Petra Leyte sat silently in front of a fire, wrapped in a raggedy blanket. The events of the day played in her head repeatedly, constantly stopping and freezing at a specific moment in time that she wished to forget—the sight of seeing her friend's corpse, discovering it beneath the snow. Her nearly dried eyes gazed up towards the ceiling of the ruined building they sat in; Petra was tired, exhausted.
Natsuki Subaru.
Her hero.
How? why?
Why him?
Why did he have to die?
When did he die?
Why couldn't she admit-
Petra was torn from her thoughts by a thud. Garfiel had returned, dropping a slain deer onto the floor. Both were covered in a thin layer of snow which melted slowly due to the fire's proximity. Her eyes remained steed fast as she watched Garfiel begin to skin it. Frederica would've told her to avert her gaze, to look away, even pull her gaze from it, or cover her eyes. But Frederica wasn't here and was instead out gathering more wood for the fire. Even then, Petra wouldn't listen to her. She had already seen the worst thing possible. Nothing could top that in her mind.
Petra soon tilted her head away from Garfiel and Emilia, who sat with Ram giving her mana, and then her gaze shifted back to the ceiling as the sound of footsteps made themselves know above. Otto had been upstairs in the dark, taking a position of a lookout. She could hear his slow footsteps, the creaking of wood. She listened to each sound, and soon it started to sound like a rhythm, soon her eyes began to grow heavy. Exhaustion would take its due.
One could only hope that her rest would be a peaceful one.
Eventually, Petra's eyes fluttered open, the sound of birds chirping hit her ears, and instead of seeing a ruined ceiling, she saw her room's ceiling back in the mansion. It was, for lack of a better word, the best thing she had seen. Getting out of bed, she was quick in preparing for the morning. Once that was said and done, she noticed the unsettling quietness of the mansions hall accented by the cold drift of air. Though she wandered the halls looking for the others, she soon heard the sounds of playful laughter and banter.
Petra quickly picked up the pace, tunneling visioning in on the source only to be then snapped out of it by bumping into someone. She fell onto her bottom and let out a groan of pain.
"Hey, Petra, are you alright?" A familiar voice asked.
Petra looked up to the source to see her hero, Subaru, and his nasty-looking eyes were soft as he stared down at her, his lips frowning his hand stretched out. She bawled her eyes out as she let out muffled words into his chest as her hands grabbed at Subaru's sides, pulling on the cloth of his tracksuit. Petra felt a welt of feelings building up in her chest, tears building up in the corners of her eyes as her cheeks became puffy as she launched herself from the floor and into Subaru's waist, sending them both to the floor.
"Hey, everything is alright. Why are you crying?"
Petra raised her head from his chest and told him what she had dreamed of, "You were dead, and we were in a strange place, and it was cold, and, and we were being hunted and, and." She pulled her hands from his side and then slammed them into his chest, but before she could say anything further, the soft hand of her hero came down on her head, gently rubbing her head and looking at her with a warm smile.
"Sounds like you had a nasty dream, how about you and I go out for a walk. How's that sound Petra?" A warmth of radiance traveled through Petra at her heroes' words. It was enough for her tears to come to a stop, and she lightly sniffled before smiling at her hero. Thus the two set off and wandered about through the mansion together, though as they walked, Petra felt an unease building up within her; that cold draft traveled along her spine, her heart thumped weirdly. That warmth and radiance ended up being replaced with the eerie cold and silence. Petra looked to a nearby window and cringed at the light that hit her.
It felt off.
Wrong even.
It did not bring comfort to her anymore.
It felt cold and distant.
But when Petra turned her attention back to what laid ahead and saw that darkening path, she halted in her tracks, and her right arm jerked forward as Subaru kept moving forward. Though instead of stopping, Subaru kept going and Petra pulled back. She grunted and pulled away from her hero, "S-Subaru-sama, p-please s-stop, you're hurting me." Though her words fell on deft ears as her hero didn't stop, tears started to form as Petra grunted and dug her heels into the floor as more and more pressure applied itself on her arm. Finally, her eyes would go wide as she felt something pop, then crack, "Subaru s-stop, p-please! No more!" She said the last part with loud defiance as she pulled herself back one final time.
