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It happened first on a wretched night, ill-starred and ill-fated. She left her bedchamber, her study, engulfed in mountains of scrolls and tablets that seemed to grow higher each time she returned. (She swore her husband had been adding to her piles, though she was generally inclined to blame him for most of her irritations as of late.) There was always so much work to do. Too much work to do. She had been studying the ancient texts on the Outer Gods. Old texts written in a familiar Numen hand, and even older Nokstellan texts, bathed in moonlight and crumbling at the edges– she was nothing if not eternally brazen. She was loath to call her research scheming. Scheming was for children, impertinent brats, and bitter subjects. She was not scheming. Merely… researching. Considering.
There were few places she could collect her thoughts and even fewer where she could truly rest. Any true tranquility had been difficult to find. But just outside, there was a balcony past winding paths and banisters of gold. And there was a settle where she could lie down and feel the wind, the cold, the night.
And so she fled, scroll in hand, to her only comfort.
But that night, the sky had no stars. The ether had looked upon her solely with the visage of the moon, full, dark, and bewitching. And instead of researching, considering, or collecting her thoughts, she watched the moon and its mass envelope the sky. And when it began to whisper to her, with gentle, clever words, she listened. Another error in judgment, following what had begun to be an uncomfortably long string of errors in judgment.
(But she had been so, so tired. And the night sky was far too tempting.)
And how sweetly it had sung to her—had spoken to her, sharp and sly. It cradled her body, lulling her to sleep with promises of deep rest.
And so she dreamed that night of an altar in a church. Pale hands and gentle eyes. Rennala, whispered Radagon’s voice, soft and loving. She was holding a body that was hers, that wasn't hers. They were together then and perhaps even happy, pulled together in the primeval current. They were still of the same mind, his fast asleep, spilling out into hers, overflowing, escaping, and invading. It was a leak, a crack in the bowl, speaking to her, screaming at her.
Her hands traveled up her sides. She held her, dark hair sweeping down her back, tears full of stars.
And she bared herself to her, pale and graceful. And at once, the crack grew larger.
It was a feeling that was not her own, a memory, an image she struggles to grasp now, beautiful and fragile. Her hands were on her neck. Starlight was falling from her eyes. She gripped her, and she broke like glass, shattering into beautiful amber pieces.
What a pitiful parting gift. He could never do enough.
A dream gone on for too long, watching her fall apart in both of their hands again.
Surely she was not that fragile of a creature, she thought bitterly. Moon, oh moon. She was, he echoed, always call-and-response. She was strong. And fragile. Fragile in all of the ways that mattered. Fragile enough to love and be loved. Fragile enough for it to break her. (When she was younger, all she hoped for was strength. The sublime power to move the land and its people as she wished. Now she has it, the power to shatter anyone, no matter how great, through her mind, hands, and hammer. And it is hollow and empty and thoughtless.)
When she awoke, the stars had returned to the sky, insincere and exaggerated. The moon had sunk back to its guileless state, plain and pale. Yet still, her hands ghosted her flesh, guiding her back to her quarters. (A mockery of a queen she is, sulking about in her own palace.) Her husband made not a sound that night when she laid herself down in bed. He spoke too much, felt too much, words and sentiment falling dizzily into her mind and her dreams. But in her wakefulness, he remained silent on the edge of her consciousness.
At first, she felt little. Apathy had threatened to take her for quite some time now. It has never been subtle. She had been a god queen before she was a mother or a wife. And she is a weapon and a tool before she is herself. Perhaps it is the Will’s way of placating her, stretching her heart so thin she cannot find the rage anymore. She is so far gone from who she once was. Perhaps It is being generous. Perhaps It is cold and calculating the same way the moon is.
She had visited the church in her dreams only once before, guided by the spirit of inquiry. She donned her veil and set out to Liurnia, moonlit land of mist and formerly blasphemous sorcery. Her journey was mostly uneventful, and she found the land recovering remarkably quickly from war. The church was a curious thing, quite small and sparsely decorated, save for a statue of a woman overlooking a pool of water. It was manned by an even more curious pastor, but one kind enough to humor her and all her questions.
The union of the Erdtree and the Moon. The joining of Lord Radagon and Lady Rennala. Radagon cleansing himself of his sin, in love, a miracle. Setting right what he had wronged in war. Atonement.
He had not atoned hard enough, she reflects.
She thanked him, and it seemed as if for a moment, he smiled at her. Perhaps even winked.
And she had left, head full of vows and marriage. Of bonds unbreakable.
What does she owe her husband? What even is he, to her, truly? (Are they in love?)
(Radagon had taken to calling her his better half recently, ostensibly out of spite. She had never thought of him as one much for irony, but he continues to surprise her.)
