform for mercenaries?" Even in the dark, she could watch him gesture to her armor, skirt, and boots. "I'm afraid it's not quite the right color on me."
She hadn't been aware that he was a jester in addition to a knight. Tossing her hair with a short bark of laughter, she lit the torch and continued to find a way out so that they could figure out their next steps. Or rather, she alone would figure out her next steps. As much as he could sever his foes apart without even breaking into a sweat, he had nothing to do with her journey. And she would make sure things stayed that way.