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It was a difficult thing to swallow, a choking hazard that clung to her nose and throat, a sickly, cloying scent that filled her sense with nothing but sickly sweet dread. Slick meat, flesh torn apart, the lining of the stomach queasy and malleable and horrifyingly warm beneath her shaking fingers. And also, gut-wrenchingly, horrifyingly empty, too.
It writhed, jiggled faintly as it was tugged frantically against the floor of the dungeon, sloshing in a disgusting sac of flesh. Illogical reasoning, Marcille pleaded with her heart and mind, silently whimpering as Laios sat shoulder to shoulder with her, crouched down to pull the stomach open further, hoping to find just a sign of Falin. A hair, a staff, and eye (not an eye, please...) that maybe she was still in one piece. Still veins greeted them, running throughout the interior of the stomach, slick and smelling faintly of sulphur and cooked meat.
Scarred, ripped, torn asunder. The stomach of the red dragon, pulled out of its guts and spread bare before them, was undoubtably empty. Marcille's eyes burned, glossy like a doll's, and something wriggled grossly in her own stomach. Her fingers curled into the fabric of her dress, shaking, trembling, stained red and stinging faintly from whatever acid the beast churned. One deep inhale, a sense of professionalism took over, and Marcille stood without a sound.
"Let's check the intestines, too." Words solemn, brow set forward. They'd come this far, and her hands were already slick with blood and digestive juices, nothing that a slight imbue of magic couldn't fix.
Chilchuck had once mentioned that there had been a case of an adventurer being resurrected from nothing but dung. At the time, it had made Marcille want to barf and scold him, a sense of disbelief ringing in her pointed ears. It was ridiculous, sheer nonsense, and nothing that regular magic would be able to fix, especially if there was nothing more than a single hair to bring them back from. Now, here? Wading into the literal belly of the beast with a few orbs of light hovering around her head like an ominous halo? Marcille hoped, prayed to whatever god was listening, that the ancient tombs she'd spent all her time hunched over reading, would have an answer that allowed her to do such as Chilchuck's story.
"Not even a single bone in here..." She breathed an anxious sigh, voice shaking and wavering ever so slightly. Scores, ribbons as thick as tree trunks sprawled around the, curving and twining, draped carelessly over the back talons of the fallen beast. Sliced harshly down the middle, oozing, pulled from the door-shaped slab of meat carved from the creature's underbelly, only to reveal nothing left in the pink mess, nothing but peeling skin and rubbery innards. Marcille bit back the bile rising in her throat, and suddenly, the knowledge that she was definitely going to eat flesh from this beast only partially satisfied the little monster screaming in her chest. Revenge.
"I need to hurry and check its dung!" A last ditch effort. Marcille careened forward, unstable on her feet, yet determined nonetheless. Horrified, grieving, yet still meddled with grumpiness, Chilchuck grappled with her dress and wrestled her back. They both knew it was no use.
"Maybe it digested faster because it was moving around." Laios' voice was shockingly calm, and that in of itself felt like an insult. Eyes wide, faintly tinged with despair, yet, glimmering with something Marcille was too angry, too torn apart to even pick at.
A hand on Marcille's shoulder, muddied with blood just like her own, and a careful tone in his voice.
"Hang on."
And like that, he disappeared into the sweltering depths of the dead dragon, Kensuke at his hip, armour clanking faintly as he pushed himself from the scaled flesh walls and further inwards.
Instead of bile dripping from her mouth, tears dripped from her eyes. Faint, raindrops down her cheeks, died red with the blood of the fallen dragon. She staggered and almost fell back, shaking her head. It was hard to think over the pounding of her own heart, frantically, tips of her ears flushed red as her vision swam. Quiet, choking sobs underlined by the sound of metal against metal, something heavy dragging along wet meat, and then brick, and then Laios was back as soon as he was gone.
Back bent, head dipped forward, grunting in the effort and strain it took for him to heave whatever he had dug up from the dragon's swiftly emptying insides, the tall-man shook his head and faced the bloodied group.
Not a single word was shared, only confused, sceptical, and even hopeful glances directed at one and other, but mostly at Laios. Laios, unsheathing Kensuke, tip of the blade drawn in one clean swipe across whatever sac of flesh he'd scrounged, watching it deflate with unusually cold eyes.
A rancid smell clogged their senses, each of them jolting and shaking, but otherwise standing firm against the wave of heat and smell of singed hair and burnt skin that wafted over them, blood pooling at their feet.