Only to find herself flying back onto the ground with a sickening ripping sound filling the air, followed by what sounded like water flowing out. A hot burning sensation lit up Petra's right side. Her eyes shot to where her arm was, should be. But, in place of her delicate right arm, there was nothing there but torn open stump revealing blood and bones, it was enough to make Petra scream, but she found that she couldn't. She looked to Subaru, noticed him holding her arm, and watched as he calmly turned to look back at her.
With that same soft smile, with those same soft eyes, and spoke with that same soothing tone that had instilled radiance within her earlier, "Petra, what's wrong?" Her hero took a step towards her, "There's nothing to be afraid of; come on, we'll walk through that dark hallway together." Subaru offered out his hand, which still held her dismembered limb. Petra could see the insides of her limb, the flesh, blood, bone. But then she saw how it hollowed out in a bleak nothingness, a sharp void of endless black.
Petra crawled back away from her hero, scared, but her hero still kept walking towards her, talking, "There's nothing to be afraid of, Petra."
"Petra." A familiar feminine voice called out.
Petra continued to crawl back as the blackness of her wound began to crawl out and seep onto the floor; all the while, that familiar voice called out her name, "Petra." Petra soon found herself backed up against a wall. The blackness that originated from her wound flowed up her body as her vision became blurry, and soon she felt nothing.
"Petra-chan, it's time to wake up."
Petra's eye's shot open, and she let out a gasp as she saw the face of Emilia looking down at her. She screamed and crawled back along the floor, kicking and thrashing the blanket that she had been wrapped up in off as she found herself against a wall. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths, and her eyes were wide and open as she observed her surroundings, slowly she began to calm down as she saw the familiar ruined ceiling, rubble that littered the room, and the members of the camp.
"Petra?" Emilia looked at her with concern while the others who had taken up various spots in the room did the same, though, at the same time, it looked like that had been doing something prior. They all must have been eating, it seemed.
"Petra, are you alright?" Emilia once more repeated, snapping Petra's attention right back to the half-elf, "It looked like you had a really scary nightmare" Petra just nodded her head silently to Emilia before getting up off the floor.
"Yes, I'm sorry, Emilia? I didn't mean to scream out so loudly." Petra lightly recoiled as Emilia placed a hand on her shoulder before gasping at the tight hug that followed, only to relax and cry right into Emilia's shoulder.
It would be a long, long night.
The following morning wouldn't fare much better either. The snow was still coming down, harsher; it became a blizzard, white for as far as the eye could see. The roaring wind outside drowned out almost any other noise beyond talking and the crackling of the fire. Petra watched the fire as she nibbled on some cooked meat; she watched as the flames flickered and popped. The burning logs collapsed on each other, and soon the fire would begin to die down. The room started to grow colder, and even the building began to creak and wail under its weight. Safety became a liability, and soon the Emilia Camp would leave in the hopes of finding better shelter.
It was dangerous.
Petra trudged through snow in makeshift boots from the skin of the deer that had been cut open. Every other part of Petra's body remained wrapped up in the cloth they had found lying about the ruined building they had previously been in; it was enough to provide significant warmth to the young maid. But still, the oncoming cold was nipping at her, tingling her whole body. The storm would only grow stronger.
The wind would howl, snow rushing through the sky in Petra's face. Slowly Petra lost sight of the rest of the camp. Gradually things became colder, and visibility decreased, and- With a yelp muffled by the raging storm, Petra slipped, fell with snow at her side. She fell, slid, and everything went black. The only thing she felt then was the cold and darkness.
It was cold and dark, chokingly so.
Slowly Petra's eyes stirred to life, fluttered, light beamed down on her from above through a hole. Slowly Petra attempted to pull herself up only to find that she couldn't. To her shock, fear, dismay, Petra's lower half had ended up pinned beneath a sheet of heavy metal and pressed down on her. Looking around, she began to pant and heave as she noticed the icy wall and stalactites of ice hung from the ceiling. Quickly she looked around in panic, seeing nothing but winding caverns that grew darker the more she looked on—embedded into some of the walls or the ground where corpses of the creature's that had attacked them. It dawned on the small girl - she wished it hadn't - she was going to die down here.
