Chapter Two: Hanging City

A crushing sense of imminent violence flooded veins with adrenaline. The world around him was a rushing blur of cold moonlight smearing his vision. A thundering heart, beating to a hellish rhythm, blocked out all other sounds. He could see them, figures at the edges of the room, laughing, twisting, carrying torches and swords, smelling of stale ash. It was their eyes, however, that seared their mark into his mind. Those shriveled husks of flame howled with the coldly familiar faces of those wishing to have never been born, drooling liquid fire like tears across burning faces.

Shouts roared over the heart pounding in his ears, and a dozen figures advanced onto him, weapons trained for the kill. The man raised from the bed, right hand clenched into a fist, reeling over his shoulder as if to swat the apporations of madness into embers. The fist pulsed; the air itself stretched and snapped like the skin of a drum savagely beaten, threatening to split.

Wait, something was on his chest. Something soft and warm and… comforting.

In that same instant, the apparitions were gone. There was no fire, no extra light, no sound other than his own kicking heart and the hoot of an owl outside the castle walls. Everything was normal again.

Se'irim remembered where he was and relaxed his grip, but slowly, one finger followed the next in paranoid control. The power contained faded back into imagination, his arm coming to rest at his side soon after. He sighed, leaning his back against the bed's ornate headboard. With his off hand, he reached for the weight clinging onto his torso, finding the back of its head, and gently stroked, combing fingers through golden hair so voluminous that it covered the two of them like a blanket.

Miquella's room, that's right. He remembered it all now. Miquella had been so touch-starved from his time away that he had pleaded with those big, emotional eyes to snuggle for at least an hour or so. Judging by the moon and stars beyond the windows, it seems that the simple 'hour' has turned into several. They were lucky none of the guards or his family had needed something during the lost time.

Dammit, he grumbled under his breath. This was why he didn't like sleeping. Another second or two, and he would have ruined everything. He dipped his head down to look at the demigod on top of him.

Miquella's sleep was deep and cathartic to watch. The slumbering demigod had his dainty hands splayed wide, one arm under Se'irim's neck and the other across his torso, nose nuzzled against the fabric of his chest, as if trying to burrow into his very being. The petting of his hair roused only a content whimper.

Their relationship was an odd one, Se'irim had to admit, beyond the obvious height difference. It was the fact that they were polar opposites—Miquella was kind and generous, optimistic, the type of person who wouldn't be satisfied if a good deed went undone. He, on the other hand, was a sour thing, a rotten, weathered void in the shape of a man. Trina always said that their being opposites was why they worked so well in the first place, but he wasn't sure if he believed her. Considering how nascent their romance was, he leaned towards it simply being the honeymoon phase, and it was this thought that scared him.

Se'irim blinked the turmoil away. All this thinking was distracting from the bigger issue: he needed to leave—now. Every second ticked with a risk not worth taking. The possibility of either Marikia, her other half, or her shadowbound beast finding him was a disaster that needed to be avoided at all costs. Especially now, undisguised.

They thought he was dead. It was best kept that way.

Quick and quiet, he pulled himself free of the small Empyrean. At times like these, it was lucky that Miquella slept deeper than the Erdtree was tall. His little lord curled into the imprint of his warmth left on the bed, desperate to cling onto a body that was no longer there. A spare pillow hurriedly put in his place seemed to put the groping fingers at ease.

Stepping away from the large bed, Se'irim patted his ruffled clothes into something presentable, or at least mildly professional. He hated the robes the perfumers wore—so stuffy and ostentatious, not to mention hot in any season other than winter. It was unfortunate that there was no better disguise to sneak around the royal palace.

As apothecaries tending to royalty, they had more freedom of movement than most honored knights ever would, especially in Miquella's case since he was always talking with them, either about his sister or for his own personal studies. Perhaps even more important were the smells. When not practicing medicine, the perfumers concocted exotic scents for personal, monetary, and even military purposes. They were devoted to fragrances long before ever being enlisted as doctors, hence the name. Even the most tame of the lot were shrouded in a perpetual cocktail of a dozen different smells.