"What is this?" Marcille mumbled, numb to the feelings raging inside her gut and heart. Chilchuck next to her gagged, voice strained, fingers pinched over his noise in a desperate attempt to quash the queasy feeling growing in his gut.
"A giant clump of hair and bones." Laios, voice tipped with dread, explained. "Animals that swallow their prey whole spit out the indigestible parts all at once."
It conjured up an image of Falin that Marcille never wanted to see again. Caught between two giant teeth, gut split in two, fang through her middle and no doubt crushing her femur and spine and ribcage in one, swift blow. And yet, Marcille remembered so vividly, so clearly, that her eyes were calm. Calm as they could be, still squinted with her lips parted in a faint smile, moving soundlessly, only to be replaced by a blinding light.
Marcille shook her head, the insinuation of Laios' words churning her got horribly. Hair and bones, not flesh and blood, not skin and sinew and veins or ligaments. Just bones.
"Judging by this black fur," Laios crouched, finger trailing through the muck and grime of the dragon's fuel sac with nary a grimace, "looks like it ate a few Wargs, and..."
A glimmer of hope, a spark of recognition, quashed by the underlying improbability of it all - A single, gold thread of hair. Tangled, wet, covered in blood, but a messy blonde smudge that Marcille would recognise with a single glance.
"Could it be...?" Her voice was breathless, sore and stiff warbling from her throat. There was no denying it, she knew, but she just had to make sure.
Laios gave her a look.
"Let's sort through it."
Senshi and Chilchuck spared each other a glance, nodded once, before joining the two on the ground, creating a circle around the swamp-ish mess sprawled out in front of them, grimacing once when their fingers dug into clogged fur, knuckles bumping against bones, and face set into firm frowns.
It squelched uncomfortably beneath their palms, soft and squishy and wet, coarse with hair, slick with some unidentifiable liquid, and it stuck to their skin and melded with the drying dragon's blood smeared across their hands. Faint shivers, skittering up and down spines. Laios' lips quivered in a grimace. Marcille's brow twitched in discomfort. Chilchuck didn't even bother to try and hide the disgusted scowl twisting across his face, and Senshi took everything in stride, expression covered by his bloodied beard.
A faint grunt from Chilchuck, his nimble fingers stilling as his face contorted in some amalgamation of emotions.
"Hey, isn't this rod...?" Shakily, he held up a warped piece of metal, slick with blood, bent, topped with an ornate lamp head. Stuck with old Warg hair, stained with crimson, yet each of them knew exactly who it belonged to at just a single glance.
With tentative fingers, Marcille took it from the half-foot. Holding it felt like holding Falin, in a way, quelling the furious fire scorching her chest for just a second, dulling the sharp sting of grief, only making her grip grow tighter, skin whitening beneath the sheen of blood.
"Laios! Look!" Her voice cracked. In excitement, in fear, in desperation. A hodgepodge of feelings, fighting and clawing and ripping her poor heart into pieces as she waved the staff in the direction of the hunched over man. Shoulders stiffly drawn together, cradling something in front of his face. Marcille couldn't see, but something twinged in her gut. Fear. A palpable sense of dread washed over her senses, dulling the noises in her ears, taking her mind some place far away.
...
"Fa-... Falin...?"
Laios tilted slightly, gloved hands ever so gently cupping a bloodied skull, nestled by his fingers like a baby bird.
Ice water. It was the only way to describe the feeling that flooded her system, reaching into every nook and cranny with sharp fingers, digging into her heart, twisting it cruelly. Eyes wide, hands pink with rawness and blood, and face contorted in some manner of anguish as the sight was revealed to her eyes. Marcille gulped like a fish, throat closed off.
"Falin..."
She didn't even care about the sinew and hair and much ruining her hands, only that she cupped them to her lips to stop the shriek bubbling up in her chest.
"Can she even be revived after all that?" Senshi's voice, gruff with exhaustion, pain, some indescribable feeling that wasn't exactly grief, but similar to despair all the same. He blinked wearily at the shared torment between Laios and Marcille.
"I've heard that it's been done before, but..." Chilchuck grimaced, floundering in the stew of his own feelings as he searched for any possible silver lining.
Laios only wavered once, before almost crumbling to the floor, sweeping his arms and collecting as many bones as he possibly could, bundling them in his arms like the world would fight to steal them.