"HELP! PLEASE! EMILIA! GARFIEL! OTTO! SOMEONE! HELP! I'M STUCK DOWN HERE!" Petra cried out at the top of her lungs, only to be met with a resounding nothing.
Petra's panic only raised, and she grabbed at the metal that pinned her legs, trying to lift it to no avail; she grabbed and grabbed, gripped and bit her lip, and raised. Only for her arms to give out a few minutes later, and she let herself fall back. With a huff, she looked up at the hole in the ceiling and watched the snow blowing above. Tears began to well up in her eyes, soon breaking and running down the sides of her face. The tears dried up, froze from the cold on her face. Her breathing began to slow, and her eyes grew heavy. Her tears began to stop, and the world started to become consumed once more in darkness. It was as if she was entering a deep sleep.
Her thoughts began to drift to the Emilia Camp. Her friends, the people who cared for her, the home village, the family that raised her, and finally Subaru.
The one.
The one Petra admired and loved, how she wished she could talk with him once more. Finally, before the darkness took over her vision, she saw above a figure in the storm raging above with the only noticeable feature: those glowing blue-white eyes. Then the everything went dark for Petra. Her one last consciousness thought was with being with Subaru again and seeing his smile.
/.\./.\
A series of crackles stumbled into the ear of Petra Leyte, stirring her awake from what seemed like an eternity. To the young girl's surprise, she found herself before a warm fire situated inside of what appeared to be a metal barrel, and nice pillow located against the back of her head, and a warm blanket and-. Petra heard a shuffle, snow crunching, and in stepped a figure cloaked in a hooded cowl shadowing their features; upon further inspection, the figure was that of a woman with eerie glowing eyes that escaped from the shadows of the hood. Petra cautiously tried to back up from her spot, but the tinge of pain that ran through her body kept her from doing so. Instead, she watched as the figure turned its head to the side and ran its right hand against the side of a rocky wall - A cave wall. It was becoming more apparent to Petra that she was in a cave now - "Your awake, good." it spoke to her in a womanly voice and unrecognizable accent and unnaturalness to it.
Petra watched as the figure slowly moved across the room and sat on the other side of the metal barrel, "You're lucky to be alive. Suppose I hadn't found you when I did. In that case, you'd be dead, or worse, have a case of frostbite, or may even end up with something effecting you further down your life-" The stranger paused, having noticed the look of worry that built across Petra's face an awkward silence followed before the stranger cleared their throat. "I didn't mean to scare you; what's your name," It asked, following it up with a sigh before muttering something under its breath.
"P-Pe-Petra Leyte!" Petra stuttered out before blushing as she forgot to properly introduce herself in the proper maid manner - not that she could do it in the first place anyway- though she noticed the small chuckle that came from the stranger.
"Petra Leyte," The stranger repeated, "Petra," It lingered on Petra's name oddly before sighing, "A beautiful name, Petra Leyte. A beautiful name indeed."
Petra's brows furrowed, and a look of confusion crossed her face, but she managed to find some words to say in the end, "Thank you, um, I don't-"
"Sorry if that freaked you out. It's just I knew a Petra once," The Stranger elaborated with a more somber tone to its voice, as it kept its head hung low and always looking towards the ground.
"Oh." That was all Petra could manage to say at the moment. Everything fell silent save for the crackling of the fire and roaring winds outside, only for said silence to be broken by Petra, "What was she like?"
"Huh?"
"You said you knew a Petra once, and the way you said it... Sounded sad," Petra noticed the subtle way the stranger flinched back and looked away towards the entrance of the cave. It didn't take much to figure out that she had hit a rough spot for the woman.
"I," The stranger paused and remained set on looking at the entrance of the cave, "She was, a great person, a great mechanic, knew just how to fix something right up, made everyone around her smile with just her mere presence." The stranger stood up from its spot and turned to face the rock wall behind her, revealing a strange weapon attached to her back. "She wasn't just a good mechanic either; she was pretty good at being a seamstress. I had so many nice dresses from I didn't even know what to do with them." A laugh escaped from the stranger as Petra continued listening to her reminiscence, "Petra was also a great friend but also more than that."