It was the perfect way to obscure his scent from Gurranq's bestial nose, now known only as Maliketh in the age of the Golden Order. It was no surprise that he disdained being in the same room as just one perfumer, let alone multiples.

Oh, the sweet temptations he had ignored over his decades of service to the twins. The urge to crack open Maliketh's skull, break his jaw, and snap his black blade, taking back Destined Death; it was almost overwhelming at times. Although, even if he did, now there was no point, as Radahn's stunt rendered Se'irim's possession of the Rune of Death—even if it was still whole—pointless.

Why did the twins have to be a part of this family? He loved Miquella as a soulmate, loved Malenia as a little sister, but almost everyone else in their family filled him with a desire to cave in their skulls.

Se'irim kicked himself for thinking too much once again and reached down for the hood Miquella had so impatiently thrown to the floor earlier.

"Leaving already?" A voice, the pretty lull of serene sleep made real, called to him from the bed. It was not his little lord. Whereas Miquella straddled the line of adult and child, masculine and feminine, the one speaking was most certainly a woman—not a girl. "And here we just got you back."

Se'irim held no surprise at the new voice, giving his hood several powerful shakes to clean. "Painful as it may be, it will have to be endured for now." He turned towards the bed.

In place of his small lord is a young woman a decade Miquella's senior, at least physically. Miquella's night dress now stretched to its limit over her, clinging to the soft bends of her curves scandalously. Her delicate face was hauntingly feminine, framed by long hair the color of lilies in full bloom high;lighted with purple streaks and ends. Gentle, lavender eyes, an eternal cradle song given color, tugged at Se'irim subconsciously, beckoning him into their fathomless depths of permanent serenity.

Trina smiled a languid expression, half her face tucked into the pillow Se'irim had substituted himself with. "I suppose you're right. It may not have lasted long, but holding onto you again, in the physical world, was a treat all the same. Miquella is overjoyed, even as he sleeps." The one eye Se'irim could see briefly closed, as if she were remembering a treasured memory. "When I close my eyes, I can see them, as if my own vision. His dreams are blissful things—so warm, so saccharine. He only dreams like this when next to you."

Se'irim's expression changed, not harshly but noticeably. There was a slight drop to his shoulders as well. "Unnecessary information."

Trina noticed the change instantly. "Does it not bring you joy to know how much he loves you, even when dreaming?"

Se'irim didn't respond. He fidgets with his hood, acting as if stretching it out to fit over his head. Trina saw the slight darkening of his cheeks in a beam of moonlight. "You take embarrassment from such love? Such a silly man."

"At least he has you to lean on in my absence," he said, ignoring the probing statement. He raised his left hand to his face, palm spread wide to cover the entirety of it.

Trina wiggled her face against the white satin pillow in what might have been a shake. "As much as I love him and he loves I, we are the same being—two halves of a single whole. Holding each other is not the same as you holding us."

When his left hand dropped, a new face greeted the world. Darker-skinned, with a larger, hooked nose and blue eyes, the fake man tilted his head downwards in acknowledgment of her statement. His voice, instead of a low breath of air, now a smooth velvet baritone. "Forgive my ignorance." His hood was firmly pulled down across his head, completing his disguise. "All the same, I look forward to the next time we can meet without fear."

Se'irim turned on his heel toward the door. Trina closed her eyes and nestled deeper into the pillow Miquella had curled into. It was a poor replacement for the man. "He'll see you soon, at the Haligtree. As for me, I'll be in your dreams, should you ever decide to open your heart..."

The soft clunk of heavy doors was her reply.

Up in the northern reaches, below where frost-kissed winds sweep across the land, the Haligtree bloomed in relative secrecy. Clusters of otherworldly flowers, some pulsating with a soft luminescence, spilled over in thick bushes grander than cathedrals, drifting in their hundreds with each gust of wind. Creatures unlike any seen elsewhere floated between leaves and branches, their iridescent wings catching dappled sunlight as gigantic insects scurried along wooden veins supporting a crown of leaves.