"Hey, Laios! What are you-?" Chilchuck turned, stepped forward, only to be cut off numbly.
"The resurrection office." Laios mumbled, words faintly slurred as he cradled Falin's skull against the curve of his chest plate. "They'll know what to do."
"Are you planning on taking everything?" Chilchuck frowned, lips pinched into a thin line. "But aren't Warg bones mixed in there too?"
"It's... Hard to tell them apart." Laios swallowed, voice thick with grief. Marcille tottered, eyes brimming. Chilchuck's faint offer for help snapped her out of whatever emotionally numb stupor she was stunned into, heartstrings plucked painfully as she stumbled forward, Ambrosia clutched firmly in her hand.
"Wait!" Bordering on a cry, but it made Laios and Chilchuck pause. "The line between the soul and body is fragile right now - You shouldn't move her."
She stepped forward, scraping her shoes against the blood-stained bricks, over strewn intestines.
"The more damaged the body is," And Falin was badly damaged," the weaker the soul's bond. When a resurrection fails, it's usually because the soul separated too far, or because the body wasn't fully restored."
She felt like one of her books, parroting a line she was sure she'd read in school. A phantom of Falin's touch against her arm, and Marcille flinched like she'd been burned.
"Then what do we do?" Laios, through gritted teeth, stared at her pleadingly.
"We go get a revival specialist and revive her here." Marcille mumbled, brain mulling and churning, thoughts and ideas sprinkling over each wrinkle.
"But..." A single sigh. She clutched Ambrosia tighter. "The restoration requires more than twice the amount of calories for the damaged parts... So, we'd also need to bring a lot of fresh meat for it to work."
Her ears twitched, wiggled faintly, and her eyes settled on the blood across her palms. Or...
"It would rot on the way down, wouldn't it?" Chilchuck was right, but Marcille mind was already four steps ahead, as was, apparently, Laios'.
"Hang on." He held his arm out, shared a stony look with Marcille.
"Yes." The elf nodded, face cresting in something numb, something blank, something stern. "We have a large amount of fresh meat right here in front of us."
Chilchuck paused, furrowed his brow, and took an accusatory step closer to her. "You're gonna resurrect her with dragon meat?" He shook his head, teeth grit in a frown. "Reviving isn't even your specialty."
Marcille couldn't spare him a look, tracing the contours, the blood soaked fat, the sharp red scales, and the sheer density of the calories in front of her.
"What I specialise in?" She tilted her head slightly, eyes partially obscured by loose locks of hair. "What I specialise in is ancient magic. Its use is frowned upon, but..." She glanced longingly at the collection of bones, eyes pinched ever so slightly. "Using it to revive Falin... It's our best option."
"Black magic?" Senshi crossed his arms, lowered his head and brandished his horned helmet in thought, almost like an animal about to charge. "That stuff is evil."
"Magic doesn't have morality." She almost felt ashamed. Almost. Chilchuck's horrified inhale, gasp, resonated with her, but this was Falin, and Marcille couldn't care.
"Well, Laios?" She turned to the tall-man. "It's your choice." It wasn't. Marcille would do this alone, behind their backs, if she had to.
A breath of silence, widened amber eyes, the colour of burning metal, so similar yet so different, narrowed in turn.
"Please do it, Marcille. Bring my sister back from the dead."
"All right then." She dipped her head. "I'll try."
"Are you guys insane?" She was certain that if he could, Chilchuck might've snapped Ambrosia right in two. "Using dragon meat of all things!"
"Goat and pig are what people would normally use for this." There was a sense of fury seething in her heart, schooled behind cold eyes. "But we don't have that right now."
She didn't wait, didn't care for anyone else's response, and merely turned with a flourish, the hem of her dress lifting and twirling despite the blood soaked into the fabric. Ambrosia crooked against the hide of the dragon, and Senshi's mithril knife pressed against her left palm, the fear that came with the inevitable pain was far outweighed by the fear of Falin's death.
Clean cut, sharp, blinding, and she could see how it would be able to cut through dragon scales. Winced once, brow creased, and exhaled slowly. Grab Ambrosia, Marcille, and draw the circle.
Time blurred, her head felt startlingly light, and the runes and characters all to easy to draw, like she was tracing the contours of the back of her hand. A swoop, and line through, a circle, and an eye, drawn each in line with an almost perfect circling, blood stained into the stone and imbued with mana from Ambrosia's thread. There was a faint ringing in her ears, and her skin tingling like pins and needles plagued her entire being. Marcille grit her teeth, and swallowed the taste of raspberries.
