Chapter Three: Maidenless
Warmth. Comfort. Safety. Health. Painlessness.
Maybe it was all a dream? He couldn't remember feeling this content anywhere other than his own bed at home. Maybe he'd imagined that dark place, the vile creature he'd seen and the injuries he'd endured. Maybe he was okay.
His hopes for that nightmare to be a lucid conjuration of his sleeping brain were dashed when his eyes opened and he was faced with the rocky ceiling of a dank cave. The feeling of safety somewhat returned when the beautiful specks of golden light floated across his vision. A small smile found its way onto his lips.
"Sister, sister. The Tarnished has awoken," came a soft, monotone voice.
"Rem, Rem. Consciousness has returned to the sleeping Tarnished," a similar, but lower voice rang out.
Subaru turned towards the voices but only found the bright light of the small star in his face. "Am…am I going crazy?" he grumbled. "Maybe the fall scrambled my brain."
"Sister, sister. The Tarnished seems to be confused about his surroundings," the higher voice chimed.
"Rem, Rem. It seems the cave in which he finds himself has confused the Tarnished," the slightly harsher voice added.
"That word again," he groaned, beginning to sit up and noticing the pain in his back had all but disappeared, leaving only an echoing tenderness. "How many times do I have to keep telling people, my name is Subaru Nat-!" he froze as he reached a fully upright position, finally finding the source of the voices he'd heard, "-suki."
On the opposite side of the strange campfire, sat two girls, both resting patiently on their knees with hands folded in their laps. They were somewhat smaller than the average girl he'd seen back home, with slender limbs and pale skin. They were identical, other than their hair and eye color. The one on the left had blue hair and eyes, while the one on the right had pink.
The thing that truly caught him off-guard, however, were their outfits. They both wore long-sleeved maid outfits with skirts that reached the mid-thigh, and long white socks that met where the skirts ended. Over that, they both wore long black cloaks that seemed to serve as protection from the elements.
Subaru couldn't stop staring.
"T-twin…twin maids?" he muttered incoherently. "I've been dumped in some hellhole with freakish multi-limbed monstrosities, and the first people I find are a couple of cute twin maids? That can't be right, I've got a concussion."
"Sister, sister," the blue-haired maid with the softer voice said, never taking her eyes off of Subaru or changing her emotionless expression. "The Tarnished seems to have suffered trauma to the brain."
The pink-haired maid spoke, again never removing her gaze from the confused youth, "Rem, Rem. A bout of amnesia seems to have taken the Tarnished prisoner."
"St-stop!" he shouted, causing the girls' eyes to widen. "Stop calling me that! My name is Subaru, Subaru! I'm a seventeen-year-old high school student from Japan, I was just getting snacks and heading home and someone kidnapped me and dropped me here! You have me confused with someone else, I'm just Subaru!"
The maids glanced at each other momentarily, then back at the odd boy. The blue-haired girl spoke first. "Sister, sister. The Tarnished doesn't seem to be lying, could we have been mistaken?"
The pink-haired maid shook her head softly. "Rem, Rem. We definitely aren't mistaken. This man is Tarnished, I confirmed it myself."
"Who the hell is Tarnished!" the mean-eyed boy yelled.
The maids seemed identically bewildered.
"You don't know of the Tarnished?" the pink-haired maid asked.
"Obviously not!" he responded.
She placed a finger on her chin and gazed at the campfire before her in thought for a moment, then looked back at him. "The Tarnished are a race of beings who were formerly banished from the Lands Between after losing the grace of the Erdtree."
The look on Subaru's face could only be described as 'dumbfounded'. "That…literally just created more questions for me."
The maids were very obviously perplexed. "You…don't know of the Erdtree?" the blue-haired girl asked.
Crossing his arms, Subaru said, "I don't know half of what she said. The 'L-...Lands Between', was it? Is that a nickname for a rural town outside Tokyo or something? I've never been."
The pink-haired maid's eyebrows were practically touching. "I've never heard of 'Tokyo'," she said, "but you're in a domain known as the Lands Between, and you are Tarnished."
Subaru's scowl deepened. "Stop saying that!" he shouted, now standing and looming over the campfire. "I'm not Tarnished! I'm not from here, you've got the wrong guy!"
The pink-haired maid slowly stood, brushing dirt from her stockings. She stared at him for a moment, then held out her hand. He looked down at the outstretched appendage in confusion. "Take my hand," she said.
Hesitantly, Subaru gulped and reached over the campfire, placing his hand in hers. She closed her eyes after the contact, and suddenly Subaru's eyes began to shine gold once again as words and numbers started appearing in an overlap with his vision.