This colossal tree, still not even half the size of the golden Erdtree, clawed its way up the sheer cliffs of the continent, gnarled roots plunging deep into the shadows cast by the Lands Between—a testament to a virgining order.

Great boughs, thick enough to support city blocks, stretched out limbs of the colossal trunk, formed a lattice of precarious walkways above dizzying drops. It was a city, but dangling in the sky, its defenses not reinforced with walls, mountains, or rivers, but gravity itself. It was a labyrinth of interconnected bridges, stairs, and ladders, connecting its citizens to each other both horizontally and vertically. This odd city ensured that, even if invaders did manage to pass the natural defenses of the tree and its wildlife, the very layout itself was a bulwark to be used against them.

Devonia found the concept humorous. It was such an outlandish idea that it went from being absurd back around to being genius. She savored the thrum of life, feeling the imaginary pulse coursing through the tree, like an intangible heartbeat, breathing it in with relish. It was energy—primal energy—the essence of the Crucible.

The boy who had claimed her lord's heart was an ambitious one; she'll give him that. To think he had started this hundreds of years before ever meeting him in the first place—she didn't know if it was pride or delusion, but he would have been doomed otherwise. Without Se'irim's intervention, the Haligtree would have withered away, stunted, and half this size, even if Miquella had given his whole body to it. A mere Empyrean was not enough to feed such a gargantuan thing like this.

She stood at the edge of the Promenade, a large, circular platform, the closest layer to Elphael, the main kingdom, vast and sprawling like a miniature Leyndell. Devonia, like most Crucible-touched things, preferred the Hanging City over Elphael because of its closeness to the tree. So much renovation had carved out huge chunks of land and trunk to fit the kingdom that the pulse of life seemed thinner there when compared to up here, where she could touch it just as freely as she could the railing she leaned her weight on.

Devoina was not traditionally pretty, but many would consider her handsome. She was a rugged amazon, carved of lean stone and clad in thick armor, the same as the rest of her knights. It was their helmets that most prominently differentiated one from the other, though she hadn't bothered to bring hers here today. Her olive face was aggressively sharp, possessing a rugged, weather-beaten character that gave others the impression of an ancient stone sentry, adorned with a tattoo of a tree with a spiraling trunk on her left cheek; her hair was the color of dying wood, cut at the neck, styled but without compromising practicality.

Humanoid, bestial things wandered around her field of vision, off on disconnected platforms or riding lifts to upper levels. She never would have imagined the misbegotten could once again have freedom after so many years of enslavement. If she could, she would joyously shout to her younger self to not abandon hope.

From behind, she heard the clank of a wooden lift docking, followed by the shuffling of feet—three sets, by the sounds of it. She turned to meet them, but already knew who one was. She could feel it in her marrow, even over four dozen paces apart.

A lion-lizard hybrid advanced ahead of the other two, prowling on four legs before taking notice of her. Almost instantly, it reared back on its hind, reptilian legs in respect, standing bipedal as any man. Vestigial wings sprouted from the small of his back, just before his scaled tail. The last of the group was a great Omen, rotund body pock marked by dozens of bulging, red scars—old growths of horns sawed off during childhood.

"Devonia, what a pleasant surprise!" The one in the middle playfully shouted. Devonia re-familiarized herself with him as he spread his arms wide in greeting. Se'irim was draped in loose robes, like something a feeble sorcerer or wise sage would wear, with the styled emblem of the Hailigtree proudly displayed on his chest, breaking apart a field of painstaking embroidery and complex patterns with bold gold lines.

His eyes were truly alien, free to be natural in this safe haven, devoid of color and unmolested by a fake hue of grace. His iris was pearl white, with vague circular borders formed by faint glowing arcs at the top and bottom. His pupils were truer than black—holes twisted into spiraling helixes, not dissimilar in shape to the tree tattooed on her cheek.

It was odd to see the three of them together. Se'irim was the smallest of the group, and yet the confidence he strode with made the two giants beside him seem half his size. There was also this oddly feminine grace with which he walked.