"First things first..." She mumbled, tongue all too heavy in her mouth. "I'd like to put the body back in its original shape." Blinked once, the world felt dizzy. Marcille shook her head, reached down, and cradled Falin's skull in her blooded palm.
"I'll start assembling her skeleton."
"That makes sense." There was a flash of something in Laios' eyes, fuelled by the glint of steadfast determination. "I'm familiar with canine skeletons. So I'll work on putting the Wargs together."
It felt nice to have an ally in this. Marcille ignored the holes being burned into her shoulder blades by Senshi and Chilchuck, placing Falin's skull down with tenderness, almost as if afraid it'd crumble the moment it touched the ground.
"That's kind've unnecessary, isn't it?" The half-foot barked, narrowing his eyes at Laios. Laios glared, huffed, and snapped right back.
"Not if it helps up avoid mixing something and making dumb mistakes!"
It hurt her to use her hand, the stinging edges of the wound felt like fire, pulsed faintly, flexed and rippled as her muscles worked, fingers gently pulled all the bones they'd found into a pile. Four figures, hunched in a circle, lit by a handful of candles from Senshi's pack, grimaced at each other.
"Humans have around two hundred bones..." Marcille sighed, mentally searching through the pile, picking out which bones belonged to Falin, and which to the Wargs. Tracing curves, pulling out the vertebrae that fixed and bent too much to be a human's spine, and hummed.
"Then we're looking at about... eight hundred and forty bones in total." Laios finished for her, a Warg skull held in his palms, fingers tracing the canine teeth.
"How'd you know that?" Chilchuck picked at what looked like a tail-bone, thinned, vertebrae running along the top, and tapered out.
"Well, dogs have about three hundred and twenty bones, and there are two skulls here, so it's easy maths."
They started with the most recognisable ones, fixing Falin's ribcage to the centre of the circle.
They were coarse, the bones, porous, filled with faint divots and bumps and dips that Marcille couldn't help but trace the pads of her fingers over, committing every flaw, every curve and every joint to her very long, very sharp memory. A slight weight that varied from bone to bone. Heavy in her palm was one half of Falin's femur, but the small phalanges that made up Falin's hand felt no heavier than the little nuts and berries a much younger, much smaller Falin might've brought her, like her very own little crow. Sweet, quiet, a little gift giver, eyes squinted, face muddied but ever so happy to present her only friend the treasures and trinkets she found.
A bittersweet memory. Marcille swallowed roughly, feeling every glob of saliva run down her throat painfully, teeth gritting together to staunch the waves of nausea rolling from her innards.
Feather-light in one hand, heavy in the other. Marcille set Falin's bones carefully aside, not to get them mixed with the Warg's Laios was so excitedly scrounging through.
...
It wasn't that hard, lithe fingers trailing over the curve of Falin's broken femur, slotting the two pieces back together like perfect puzzle pieces. She'd already memorised Falin's exterior to a 't', popping every little detail into fine containers of her brain - The way her hair ruffled, the glint of amber in her eyes that always shone like rich honey, the little nicks and scars and blemishes covering her otherwise perfect skin, the roundness of her apple-red cheeks, the furrow in her brow and the crease lines from her constant squinting. All of these were little things that made up Falin Touden, and now, Marcille got to learn her from the inside out, too, got to learn the inner workings of the cleric, her interior.
The smoothness of her eye sockets, the roundness of each joints, the faint cracks and mars and lines from old injuries that had come and gone, each small, tiny bone that slotted together to make her in-step and her knuckles and her wrists, the jagged points of her nasal cavity. All of it. The curve of each of her ribs, the ridges in her spine, the kindness that seemed to radiate from the collection of bones, the way the skeletal system almost seemed to smile at her, though never squinted without her eyelids. Each hollow, light, clank as she slotted each piece of her together, it felt as if this was something she was made to do.
For all intents purposes, this was a perfect skeleton settled right in front of her. Nestled peacefully, unknowingly, on the brick flooring of the dungeon, almost like she was taking a nap. Bones a stark, healthy white colour, and, by Senshi's words, 'seems she had a good calcium intake'. The illusion, however weak and brief it was, was broken and shattered in front of the elf's eyes, surrounded by sigils and words and letters and meanings that only Marcille could properly convey. Her palm stung, slick with blood, yet also flaky, Ambrosia's wood-twined shaft a comforting weight against her violently trembling hands. Mind blank, nothing but darkness and the taste of bittersweet raspberries coating the inside of her mouth, filling every crevice till it was more akin to nausea than fruit. Inhale once, then exhale, let the words flow free from her lips.