"What happened to her?" Petra watched as the stranger's hands tighten into fists.
The stranger's shoulders stiffened and mumbled something under its breath, "She, she had an illness that had grown worse throughout her life, she got sicker, and we tried our best to help her. We tried everything, including things we shouldn't have. Lucky for us, we were able to save her somewhat, but in the end, she gained something." The stranger paused and let out a tired sigh, shoulders slumping, "far worse, and, things got even more worse from there, in the end, she passed away." There was a hint of regret laced in the stranger's tone, and their left hand gripped at their left knee, scratched at it to be more exact.
"Oh," Petra said, stunned beyond belief, and she fixed her gaze to the floor. She listened to the stranger move about dumping logs into the fire before taking a seat once more, "I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have asked." Petra said as she slowly lifted her head.
"It's fine. We all have something painful in our lives. I've had a lot of experience with that." The stranger's tone drifted into a more somber one as their head drifted off to the entrance of the cave.
Petra silently turned her attention back to the fire; another minute of silence passed before she looked to the stranger and bit her lip, "Mmm," She didn't want to say anything, the stranger seemed caught up in her thoughts, but that was only a minor guess from Petra herself. After one more minute of silence, Petra swallowed her worries and asked aloud, "Why don't you ask me something?"
"Hmm, what?" The stranger's head turned back to Petra's direction, though the gaze remained focused on the ground, hood shrouding the face still.
Petra gulped and silently cursed to herself before repeating herself once more to the stranger, much louder this time, "Ask me something."
The stranger sighed and relaxed their shoulders, their hooded head shifting and looking about the room, though never directly towards Petra herself, "Hmm, how did you get here?"
"I was walking with my friends, we were trying to find a better shelter, and I got-" Petra found herself cut off by the stranger raising their hand in a stopping motion.
"No, not that. I mean, how did you get here?" The stranger stressed the importance of that last part, "You're not wearing any familiar clothing I've seen before, and I've been everywhere in this system and have had the fortunate experience to meet eccentric people."
"Oh…" Petra shuffled in her spot and hissed a bit in pain, "I remember this portal opening up within the mansion I worked in; there was a flash, and We ended up here. When we came here, we searched around this big place made of metal, and it got all confusing and, well. We found our friend who went missing a week prior, and he was. Dead," Petra paused for a moment tear's forming upon her eye's before a moment later adding, "You probably don't believe-"
"I do. It isn't the strangest thing to have happened before. It's even why I can even understand you, and I met someone from your world. That person taught me the local language. It's incredibly similar to one from here." The stranger stood up from their spot once more and went to grab a few more logs, though as they did, they were also careful never to show their face. Once the stranger added more fuel to the fire and sat back down, they then continued to speak, "I've seen what this system holds, what lies beneath, above, and in between, I've seen things you'd only hope to never see in your lifetime."
"Is that why everything looks so old and destroyed?" Petra curiously asked the stranger who fiddled with their hands, with their focus remaining on the cave's entrance.
"Partly, time is also an element at play, but there were many events that led to the world you walk in now. Many people died because of them, and what you see now is—a shell of itself. But it isn't all bad, and something new was able to spring from it all." The stranger's gaze remained focused on the entrance of the cave, "People make their living's out here, one way or another, other's make great trips to the Last City."
The stranger paused for a moment before speaking once more, "Listen, when this storm passes and tomorrow comes, we'll find your friends and then." The stranger paused as their shoulders tensed up, but they resumed what they were saying, "I'll point you all in the direction of a village in the far south, a week or two worth of travel-."
Petra bit the bottom of her lip as she listened to the stranger talk, but a burning question bubbled to the surface from the back of her mind, and without realizing it, she blurted it out, right as the stranger was talking, "Why are you hiding your face?" The stranger snapped their gaze right back to her, their glowing eyes staring right at her. "Uh, oh, sorry! I-"
The strange was surprisingly calm in her response, but at the same time, her word's carried uncertainty to them, "You're okay. I don't know how you would react. I'm not exactly-"
Petra cut off the stranger, "I won't judge, I promise."
