This story was co-written by my friend peckers1 and I.

Chapter 3

The journey out of the Elpheal, and the Haligtree itself, had been rather uneventful. The creatures and knights had at first begun to hassle the Tarnished, but had quickly stopped after they had seen Malenia was following not far behind. The exception however had been the ever annoying pests. Ever since they had appeared in the Haligtree they had been allowed to stay simply upon the grace of her dear brother Miquella. She had never liked them, truthfully, as they had only really come to worship the rot within her. A truly detestable thing, she always kept at arm's length from them. Unfortunately for her and the Tarnished however, they had wished upon her staying. And rather unfortunately for the pests, her and the Tarnished had other plans.

As the pests had approached them near the exit of the Haligtree, the Tarnished had stepped forward. Clearly wanting to challenge them himself. She knew better than most to let him go, as to not diminish the training he had partaken in, it was more a thing of pride, really. Although she was not one to hurt his own. So, she let him go forward, taking this moment to observe how he fights. She was curious, if anything. As her lone fight with him had shown, he was clearly skilled in the blade, the ability to match her speed with a blade of such size was not something to simply be overlooked. Although his stamina was clearly a problem, as he seemed to have very little of it. She looked on however, to see if the same problem may rear its head in this fight.

The Tarnished stepped forward, brandishing his blade. Malenia took quick note of how he held it, it was a fair bit more shaky than in her first encounter with him. She could easily chalk this up to it not being his dominant hand however. However shaky it was though, it seemed to not matter to the Tarnished, who quickly sprung into action, his blade spewing black flames in a wide arc as he struck, burning the row of pests that stood before him. They writhed and squirmed with pain, before falling to the ground, seemingly dead.

Despite the speed with which he dispatched them, it clearly took something out of the Tarnished. His entire arm shook, clearly rattled by the impact of hitting each of the foul pests. As soon as he saw that they had fallen, he dropped his blade to the ground, before falling to his knees. Malenia stepped forward, looking to see if the Tarnished was okay. She reached out her prosthetic arm, seeing if he needed help up. He took it, standing up with her help, his grip on her prosthesis was weak though, and it appeared to be a good bit of a struggle for him to stand up again. As he stood up though, from what she could make out, he seemed to have a sullen, almost disheartened look upon his face. He tried to not show it however, as he quickly crouched down to grab his blade.

She felt conflicted, if anything. She wished to not hurt his pride, of course, but at the same time, she wished to know what was going through his head. She hadn't known the Tarnished for long, but he had done something incredible for her. So for her, she had figured she owed him at least a bit of care, or at least this is what she had rationalized within her head. So of course with this logic, she was a bit worried about him. While lost in her thoughts however, he began to walk off, still towards the exit teleporter. She quickly went to catch up with him, thinking that she may bring this up whenever they had decided to make camp for the night. It might be a small chance to pick the Tarnished's brain a bit. Well, as best as that could be done when only one party could effectively communicate.

The duo, after the short encounter with the small pack of pests in Elpheal, had departed the Haligtree and entered the small, mostly empty town of Ordina. All that remained of it was what seemed to be shades of the Albinaurics who inhabited it in a time now passed. It was a small landmark on the map however, compared to the utterly massive snowfield that was strewn across this mountaintop. Thankfully however, it was blessedly empty, the most that had assailed the two had been a stray wolf on their journey. After a long, very cold walk across the snowfield, that had reached a catacombs, which was as far as she remembered, the way to leave the snowfields and re-enter the rest of The Lands Between.

The two of them had set up a small camp in the entranceway to the catacombs, a small campfire aflame, with a hare cooking above it as they both sat on opposite ends. An eerie silence had enveloped the two, more so than before, at least. The Tarnished had stared off towards the doorway, a large snowstorm sweeping through the outside fields as he did so.

"Tarnished?" she asked him, looking towards him as best she could. It quickly gained his attention, as he looked towards her. covering his eyes with his arm so as to shield them from the smoke.

"I.." she cleared her throat, she was never very good with small talk, or talking in general. "I would like to address earlier, with the pests."

He lowered his arm, looking truly ashamed. Sending a small pang of guilt through Malenia's chest. She meant not to embarrass or demean him, wishing simply to speak of the event.

"I meant no disrespect with the question Tarnished, I simply saw your performance to be.. Well, lacking in comparison to our earlier battle. I know it's because of your arm.." she stopped mid sentence, seeing the Tarnished looking down to the ground now, clearly in an attempt to avoid her gaze. It was evident 'he felt.. Well, bad? Unworthy perhaps?' These thoughts spiraled through Malenia's head, all landing upon one thought.

"Would.. You like to train together then, Tarnished?"

It was a simple question, to be sure, but one that meant volumes to the rather disheartened Tarnished. For one who looked up to, and respected one such as Malenia as much as he did, it felt as though he had been blessed by the Eternal Queen herself. He quickly looked up to her face, seeing her remove her helmet so as to give him a better look.

"If you would rather not, I understand, I was being rather disrespectful.."

And once more, she was cut off as the Tarnished quickly stood up, taking her prosthesis in his hand, and rushing outside with her. To say Malenia felt a fair bit flustered was an understatement. She had not expected the Tarnished to be this enthusiastic about training with her. At the very least, in her mind, she did what had set out to do, which was to give the Tarnished a small morale boost, at the very least. Although it had seemed this was a fair bit more than a small boost, be sure.

As they arrived, he quickly let her prosthesis go, and reached for the blade upon his back. As he took it out, he looked to her, ready for instruction. And, unseen as it was to the Tarnished, Malenia felt truly flustered, embarrassed, and honored at the same time. To think one would be so willing and eager to train with her was an odd feeling, it was faint, but even it brought a gentle, red tint to her cheeks. Which, of course, the Tarnished could not see in the turbulent snowstorm, nor would she let him know it was there. It didn't truly matter, did it? It was simply how eager he was that made her feel as she did in that moment, or maybe it was even how cold it was, that was all.

"Well then Tarnished, let us begin with the basics."

And with that, they had begun training, the two of them out in the raging snowstorm, practicing techniques of swordplay together, and even at the end, having a short sparring match. While he was not as fast as he had been when they first met, he had seemingly improved in his stamina a small bit from the work she and him had done together. When all was said and done however, they were both excessively fatigued, and they decided to make for the campfire to feast upon the hare.

The two sat beside each other, with the Tarnished to her right. The two of them had eaten their fill, and the Tarnished had seemingly fallen asleep, his head resting against the cold stone of the wall behind them. Malenia had figured that the training would tire him out, after all, he had poor stamina to begin with.

"Well, Tarnished" she said, more to herself than the Tarnished himself. "I suppose you deserve a more comfortable resting place than that, for your efforts today".

With no response from him, she took it as the time. She grabbed his head softly with her prosthesis, and brought it down to rest him upon her lap. This caused her to have an odd, rising feeling occur within her chest, but she brushed it aside. She was simply being kind to her Tarnished, after all his effort today with her. She looked down upon his sleeping form however, and smiled, before heading off to sleep herself.

We've got a discord to talk about the story, feel free to drop by.

discord . gg / b8bkCrM9KH (Just remove the spaces from the link.)