"Hello, daughter."
Marianne stilled, the flame flickering in her hand. It was the only movement in the quiet tent as the two stared at each other. Shadows danced back and forth in response, a gleeful audience for what was to come.
Alister leaned forward in his chair, giving her a warm smile. His hair was in tangles and his usually immaculate appearance spoke of extensive travel. "My, you would not believe how tricky it is to track you down. You'd think finding someone in an army would be easy, but there's just so many people!" He laughed, lightly.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered, horror threatening to choke her.
"Hm? Ah, right, you wanted me to leave you alone," he mused. "Quite hurtful, you know, for a father's daughter to not wish to see him."
"You said you were done with me," Marianne hissed. Her hands were shaking. She clenched one into a fist, and the other around Blutgang at her side.
He laughed, fuller. "Well, I suppose I was wrong. Crest science is a bit of an unexplored field, you know. I thought I got all of your blood that I needed." Alister licked his lips. "I was mistaken."
The light caught his eyes, and for a moment she could see the monster in them he'd always been. Except it wasn't metaphor, no, for his eyes had a red tint to them. The icy blue was gone.
Her breath caught. "What are you? Agarthan?"
"Agarthan?" he asked, surprised. "Whatever would have given you that idea?"
"In Bergliez, I found your research notes," Marianne said. "It was your hand writing." She rubbed a thumb on the pommel of Blutgang, hands barely able to contain the nerves.
"Huh," Alister said, leaning back. "I suppose they kept those. No, I am not Agarthan. We were convenient research partners. I helped them, they helped me. You know how it is."
Marianne wanted to vomit. "You…experimented on people." On me.
He cocked his head to the side. He seemed genuinely unperturbed. "So? Chasing immortality has its price."
Seeing her confusion, he leaned forward again like a teacher, eager to impress students. "The Agarthans wanted to create weapons, but they're so shortsighted. These Deadlords are feats of engineering, Marianne. Undead, walking the earth! That's just a hairsbreadth away from eternal life. They're content to leave it at that, thus came our separation of paths. I want more."
"What do I have to do with this?" she whispered, grabbing the hilt proper of Blutgang. She slowly pulled it from its scabbard.
Alister noticed, but said nothing on it. Instead, he continued. "You are everything, Marianne. Maurice is everything. Some might dismiss it as folklore, but is it not odd that he is the only Elite to have such tales surrounding him? It begs the question, why him? Haven't you wondered why your ancestor had such a legacy?"
Yes. "No."
"Liar." He smirked. "Maurice was something called a Nabatean. A denizen of the ancient land, Nabata. Its people could turn into alternative forms. Dragons, beasts, birds, and others. Long ago, these people were common, until they were wiped out. But they were known for their longevity, in addition to their therianthropy."
"Where…where did you learn this?" Her mind drifted back to Claude holding a deck of cards in Garreg Mach's library, positing something hauntingly similar.
"The Agarthans showed me a lot of things. I learned much from a prisoner we had, Aubin." Alister drummed his fingers on the table. "You, daughter, are a descendant from one of these Nabateans. Diluted though your blood is, it is infused with a Crest nonetheless. That is definitive proof that you are an inheritor to their legacy, to their longevity. All it takes is some…persuasion to bring that blood to its full potential."
She lifted her empty hand, an icicle forming parallel to her arm. "Alister…I will not help you."
He shrugged. "Good thing I don't need you alive, daughter. Your blood's all I require." Alister sighed. "Though I wish that you hadn't backed me into this corner, Marianne. I should love to spare you to live with you wife, but I'm afraid you've given me no choice in this matter."
"You snake," she growled, seeing red. "Leave now, or I will kill you."
Alister had the audacity to look hurt. "Child, I am your father."
"No! This is my family, here in this camp!" Marianne yelled. "Get out!"
"Marianne?" Hilda's voice broke through the conversation as the flap of the tent pushed aside. "I heard shouting, what's going on?" She froze as she entered, staring at Alister.
