(AN: Several questions are about to be answered in this chapter. Also, we won't be visiting the past anymore, so the chapters afterward will be my second attempt at bringing some kind of cohesion to SCV's story.)

Reunion

1603 AD

It wasn't me! Pyrrha wept. I didn't do it, I didn't!

She was lying in a prison cell, weeping and crying as was her wont. She had awoken to screams and angry cries, and she found that her waking hours weren't much better than her dreams. Her former master, Jurgis Kovacs, was dead. She was the only one in the room, and as if that were not enough, she was found with one hand over his mouth, the bed covered in blood and the knife in her other hand. She had wept and protested that she hadn't killed her master, even admitting, while under interrogation by the constable, that he had offered to marry her after she was freed. It mattered not, for none of the servants were on her side: the master was dead and they needed a scapegoat with which to distract the authorities while they looted his manor house.

"Why does this keep happening to me?" she whined for the thousandth time.

It was her past all over again. Jurgis had promised those days were gone, and yet they had returned from out of the depths of her past to haunt and torment her again. For as long as she could remember, she was a wanderer. Any town she entered, anyone who had tried to end up close to her: it all ended the same, with them dead at her feet and her to blame.

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" she screamed into the night, beating her hands against her forehead.

Her earliest memory had been waking up inside a burning building. Everywhere the sounds of death, fire and those burning to death filled her ears, breaking her fragile will so early on with the horrors of the conflagration. Her nose was stung with the heated air and the foul smell of burning flesh. Her eyes saw flesh boiling and burning off the bodies of these poor women, helpless against the fire. They were afraid of her, they never called out for help when she was near, they only screamed all the more.

"Yoo-hoo!" a voice called out from the top of the stairwell that led into the jail.

Pyrrha looked up from her stupor, fearing what that voice promised. While she was crying, shaking with fear in the midst of what looked like Hell incarnate, a shadowy figure strode through the flames, a wicked smile upon her face and menacing laughter on her lips. Pyrrha was afraid of her, she wanted to crawl away, screaming like one of the burning young women: yet this figure did not scream, she did not cry, she did not look upon Pyrrha with fear and loathing. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying yourself.

Like a phantom out of a nightmare from the nascent years of memory, the figure strode down the steps of the dungeon. She wore a green doublet with teal sleeves that had been so horribly torn, frayed and intentionally cut that it showed more of her body than it covered. She wore leggings of the same teal color as the sleeves of her doublet, which ended in pointed shoes on her feet. Her hands were gloved and on her shoulder was a weapon fashioned like a giant ring.

"Hello there, Pyrrha," Tira said. "Looking rather down, aren't you?"

"I didn't do it, I swear!" Pyrrha wept.

"I believe you," the woman said as she pressed her body up against the bars of the dungeon, leering through with her large, purple eyes.

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"

"Of course it wasn't," Tira pouted playfully. "Those servants of your master were evil people. They didn't understand you, they used you to their advantage. I'll bet you all the gold in the Spanish Main that they're looting your master's manor as we speak."

"B-But that's not fair!"

"Of course it isn't!" Tira replied. "And what do we do to those people?"

"B-But I don't want to hurt anyone!" whined Pyrrha.

"Here, I'll make you a deal," Tira said. "I'll set you free if you go to your dead master's manor house. If the servants take you back, you'll never see me again. Do we have a deal?"

She reached her gloved hand through the bars, extended in an offering of liberty. Pyrrha rose from the straw of the dungeon on shaking knees. She wanted to be free, to be out of this prison cell, but she feared what she might find if she went back to the manor house. Also, she was a little fearful of that smile on Tira's face as she leered down at her from the other side of the bars. She was the only one who took care of her, as far as she could recall, but she still treated her like a pet, constantly berating and taunting and mocking. Her purple eyes, which when hidden behind their heavy lids looked like the stomachs of two women with child, did not blink or move as they stared at her: that also made her nervous and fearful. But she had little other choice in the matter. Go with the tormentor, or languish forever in this dark, filthy dungeon for a crime she had not committed.

Ever so slowly, fear clutching her heart, Pyrrha reached her trembling hand up and grasped the outstretched hand. The smile on Tira's face grew even bigger.