Devonia had never forgotten what it was like to be in his unrestrained presence. Ripples of primal energy shifted around his form, creating vast distortions like waves breaking against a ship cutting through the ocean. To someone as attuned to the Crucible as she was, his presence was a weight hanging overhead, a star slowly coming closer, distorting the natural world with its cosmic pull.

She has been in service to Se'irim ever since Queen Marika threw her and her fellow Crucible Knights to the wind, over a thousand years in his service, yet even now she doubts if anything lesser than an Empyrean could truly grasp what kind of creature he is. Actually, she wondered if even that was enough. Perhaps only Marika herself held that knowledge.

He was gone, leaving his entourage alone. For an instant, he was nowhere. Devonia realized this mere heartbeats before arms circled over her neck, bringing her close for a hug. She blinked in confusion for a second before understanding what happened.

"How has my old friend been?" He asked, leaning against her cold, armored body.

A gauntlet of rustic brass clocked him upside the head. A normal man would've had his skull cave in. He recoiled in playful pain. "No hugs," she firmly stated.

"Well," he bemoaned, trying to straighten out his now messy braid. "Still in good spirits, I see." He looked over his shoulder at his escorts. "Go on without me. I won't be too long." The creatures stumbled past them without dispute.

Se'irim looked back at her, eyes level with each other. "So what brings you by? I hope all is well in the Realm of Shadow."

Devonia shrugged off the question with a shake of her head. "Don't worry, Messmer's campaign is still plateaued. Nothing that warrants your intervention."

Se'irim thought for a moment, then his grin widened even more. "Oh, so you're finally reconsidering my offer!"

She crushed that hopeful face. "No. My answer remains firm. As honored as the Divine Beast Warriors are, I am a Crucible Knight of Lord Godfrey, first and foremost."

He pouted. "Such loyalty to the man who forsakes you to Marika's whims is certainly honorable; I'll give you that." Devonia's sour look was a warning to not go any further. That had stung a bit. "And please, do spare me the 'Divine' aspect. The hornsent and their ilk do not speak for me."

She scoffed. "Yet you allow them refuge in Belurat in your absence? Some things are not aligning with that statement."

Devonia didn't like the hornsent. She hated the Golden Order for deeply personal reasons and found too much of their actions mirrored in those ascetic people. They worshiped Se'irim as divinity and his greatest soldiers as angels. Too many of those fools even cling to her as a prophetess. They were the reason why she kept herself in the ruins of Rauh, as they didn't constantly pester her there. It had only taken a couple dozen deaths for the rest to finally get the message.

He lazily reclined, sheathing his hands into too-big sleeves. "Fanatics have their uses, and are easy to predict. Keeping them in Belurat gives me fodder to throw at invaders and ensures my home is plenty staffed without me. Besides, better Belurat than my palace."

"Didn't figure you for the sentimental type."

His response was quick and casual. "We all have our secrets." He shrugged. "Enir-Ilim must never be in the Golden Order's grasp, even if me and my Beastal Warriors need personally combat them on the front lines. Really, I risk only mild annoyance at their presence."

Devonia rolled her eyes. "I'm well aware. No need to state the obvious."

Se'irim waved away the disrespect with a laugh. "Forgive me, saying it was just for my own peace of mind." He tilted his head with an inquisitive quirk. "Well, then what brings you all the way down this side of the veil? Looking for Ordovis or Siluria, perhaps?"

Devonia ruffled through a leather pouch hanging off her side. She held out a clenched gauntlet. "No. Taylew finally finished your project."

Her fingers released, dropping it into his hands. It was a ring, hewn from three branches of gold threaded together. The centerpiece was a flat indent, artfully engraved with the branching sigil of the Haligtree. It was a small band of metal, even for a ring, making its intended owner obvious.

Se'irim was almost giddy as he held the ring close to his eye, inspecting every delicate detail. Miquella was a talented artisan himself, creating everything from Malenia's prosthetics to armor for his soldiers. Like in most things he did, Miquella was prodigal in talent, but Taylew was an ancient golem, possessing skills honed over multiple eons. Not even Miquella could compete with that level of mastery. At least, not yet.