Petra watched as the stranger shifted and stood up and walked closer and leaned close to Petra's face while pulling back their hood and revealing what lay beneath. Petra gulped and looked on in awe, shock, confusion, befuddlement.
Fear.
The stranger's face was not that of flesh, but metal, groves, and pieces formed along her head where hair should've laid. Instead of eyes, there were holes and lights, what looked like a frown - if it could be called that - formed on the stranger's face, "I-"
Petra once more cut off the stranger, "You know, you look a little scary, but," She squirmed in her spot and grunted in pain as she brought at to cusp the metal cheek, "You're pretty, beautiful. Just like my name, right?" Petra beamed a smile while glancing at the stranger's arms, noticing that they were also metal or at least looked at it. Petra also noticed the left arm had a faded red ribbon tied around it. At the same time, something in the back of Petra's mind told her the rest of the body was metal well.
Immediately the stranger pulled away and attempted to speak, only for familiar howls to pierce the storm outside. It was enough to frighten Petra immediately, causing her to pant and whimper out, eyes wide like dinner plates, "N-no, not them, not those things!" Her heart began to race, and sweat began to pour down her face as she remembered those awful creatures and what they had done to her hero. It was then the stranger placed a hand on her shoulder and shot her what looked to be a soft look.
"Listen, you'll be fine. I'll deal with the Fallen; they won't touch you or get anywhere near you."
Petra's eyes widen in fear, horror, confusion. Her mind raced with a million thoughts as she blurted out in the heat of the moment what came first, "The what, F-Fallen? I, wait, what are you going to do? They killed my hero! I, he, if he couldn't beat them what good could you-"
The stranger laid its hands onto Petra's shoulders and spoke in a calm tone, "Sssh, calm down, everything will be okay, you'll be fine. Trust me, please," The look the stranger shot Petra was soft and warm despite their metal appearance; it was enough to calm Petra down after a few minutes despite the howls growing closer. "Look, I'm going to leave this with you," The strange pulled out a leather-bound book from a pouch on her side and placed it on Petra's lap before standing back up, "It'll-," The howls grew louder and closer, and thus the stranger headed for the entrance of the cave. "I'm sorry, but we're out of time, and I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain anymore," The stranger stated as they lifted their hood, shrouding their face once more.
Petra, of course, confused, looked down to the book in her lap, "But, wait, what about-" As she Petra looked back, she saw the stranger had disappeared from the entrance, no trace of her. The howls had stopped as well; only the wind and crackle of the fire remained, and soon Petra would find herself growing tired, but she refused to fall asleep. Her eyes remained on the entrance of the cave, waiting for the stranger's return. Slowly Petra's eye grew heavy, and darkness crept in; sleep came over her for one final time and then.
Nothing.
A deep soundless sleep.
And there was still nothing.
The nothing continued into nothing and nothing.
Then came something.
Another dream.
Petra found herself with Subaru, Emilia, Otto, Frederica, Ram, everyone in the Emilia camp, and her home village. They were all having a delighted party, food, banter, talk. It was happy. Delightful, pleasant. They would sit, eat, talk and chatter, joyful, bountiful conversations; nothing was wrong.
Petra felt safe, happy, loved, protected, and as she ate the food that graciously placed on her plate, she would take delight in its excellent taste. She could taste the ideal seasoning, the softness, the wriggling mass within-
Petra's eyes would widen in shock, horror; she spat her food back out and looked at her plate in horror. Her food had turned rotten, sour, foul, decayed, and fat worm's crawl and wriggled in and out of it. She swallowed a lump in her throat and glanced to the rest of the table, to everyone else.
They all had the same worms crawling on their food, squirming and writhing, wriggling masses. But they didn't notice or care; they ate them anyway's. Petra watched in shock and horror and attempted to speak, tell them to stop, only to find that no sounds escaped her lips.