"Ah, pity, she has to watch," Alister chuckled sadly. He shook his head slowly.
And in that moment, several things happened at once.
Marianne threw her hand holding the spell forward, the icicle shard lancing forward in the air. It caught Alister in the shoulder, sending him reeling back.
Alister hurled his own hand out, a dark grey aura condensing around his hand to form a dart. He flung it from his hand at Marianne.
Hilda acted without thinking, pushing Marianne out of the way.
The dart-like spell collided with her wife, vanishing as it touched her. Hilda's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed like a corpse.
"Hilda!" Marianne screamed, catching her. "Hilda!" Her hand brushed against her neck, looking for a pulse.
She found none.
"She got in the way," Alister said, the frown audible in his voice. "Silly girl."
"No, no, no!" Marianne wailed, her fingers looking for any pulse on Hilda. All the places she checked came up cold and clammy.
She turned her head to Alister, fury shaking her body. "What did you do to her?"
"My, now you really look the part of your Crest. You look like a feral beast," Alister said, chuckling. "If only you'd shown me this side before, we could have perhaps used this."
"What did you do to my wife?" Marianne asked again, slowly standing up. She held Blutgang out in front of her.
"Go on, give into it," Alister said, his curiosity piqued. "Be the monster you always have been." His eyes were locked on Blutgang, the beginnings of a grin on his face.
"I'm going to fucking kill you," she hissed.
"No, I don't think you will," Alister murmured. "Feisty as you may be, it won't stop me from taking what I want."
He started to grow taller. It was a subtle thing at first, but Marianne watched him gain inch by inch. He spoke, and his voice was deeper, more growl than anything else. "I've inherited one gift of the Nabateans." His teeth grew longer into fangs. His clothes ripped and gave way to muscle as his skin darkened with fur. "I will not be stopped from more." Long claws tore away the fragments of clothes that stuck to him.
His breathing turned into a low growl as Marianne stared down a tall, lupine creature. He looked like one of the giant wolves of Fódlan, if smaller.
She leapt at him, screaming, as Blutgang flashed red. Black tendrils, the kind she'd last seen with Miklan, emerged from the Crest Stone and run up her arm.
Blutgang bit into Alister's skin before her vision went dark, briefly.
She felt her legs, four of them, touch the ground. For a moment, animalistic instinct was all that fueled her as she bit at Alister. He jumped out of the way, her long, sharp fangs missing their mark.
Is that…me?
Her limps moved of their own accord, not even an extension of herself. No, now she was curled up in the bottom of a pit. Darkness pulsed around her, crushing. She tried to breath, but barely could.
The tent was history, knocked away by her large, Black Beast body. Alister was vastly smaller, an inferior perhaps botched creation compared to what a Relic could create. They stood among the woods, a short distance from the camp. She couldn't remember getting there.
Help.
Her cries went unheard. Where was she? Where was Hilda? Oh Goddess, Hilda…
Her monster body raised a leg to smash Alister, but he was far too deft to succumb to such an attack. It roared—she roared.
Am I…a monster?
Claws lacerated her stomach and she screamed. It was a helpless wail, one that came out a titanic growl from her mouth. Her hands, her human hands, wrapped tighter around herself, begging the Goddess to let her disappear. Whatever her thoughts, it did not deter the Black Beast that had become her.
Monster.
As her neck tilted back, acidic bile filling her throat, she remembered. A little girl, blue of hair, with a smile on her face. Little Marianne, holding her parents' hands as they walked through the forest, animals walking alongside of them. Stags, owls, squirrels, a parade of wildlife staying close to protect their little one that was her.
Freak! Monster! She'll curse us all!
The stags kept their distance, the owls roosted in trees, the squirrels scurried away. Her parents disappeared as the town's shouts grew louder and louder. Oh, how they screamed for blood. Their blood, her blood. It was familiar, too familiar, so hauntingly known to her.