Through the fields they went, fields where Pyrrha had ridden with her master in happier days, days she feared she would never see again. At her side, Tira was meandering about, whistling and singing to herself as though she hadn't a care in the world. The fields about them also were starting to show signs of neglect and misuse, as though they and Tira were together in some kind of chaotic symphony of disorder.

As soon as the manor came into view, Pyrrha gave a cry of fear. All about were horse-drawn carts, into which the other servants were placing as much of the master's goods as they could carry. It was insanity; those who had served their master faithfully for so many years, who should have been honoring his memory, were defacing it by their ransacking of his manor.

"This-this isn't right!" Pyrrha whined. "They...all of them, even the head of the servants, this is dishonorable!"

"Then why don't you go over there and tell them that?" Tira asked.

"I-I should, but..."

"But what? Afraid that I'm right?" Tira smiled wickedly as she spoke, knowing that she had struck a chord that resonated powerfully with little, meek Pyrrha.

With feet trembling and hands shaking, Pyrrha tip-toed her way from where she had been standing and approached the servants. A smile crept over Tira's face as she saw it unfold exactly as she had planned.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Pyrrha asked. "This doesn't belong to you!"

"It's our now!"

"Shut up, you stupid girl! This is none of your business!"

"Hey! Isn't you the one who murdered the master?" one of the servants asked.

"N-No, it wasn't me! I didn't kill him!"

Within a few moments, all the servants were now turning their attention to Pyrrha, sending some of their number to the servant's quarters to find discarded pitchforks, hoes and axes. Others were throwing stones, insults and threats at Pyrrha, telling her that they would see her hang for her treachery.

"How dare you come back here, you b*tch!"

"Kill her, kill her now!"

"She's a witch! She must die!"

Pyrrha backed away like a deer surrounded by the hunters, shaking all over, a look of abject fear on her face. She looked about, but there was no sign of Tira. She was now panting, heavy with fear. There was no escape.

"Tira, please!" she begged. "You were right! I'm sorry!"

Suddenly, a hand cuffed her a strong blow on the back of her head, sending her spiraling down to the ground with a pathetic whimper.

"Saying sorry won't change anything!" Tira growled. "Save your breath, you stupid little wench!"

"Tira! You were right!" cried Pyrrha. "They just wanna hurt me!"

"Aww, poor baby," pouted Tira in her happy, mocking voice. "You better get up off your feet and do something, or they're gonna kill you."

"K-Kill me? Like those nuns who hurt me?"

"Exactly!" seethed Tira. They really hadn't, all those years ago. They had actually rescued Pyrrha from where Tira had left her, standing on the steps of the Acropolis in Athens. But Tira told Pyrrha that she had started the fire in the abbey, killing them because they had hurt her.

"But I don't wanna die!" Pyrrha wept.

"Then you better do something!"

"I don't have any we..."

Without a word, Tira stabbed the blade of the Last Sword into the ground before Pyrrha, then presented her with one last gift, something she had kept strapped to her back for three long years. It was heavy and dragged her down and still she kept it for the day when, against all hope, Pyrrha would be found again.

"My sword!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "My shield!"

"You know the rest." Tira said, turning to the coming mob of servants.

Pyrrha backed up first, holding her sword and shield up to the level of her face, as if she would cower away. She told them to leave her alone, to back off, or they might get hurt, but they only took this as great provocation and threats against their own lives. They rushed at her without mercy. From where she stood, Eiserne Drossel hanging on her shoulder, a smile crept across Tira's lips. She had trained her well, and now she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing.

(AN: While writing this chapter, I came to the realization that Tira has really grown up by SCV. I mean, in SCIII, she's pretty much just the servant of Nightmare and all that, and in SCIV, her juvenile cuteness is a little over-done. But by SCV, she's actually a force to be reckoned with.)

(In this chapter, we see Tira being uncharacteristically nicer to Pyrrha than previously. Tira is manipulating Pyrrha, plain and simple: she also knows that she can manipulate Pyrrha even more if she doesn't beat her up like usual. We also see what happened after the previous chapter, including Pyrrha's earliest memories [in this story, at least]. Now I've got some research to do, as far as the story of SCV, so the next chapters can be as fleshed-out as the last ones were.)