Panic once more swept through Petra. Her eyes darted across the room as her friends, who continued to eat the worms, began to leak a vile black substance on the floor.
An all-consuming black void of withering shadows lurked across the lavish floors consuming them in their gaping maw. Petra attempted to pull herself up from her seat only to find a throbbing ping in her chest, followed by a strange sensation within her belly. Her eyes snapped towards it and widened as she saw the outline of something pressing clear against her clothing, only for it to move across and then disappear. But she could still feel it within, squirming around in her guts.
Petra's mind raced with a thousand thoughts as the others slowly began to turn their attention to her; a pair of arms would wrap around her waist, presenting a warm hug to her, as well as shining a bright light upon which consumed the room.
Petra's eyes fluttered again; she found herself at a table full of laughter and outstanding amounts of food. She stared around at the others for a moment, which in turn stared back at her with warm smiles. Her spine shivered, and goosebumps followed as she looked between the table and her friends once more.
...
Reassurances reached into her core and cleared any uncertainty from her mind. Smiling, Petra would feast with her friends and family, chowing down on food until the sun disappeared into the night.
Then slowly, everything darkened, and the nothingness soon returned, only for a voice to pierce that nothingness.
"Petra! Wake up! Pleaaaase wake-up! Petra!"
Eye's fluttered open to the sound of someone talking, slowly light reached into the nothingness and granted the blurry vision to Petra, as things became clearer she saw the concerned look of a pair of purple eye's looking back at her.
"E-Emilia?" Croaked out Petra as she began to move, limbs stiff, the pain from before now faded, distant memory as she blinked her eye's a few times to make sure she didn't see things. To her utter delight, it was Emilia. As such, Petra's eye's lit up with joy as she snapped her arms out from the blanket she had been wrapped in and quickly used them to pull herself into a hug with the half-elf. Petra promptly buried her face into Emilia's shoulder, crying and sobbing out in relief as the gentle hands of Emilia simply held her back.
The warm embrace made Petra feel safe, secure, happy, "I'm so glad we found you; I thought we lost you too," Emilia spoke with relief as Petra pulled away from the hug and rubbed her eyes to clean the tears, "What happened to you though, how did you get here?" Emilia asked with a more concerned tone.
Petra would try to answer but found that as she tried to speak and remember what had happened, she found herself stopped, confused, her memory drawing a blank for a moment. "Uhhhh," Everything about the previous encounter was hazy and seemed like a distant dream to the young maid, "I, I don't remember how I got here, but there was someone." Her mind thoroughly rattled, and she couldn't even figure out why.
"Someone?" A curious look crossed Emilia's face.
"Y-yeah, uh, wait!" Petra quickly looked around, moving the blanket she had been wrapped up in; There was at least one thing she remembered.
"What are you doing?" Emilia asked as she reached out to grab Petra.
"There was a book!" Petra exclaimed as she scanned the cave floor, "Where is it?" She spoke aloud in a panic toned, believing that she had somehow lost the book.
"A book? Oh!" Petra turned around to Emilia in an instant and saw the book brought out into view.
"That's it! That's what the person gave me!" Petra exclaimed as she gently took it from Emilia's hand. The book's outer cover was made from leather that possessed a faded red hue that could easily be mistaken for a brown shade. Etched into what Petra assumed was the front of the book was a series of symbols she could not understand. The book also possessed a strap that held it closed.
Petra thought to pry it open now, but the gnawing sensation in the back of her mind told her it would be best to do so later. There were, after all, more important things to do.
"It must be reaallly important if this person gave it to you. Can you remember what they looked like, Petra?" Emilia snapped Petra's attention from the book, causing the young maid to look upon the half-elf once more.
"I," Petra hummed as she shifted from the book to the ceiling of the cave, deep in thought, her mind trying to picture what the stranger looked like, and, well, she found nothing. Her mind drew blank on the thought, "I don't remember." She said sadly to Emilia, "I... I don't remember much else, to be honest, and I had fallen pretty bad, and, and. I blacked out, I think. I can remember some things, but that is about it."
"It's alright if you can't remember. I'm just glad that you're safe. We were sooo worried about you." Emilia reassured the young maid as she gently grabbed Petra by the hand.