Devonia watched incredulously at the man's excited demeanor. It was so… unrefined, almost childish with glee. "Seeing you leashed, by a mere pixie no less, is so… odd."

Se'irim scoffed, stuffing the ring into a pocket inside his coat. "Do not let his diminutive form belie his fearsome potential. He is by far the greatest of his kin. I have not seen such raw power since Marikia and her gloam-eyed spawn fought for the title of godhood. In time, he will surpass even them."

She laughed. "Any star-struck lover would say the same about their muse, Lord."

"You are not with us as I train him—trust me, I am not blindly exaggerating." Se'irim raised a finger in warning, equal parts playful and serious. "And don't call me that. I am but a simple knight of the Haligtree now, nothing more."

"Yes, and the Erdtree is but another oak."

"Master Se'irim!" A woman called from across the way. She was clutched in a vibrant red gambeson, running across the bridge connecting the Promenade to an adjacent platform. She was desperately waving a hand to grab his attention, dashing with all her might through a ceremonial entrance.

"And what has you so worked up, Finlay?" He turned to her, letting his previous conversation smoothly drop. She came to a stop a bit too close for comfort, as far as Devonia was concerned.

"I'm sorry to intrude, but please tell me you know where Lady Malenia is. I haven't seen her in nary a day this week, and I've searched root to branch trying to find her."

Se'irim's face fell, hollowing with a mix of dread and realization. Something unnatural slithered down the women's spines—something cold and electric that set instincts twitching in fright. It was the sense of a natural disaster looming at the edge of the world. Devonia had the nerves not to budge, but poor Finlay took several steps back.

He turned to the edge of the vine-ridden platform, looking for something that could not be seen.

"Dammit…"

…

The Roots were the most sacred place within Elphael. Closed off to all but the three rulers of the Haligtree itself, it was a spherical cavity within the great tree, large enough for a dragon to nest with room to spare. It was a verdant paradise, with blooming flowers sprouting in their hundreds across fertile soil as butterflies danced from delicate petal to petal. Sunlight naturally filtered in through gaps in the vines and roots strangling all sides, some little more than pinpricks while others could fit a full-grown man. At the center of the clearing, collected rainwater pooled ankle-deep, creating a tiny, shallow marsh.

A feminine figure aggrandized in giant stature was veiled within a wall of vines and roots, as if the tree had grown around her since its inception. Normally, a flicker of nostalgia would hit him, even if only momentarily, every time he saw it. That was not the case today. He had much more pressing things on his mind.

Se'irim stalked through the area with miserable trepidation. Malenia was the center of his attention, sitting, almost curling into herself for safety, in one of three chairs, too small to be called thrones but still larger than normal. She was a mess, a demigod stained with plague, sick fluids encrusting patches over her skin and dress. Above all, the smell was foul—a noxious haze of fever and stale waste.

The sight made his heart ache. One of the finest warriors alive, a demigod, an Empyrean no less—no one would have been able to guess. She was pitiful, a patient writhing in pain in some forgotten clinic, waiting for the perfumers to put her out of her misery.

As he neared her, footsteps sloshing across the center of the room, she stirred, raising a limp head and hunched body. Greesy, red hair parted way from a mutilated face, twisted in prolonged suffering. A spectral smear of red, purple, and pink crawled out from an empty socket, as if it had been nesting within her skull. It crawled to her nose, its thin wings flapping at his approach, and flitted into the wind. For his own state of mind, he deliberately ignored it.

"Master Se'irim?" Her voice, once smooth silk and confident, now battered and afraid, called out in a dreamy haze, as if unsure if the sounds were real or not. Excess drool and other fluids best unthought of dribbled from her mouth like a rabid dog.

"It is you, is it not? I can feel it; the Rot writhes in my chest, lashing out for my soul in fear like a caged animal. It knows... it knows that its predator has returned."

She gulped down something wet within her throat, foam bubbling up between the corners of her lips. "I fear… I fear it's too much. I don't think even Miquella is safe beside me right now. Please... please do away with me, before I ruin everything."