It was an exhausting line of thought. And so she carries on for a time, in a fragile state of balance, and the lands bring the expected cycle of sun and moon. She researches and studies, still never scheming. That is for her children, she decides with a feeling that must be nearing exasperation now. She is not scheming. One must be making plans to be scheming, and they must be underhanded ones at that. She is a gatherer of information, a mere student of texts that are obtainable to her with a modicum of effort. She is not a heretic simply for reading about the heretical.
She supposes that the point is a moot one to make when her husband lays his sword down to rest by her scrolls. It is an ugly thing, all glossy and dark. A wretched attempt at elegance, symbolizing the doctrine of the Order itself. Sometimes she has half a mind to smash it. (She’s almost certain the Order wouldn’t be particularly distressed.)
It was a gift from his wife. His first one.
“Thou wouldst do well to remember the one who hath given thee power,” he says. “It was an agreement of thine own making.”
She feels the beginning of a headache. It is not a threat coming from him. Something more akin to a gentle reminder, maybe even a plea. A plea from a man who does not know any better. How could he? All she has ever given him has been the Order, which he follows like an obedient hound. Maybe he exists to keep her in line. He stares down at her, patient and impassive.
Perhaps there is a saying about marriage here. Marriage is push and pull. Ebb and flow. I create messes, and he cleans them up.
He is mostly silent on the edge of her consciousness. A spiteful mood, perhaps. They seem to both be feeling more spiteful as of late.
Perhaps spite was the first crack in the bowl if thou will, he says.
I can still feel that at least, she thinks with grim satisfaction.
And much more than that too, it seems. The dark moon returns soon to remind her that there is more to her than indifference. There is wracking uncertainty and there is a budding desire now— for pale flesh, soft lips, and moonlit eyes. A desire continuously in the making.
How peculiar it is that she finds herself so desiring of a woman her eyes have never seen, her fingers have never touched. (But she has seen her. And she has touched her. And she has known her.)
His dreams begin to follow her. When she falls asleep in their bed, moonlight slips through the curtains, passing through the veil. And she tosses and turns and draws the curtains closed, more diligent each night. But she has already lost the battle, it seems. Moonbeams have already dug their way into her skull like parasites. (The properties of Glintstone. It must be a memory of Radagon’s, absentmindedly leafing through a textbook. Speaking in hushed tones with Rennala. Primeval sorcery in its rawest form can corrupt absolutely. Crystals buried into the skin. Worming their way into the brain.)
Every dream under the dark moon, she sees her clearer.
At first, it hardly resembles her. Feelings, memories, amorphous shapes, and colors. It is typical when she is seeing things through his eyes. This Rennala is not her own. And when she touches her and smiles at her, finally tangible, she is a dull creature. And it feels as if she is being mocked. Given a doll to play with, so wretchedly and undeniably fake. A cheap fantasy. She grits her teeth and lunges for her neck again. She does not gasp when she strangles her, only smiles and cries her same vacant tears. And she shatters again, but this time she is sharper, and Marika bleeds gold from broken glass, her tears still wet on her skin.
(She wonders why she dreams so often of Rennala in tears. Perhaps it is simply her paying internal recompense, karma from her psyche. Though, she considers wryly, if karma was truly a notion of any substance, she would have dropped dead quite a long time ago. It unsettles her and pleases her in equal parts to consider herself the bearer of such a righteous conscience. What a shame that Radagon cannot truly appreciate her newfound emotional cognizance. Though she thinks that surely Radagon must know.)
But these thoughts come only in her dreams, when he lies fast asleep. Undoubtedly, she is curious– curious if this desire is her own or merely a memory, an unwelcome side effect of their union. Bringing her dreams of a woman with a quiet smile and a scholarly gaze. Perhaps Rennala herself has cursed her, knowing the man she loved would assuredly betray her in spirit. She considered that this might happen when the two of them fractured and cleaved through the middle like wood. She left him incomplete. Floundering in this world with only half a heart.
(It was heart enough to love, it seems.)
Some nights, she knows he resents her. Other nights, she is certain he understands. Always, she knows he resents himself.
She wonders if she loves him. She hates him often, with unshakeable certainty. But all his failings are merely her own, a mirror of the child she once was and still is. Inevitably, he is a coward. He had to be from the start, to stay and listen and play the part, never straying too far from her. Inevitably, they both are. But she is biting at her chains, a jealous voyeur eager to hold and own and shatter what little he was able to make his own.
She thinks of his sword on the table. Poor form, truly. She can’t seem to stop thinking about that sword. She can’t even seem to stop thinking these days. Her mind is ever-flowing, in flames. Spilling out a cup, a crack in the bowl. She is ever present, ever aware. Two bodies at once. Two minds at once. Aching, wanting.
(Perhaps they both have cursed her, then.)
They have left her with something that will eat her whole-- burn her alive from the inside if she does not rip it out first. But when her hands dig inside her chest, she is so beautiful and hollow in the way only a god can be. This is all inside her mind now, a darling gift from hers truly.