A hand, in hers. Not her parents, but the Margrave. Alister, looking down at her with what a little girl might mistake for endearment. The woman she was knew what a possessive gaze looked like. One he could safely wear with her parents out of the picture, so conveniently killed under mysterious circumstances before he showed up.
Alister.
She was alone save for the needles in her arms, ever present, unrelenting. She tried to scream as a child, but Alister didn't like it. Quiet suited him, so quiet she became.
Mother? Father? I'm…scared.
Her mother, a hand on her cheek, smiling. "You'll be so beautiful when you grow up."
Her father, embracing her, tightly. "I'm proud of you, daughter."
Daughter. His daughter, not Alister's. Never Alister's. No apostrophe, she wasn't his!
The Black Beast spat the bile at Alister, who lunged to the side and out of the way. He was undeterred, bounding towards her with the agility her large form lacked.
With a whip of her neck, the jaw collided with him, knocking him to the ground. While superior size meant slow movements, she hit hard.
You see this! she tried to scream. You see me? I'm not a monster, you're the monster! You hurt people, not me!
Her word went unspoken through bestial lips, but the meaning was conveyed as she raised a leg and slammed it in his lower torse, crushing bone and skin to dust.
Whatever magicks he employed to take his form, they receded as she looked down at the top half of Alister, clinging to life underfoot.
"Well…" he croaked, coughing. "You…think this solves anything? Look at you…" Alister raised a hand from the mud and blood, pointing at her. "Monster."
She growled, at her forms were in sync.
"My…" he breathed. "I just…wanted—"
Marianne brought her foot up and slammed it down atop his head, letting his last words go unheard. It was a sickening splat, mixed with the wet earth of the rainy season and skin of her adoptive father.
Something deep down within her righted. It was small, so subtle yet so profound there was no way she couldn't have noticed. Alister's body glowed a brief, dark aura before fading away and leaving his corpse behind.
Marianne felt herself growing smaller. Days later, when Dorothea would check her for a Crest at Marianne's request, she'd find the Crest of the Beast whole in her again. Whatever her legacy was, killing Alister brought it back to her.
She shifted, back into a woman. Her hair was a mess, caked with sweat and grim and blood and all manner of filth, her body not much better off. Questions buzzed in her mind as she lay prone, tattered clothes clinging to her. They'd beg answering in time, but for now a single note resonated in her mind.
Hilda.
Marianne ran, stumbling like a sea sick sailor. Soldiers gathered around, weapons ready, expressions astounded and scared. Her friends gathered among them, calling out to her, but she did not hear them. Or rather, chose not to. No, she had another goal.
The tent was sundered, a consequence of her transformation. Though in all the wreckage and destruction, the small spot of land where Hilda lay still was untouched.
"Hilda!" she cried, falling to the ground beside her. At her wife's side, Mercedes was working quickly. Her eyes widened at Marianne, but she said nothing, far too wrapped up in her concentration and ministrations.
Marianne took Hilda's cold hand and whispered. "My dearest, my beloved…will you not wake up for me?" Tears. "Are you…truly gone?" Her moment of triumph against Alister meant nothing without her wife.
"You mean everything to me," she found herself continuing. "You're the color of my life, Hilda. Until meeting you, I couldn't stand tall. You…you make me want to be better. You have made me better. I…love you, Hilda, but those words feel so woefully inadequate in this moment. You're my sun, my stars, my world, Hilda. Please, come back to me."
Mercedes tried to say something to her, but Marianne heard none of it. She stared into Hilda's closed eyes, praying to the Goddess for a blessing, not a curse.
And she would go heard.
Be it by fate, by luck, by resolve, or just by the negligence of the one who'd tried to kill her, Hilda's eyes slowly opened. She was greeted by the face of her wife, her darling beloved.
Hilda smiled.
Author Notes: This scene has taken a lot of different forms in my mind throughout this story, and I ultimately settled on focusing on Marianne's inner thoughts rather than the choreography of the battle. It was the right choice, and doubly beneficial because I have no idea how to write two beasties fighting.
Editing Notes:
2/22/2022: Minor grammatical adjustments.