"W-w-what's happening," he stuttered in a panic, "what is all this?"
"Calm down, Barusu," the pink-haired maid said.
"I'm pretty sure you just turned my name into a blinding curse," he said, attempting to alleviate his anxiety with humor.
The girl holding his hand continued. "This is Grace," she said gently. "It is the byproduct of the Erdtree, and it once resided within the eyes of all Tarnished." He felt her grip tighten slightly. "Grace left your kind a long time ago, and now it calls you back to the home from which you were once banished."
"B-but," he said disbelievingly, scanning over the words and digits in front of his eyes, "I'm Japanese, I've lived in Japan my whole life, I've never even traveled. My parents were born there. How can I be a…whatever it is?"
The pink-haired maid looked at his hand. "I'm not sure I understand your situation any better than you do, but the fact is, you are Tarnished, and a maidenless one at that."
An annoyed scowl accompanied by a light blush adorned his face. "Look, I don't leave my house a lot, okay? I don't have a lot of opportunities to talk to girls."
"Worry not, Tarnished," she continued, ignoring his embarrassing admission, "we want to be your Finger Maidens."
Subaru pulled his hand away from hers, the light and information quickly leaving his sight. He took on a further perplexed look as he stared into her pink eyes. "What the hell is a Finger Maiden?"
The blue-haired maid stood after hearing the exasperated sigh that left her sister's lips, choosing to explain in her stead. "Finger Maidens serve the Two Fingers, and we offer aid and guidance to your people, the Tarnished. Our main purpose is to turn runes into strength."
"R-runes?" he asked.
"A physical representation of the Grace you collect. It can act as currency to those who also seek the Grace of the Erdtree, or be used to increase the potency of your lifeforce, as well as your physical and magical strength."
Subaru recalled the words he saw splayed across his vision when he touched the pink-haired girl. "Wait…is this like an RPG? I got totally isekai'd, didn't I?"
His musings were met with utter bewilderment.
"I'm…not sure what an 'RPG' is, Tarnished," the blue-haired maid said, "but if it helps you come to terms with your situation so we may move on, so be it."
The boy sighed. "Look, can you at least stop referring to me as my…race, I guess? My name is Subaru, just call me Subaru."
"Right, my apologies, Subaru," the blue-haired maid said.
"Right, we are sorry, Barusu," her sister joined.
"So that one's sticking, huh?" he asked, scratching the back of his head. "Alright, whatever. What about you, what're your names?"
The girls bowed simultaneously, with the pink-haired maid speaking first. "I am Ram, and this," she gestured to her blue counterpart, "is my sister, Rem."
"Ram and Rem, huh?" he asked, placing his hands on his hips. "Your parents weren't big on creativity, I take it. Oh well, easy to remember at least." He struck a pose with his hip jutting to the left and his right hand pointing skyward. "Nice to meet ya, Ram and Rem!"
They deadpanned at his pose. "Our Tarnished is an idiot it seems, Rem," Ram said.
"Yes sister, it seems our Tarnished has a glaring lack of intellect," Rem replied, shaking her head.
Hanging his head in shame, Subaru said, "look, do you wanna be my maidens or not? You came to me, remember?"
"Incorrect," Ram said coldly, "we found you, half-dead, and saved your life. You are in our debt."
"Oh, that's right, I was pretty messed up before I passed out. So that was you, huh?" he asked, a bright smile forming on his face. He pushed a fist with a thumb extended upwards towards the confused girl. "Thanks a ton, Ram-Ram! You too, Rem-Rem!"
Ram seemed aggravated at the pet names, though Rem developed a tint to her cheeks that neither noticed.
"So is it a deal, then?" Ram asked, wanting to move forward with their conversation now that the confusion is out of the way. "Will you take us as your Finger Maidens? You won't make it to the Elden Ring otherwise."
Further confusion became visible on the boy's face, causing Ram to inwardly groan at herself for saying something else to muddy his understanding of his situation even more.
"Don't worry about the Elden Ring right now, Barusu," she said, cutting off the question she could see forming in his mind. "We'll explain all that later, but the point is you need a Finger Maiden to progress your abilities in this land, and we're offering you two."
Subaru placed his hands back on his hips. "I can't really argue with that logic, can I?" He extended both of his hands to them. "Glad to have you! Thanks for the help."
They looked at each other, then smiled softly and nodded at him, taking one of his hands each, shaking them.
"So," Subaru said confidently, walking up to the girls and placing his hands on their shoulders, "how the fuck do I get out of this damn cave?"