And now she’s starting to feel an ugly urge to love her. To make right what she wronged. An ugly feeling beginning to take shape. (Something like guilt.)
It is as unfamiliar to her as it is gruesome.
She had always been familiar with anger. It lurked in the way her hands still itch for the hammer, the way in the dead of night she feels just like a child, a wretched wreck making a mess of everything out of spite. (She should know now. She has so many now, and if she stops to consider all that she has done, for them and to them, she may never sleep again. It is the grief of motherhood, the piercing agony of love she knows with complete certainty Rennala has felt every day since he left.)
So perhaps then, she is also familiar with love, however butchered the feeling within her may be.
Still, Rennala visits her at night through the moon. She wonders sometimes if she is the only one who sees it, impersonal and ever-thinking, almost monstrously sentient. Rennala holds her in her arms, cold hands stroking her. Without violence. With love. This Rennala is not just a doll, beautiful and pale. Tears roll down her cheeks, and Marika finds she cannot move. Only feel. Rennala stares down at her, expecting. It’s an apology this Rennala needs. But Marika will not say she is sorry. She cannot. And so they lay like this, tangled up in each other. Rennala holds her with a loving smile, but she will not stop crying.
She won’t admit that it frightens her. But a wretched part of her has begun to look forward to this. She wants what she can’t have. What she has taken away from herself. What she has taken away from others. Maybe she wants comfort. Maybe she wants justice. Rennala runs her fingers through her hair.
Beautiful Rennala and her beautiful children. (Is it true that they love each other?) She hears stories of them often. Radagon seeks them out, collecting tales and rumors of his children like a lover collecting flowers, to present them to her in a stunning bouquet. Maybe he does it out of resentment. Though perhaps he presses some of them, keeping them close to his chest, protected in his mind. He deserves that much, at least.
Are they grateful that she has lifted them to godhood? That she has declared them worthy heirs and offered them seats by her throne? Or do they each despise her so entirely for what she has done to their mother? For what she has done to their father? She could lie to herself and say she doesn’t know the answer. She has gotten so terribly excellent at lying.
Poor Rennala and her poor children. No one emerges from this game of gods unscathed. They were all inevitable casualties, truly. Whether they knew it or not.
Some nights she imagines Rennala speaking to her. Thanking her, worshiping her. Sometimes cursing her, screaming at her. And sometimes the only thing that leaves her is wracked sobs. She’s heard the rumors of her current state. The things they say of Rennala’s weakness. Undoubtedly the Will is not done with her yet. It makes her sick. (She pities her and chastises herself. What does she truly know of her, beyond half-formed memories of a self that is hardly even her own anymore?)
Nothing, Radagon whispers to her one night. Thou’rt eternally unknowing of her.
It does not sting when he speaks to her, for he thinks he is only telling the truth. And perhaps a part of it is true– these dreams of her are becoming her own, glintstone crystals buried deep inside her skull. But maybe, in the way he has known her, she has known her as well. She has laid with her, comforted her, and watched her bring life into the world, as an inescapable thought in Radagon’s mind. An ever-present whisper in his ear.
The thought that he is wrong brings some comfort to her. At the very least, it assuages her guilt. It is less painful to think that their separation was a painful necessity, a decision that hurt her just as much, rather than a cold, calculated decision from a cold, calculated woman. It aches, though truthfully she cannot tell if she is deluding herself into believing she loved her. If she is deluding herself into believing that she still does love her.
(But maybe she does love her! Maybe she has always loved her!)
Those thoughts fill her with such dizzying euphoria that she decides that perhaps it is quite alright if they are lies.
Rennala speaks to her now sometimes, with gentle words and quiet observations. (Surely ideas and research she has conducted herself, assigning themselves to Rennala.) Still, it pleases her to converse with her, however constructed their talks may be. She is getting close to perfect now, perhaps not a perfect recreation, but she does not need a recreation of the Rennala that was Radagon’s. All she needs is the one of her own making, marvelous and moonstruck, who kisses her gently and tells her of the stars.
She pictures Rennala next to her in daylight, body pressed to hers, long fingers running through her hair and thumbing through her texts, brow furrowed in thought. It’s a fantasy that sustains her these days.
(Rennala brings her mouth to hers and kisses her with such dizzying sweetness. She is warm now, gathering her in her arms, pulling her close to her still-beating heart. She wonders if she can fall asleep in a dream.)
She welcomes her now as a lover in her dreams, something that is neither Rennala’s workings nor Radagon’s. Something that is her own. Sacred and shameful, a wound she cannot stop reopening. It is an inevitable casualty.
Under the moon, Rennala, wife beloved, and woman broken, grabs her neck. Her eyes are tight and glassy, tears gathering below as if merely by reflex. Her smile is beautiful and joyous, growing wider by the moment. Her hands are so, so firm and she has never felt such hunger and such guilt in equal measures. Rennala’s grip tightens, and she shatters into a million golden pieces.