Within arms reach of her, Se'irim kneeled. She protested. "No, master. I don't want to ruin you as well."

Hands softly held her cheeks, bringing her head down. He cradled her face into his. "Silly girl, the Rot cannot find purchase within me. You know this." He kissed the crown of her head, heedless of the acrid smell and grime. "I am so sorry," he hushed. "I was going to find you as soon as I got back, but I got sidetracked, like a fool. So many people, so many things needing done, and in my haste, I forgot about the one most important. Whatever curses you sling, whatever recompense you decree, your foolish, incompetent, selfish master deserves tenfold."

His right hand retreated. It was different now. Symbols, alien runes carved from blood, tattooed along his palm and up each finger in their hundreds. Scribbles and formulas that hurt human eyes to look at. Malenia, even without eyes, could feel the familiar sting of something wrong in front of her face. The Rot within suddenly shrank, fleeing into parts of her mind and soul unknown even to her in primal fright. The hand dipped into her blouse, tenderly gripping onto her chest, right over the scarification marking the location of her heart.

For moments, there was nothing. No sound or light; no dramatic feeling or pressure. It was simply relief. For days, Malenia gripped onto her sense of self with a divine might. The release she felt was a narcotic high. Slowly, she let go, not in defeat, as she had feared, but victory. The doubt, anguish, and pain flaked off as if freeing a beautiful sculpture encrusted in the waste of eons. One by one, fingers that had gripped the weight of her future were peeled away, finally free of burden.

Her head slumped in exhaustion. It was over.

Se'irim leaned into her ear. "O Blade of Miquella, you have fought long enough. Rest now, as every honored warrior deserves." Her head lulled to the side, asleep within moments. One arm reached under her legs, the other her shoulders. Se'irim hoisted her into his arms. Despite being taller than him by more than two feet, he carried her weight as if a child to him.

As he left, the aeonian butterfly circled around him, closer and closer with each rotation, like it was teasing, maybe even gloating. Not even halfway to the exit, his restraint snapped. Dropping the left arm supporting her legs, the butterfly was crushed in an iron grip faster than a blink of an eye. Thin wings and legs sporadically cut in between his fingers, dismembered at his savagery.

He brought the butterfly to his lips, speaking to it as if it understood language—no, as if someone was at the other end of the butterfly, listening to his words through it. When he spoke, his lips were pursed with anger, voice quiet with a simmering rage on the verge of lashing out in violence.

"Lap up your victory. Savor your place above the gods, and enjoy the misery you sow. All the sweeter will the day be when the Great Ones scream their death throes."

Se'irim squeezed his fist, venting and channeling all of his wrathful passion into one singular act, gripping it as tight as Malenia had gripped onto her sanity.

What happened next lasted for the briefest instant, quicker than the human eye could even process, let alone understand. As the butterfly was mashed into an ethereal smear between his fingers, reality itself broke. It was like the grip had punched through the air, causing wild, branching cracks to claw in their hundreds to all corners of the room as if a broken pane. Winding from edge to edge, spiraling from ceiling to dirt in three dimensions, gnarled lines of broken logic veined across the empty expanse, threatening to split and peel open the fabric of time and space, distorting the world with kaleidoscopic reflections of itself.

For that one instant, the one cradling Malenia, the one holding the hole in the universe, was a woman. A woman which held an uncanny resemblance to the statue hid by the Haligtree.

When Se'irim released his fingers, spreading open his palm carefully as if to savor the moment, the aeonian smear drifted in the air, purified into bleached ash.

He returned his full support to the demigod in his arms and carried Malenia to her room.

(End of Chapter Two)

Author's Notes: Man, I might've gone a bit overboard with this one, lol, but the scenes just kept coming and before long, I endued up with over 5k words. I was debating on whether or not to cut the Malenia segment and move it to the next chapter, but it ended up not being too long, so I kept it in. I do intend on keeping future chapters shorter (3-4k), just so it's quicker for me to post, but there are times when I just cant find anything to cut.

So, that aside, I'd love to hear your thoughts.