After that, the two would head on outside; the sun shined brightly, and Petra saw the rest of the Emilia Camp below in snow. It also dawned on Petra how high up the cave had been, as it turned out to be a several feet drop from the entrance to the snowy ground below. Petra would slowly make her way down the rocky pathway with Emilia, holding onto her hand as she feared the slightest of slips would cause her to fall once more. Slowly as they made their way closer to the base, Petra noticed that several arms poked through the snow along with bits of metal. She recognized them as the limbs of the creatures from that place. Petra's eyes narrowed as she looked on in concern, silently wondering if the stranger had made it out of the encounter okay.
Petra was briefly ripped from her thoughts and found herself buried in hugs from her friends; their voices flowed into her ears but Petra. Petra found herself looking back towards the mountain that she had descended from, the eye's gazing up at the entrance, the surroundings, part of hoped to see the stranger, but when nothing came into her sight, she looked to the bright sky, a smile growing across her face.
Oh, how hopelessly naive they all were. If only the rolling die were as just as merciful as the joy they felt.
/.\./.\
Araksis stood in the cold howling wind and gazed at the uncovered Eliksni corpses, houseless Eliksni, no markings to signify where they came from, little ether with them, had hatchlings amongst them, hatchlings were luckily safe now, on his Ketch. His grip tightened on Glory Seeker as he remembered one of the scouting parties coming back with the hatchlings, told him of this group of dead Eliksni, of a firefight breaking out soon after from an unknown foe.
Araksis let out a frustrated growl as his mind attempted to piece together what had unfolded.
One of the prey - If so, he regretted letting his prey get such a head start on them as it resulted in the needless death of defenseless Eliksni - Perhaps it was them; they had proven capable of fending off his crew? No, the wounds were smaller than the ones from his dead scout's. Which meant that it had to be a lightbearer with its little machine, but even then, that wouldn't make sense for them to be out here, in the middle of nowhere. Plus, too many human tracks headed southward; Araksis's mind sifted through the information presented to him; his scouts were unsure as they could not get an accurate look due to their prioritization of the hatchlings. Araksis narrowed his eyes in annoyance and let out another frustrated growl. Wisps of ether escaped from his mask. He continued to stare at the corpses and mulled over the options.
If it was one of the prey, that meant they had acquired a firearm in the relatively short time since this hunt started, but even then, that wouldn't explain the accuracy of the wounds. A lightbearer made more sense but still faced the problem of what they were doing out here-
Unless.
A smile grew on Araksis's face at the epiphany that descended on him. The answer wasn't either of them. Instead, it was a mixture of both. The prey had headed this way and came across a lightbearer, either one of the famed Pilgrim Guard or maybe one recently resurrected. Regardless of the status of the lightbearer was; clearly, they headed south, and Araksis knew that the south presented warmer climates for the prey. Araksis also knew that human settlements existed further south.
Thick wisps of ether escaped from Araksis's mask, a chuckle escaping his throat, perhaps letting his prey get a head start had been a good option after all. Not only had they given him good reason to drag out their deaths for their slaughter of houseless Eliksni who could barely defend themselves, but now they were with a lightbearer and headed for human settlements! Oh, the glory would be great, and with that glory, he could rise through the ranks and become one step closer to achieving his goal.
The Eliksni would rise again! Araksis would lead them as a Kell of Kells! They would-
The distant sound of engines grabbed Araksis from his thoughts; he turned from the corpses, looked to the night sky, and saw skiffs descend to his position. The hums of the engines grew louder as they drew nearer. In total, there were three skiff's each barring the symbols of another house.
Exile, Kings, Winter all descended onto Araksis.
A Devil.
It was time for this Devil to ready his hand.
Author's Note:
So that's the end of this chapter, sorry for the delay, life is shit as usual, and I have a harder time writing for Re:Zero characters than usual, uh mostly because they are that well written. The next chapter is going to take a bit because I am going to do some more chapters for Red Spartan, but hopefully, I should have them done soon enough.
Edit I just posted the wrong version a second ago, fixed it.