"O Pilitsham..." She winced, Ambrosia's faint root system writhing against the floor, elf blood spilling and sinking, twining against the sigils, tracing them out.
"O Esdoms. O Villaru. Casuszameo Rotokt Artumcuks."
It slithered, for lack of a better word, blood tendrils creeping toward Falin's innocent skeleton, hesitating once like a creature, before wrapping around her bones greedily.
"O Kunquikeo. Eoktum Kome."
She could hear the others' nervousness, shoes scraping, the sound thudding dully in her ears, but nothing beyond that.
"Tumae Elm Finktow Kemesfo. Aoewauk Aentujon."
Flesh bubbled and boiled, hissed, seeped from the dragon, rolled in chunks in unison with Marcille's blood, and joined the fray. Calorie dense indeed.
"Tumao Elm Finktow Kemesfo. Aoewauk Aentujon."
It writhed, back arching, blood forming flesh, and flesh forming skin. Muscles contracting, veins pulsing, ichor bubbling. Its mouth opened like it craved oxygen. Tossing, squirming, jaws biting at the air sluggishly.
"Aoewauk Aentujon..." Her mind faltered, went blank, and her body failed and fell, collapsing with her hair sprawled around her, torn free from the messy bun she'd pinned it in, barely catching the tail end of her name being called. Ambrosia clattered mutely, leaking crimson stains.
It hurt, to open her eyes. To think, really. Her brain felt like it was squirming in her skull, sharp rattlings of pain tapping politely against the interior of her cranium. Someone was shaking her shoulder, calling her name, rousing her from whatever magic endused fainting spell she'd cast upon herself.
"Marcille!"
"Falin!"
She choked once, jolted upwards with fear seizing her system, ears twitching as her world went from mute darkness to bloody dungeon in a matter of moments. There was only one thought on her mind.
"How's Falin?"
"Alive and well." Laios seemed warm, face eased. Peaceful. Marcille jolted, craning her neck harshly to the side.
Falin started back, hunched over, red from head to toe like she'd been dipped in blood. Or rather, more accurately, carved from pure flesh. Her eyes were the only thing that stood out, rich honey, bright amber, a colour that made Marcille's heart screech happily despite the dazed and confused look on the woman's face. Heel against the stone, Marcille pivoted on point, tears seeping from her eyes, and launched herself avariciously.
"Falin!"
And then there they were, sprawled among a mess of gummy intestines strewn messily across the cobblestone floor, washed in a lake of blood. Bodies slick, skin red, and clothes soaked. Marcille could still feel the stray flesh caught beneath her now cracked nails, palms slathered in crimson ichor, fresh wound pulsating painfully, a sensation itchy and flaky like her skin was sloughing off in rough patches, harsh, thick and ridged like the scales of the beast she’d pulled the beautiful collection of bones from. And yet, with her hair loose and unruly and so utterly bloodied and wild and tossed around her shoulders, slipping down the slope of her back, she could hardly bring herself to care, flinging herself into the embrace of what was lost, now is found. Found, and, much like herself, covered in blood.
Falin was so utterly warm, a blazing inferno that sought refuge in her heart, a little dazed, eyes squinted with a confused look on her apple-round face, but even she still found the desire to reach her arms shakily, weakly upwards, ever so slightly, to do her best to accept the sudden, careening embrace wrapped so thoroughly around her middle. Her skin wet almost immediately, this time, not from the blood that had been cleared from her own airways, spewing from her mouth with rivulets of saliva, but rather, the viscous tears rolling down Marcille’s scuffed cheeks, lips parted as she weakly, numbly, let Falin’s name roll off her tongue in careful sobs.
"Falin..." Marcille sniffled roughly, pressed her face greedily into the rough blanket draped around Falin's shoulders, and pressed herself further into the woman's stomach. "I'm so glad..."
Her ear bent awkwardly as she hoisted herself upwards, pressing the side of her face against the curve of Falin's left breast, stilling her own breathing in favour for the pulsation of Falin's heartbeat, letting it ring and jostle her head ever so slightly. Fingers tenderly brushed against the small of her back, scratching at the fabric, and holding on for dear life. Tears snaking down her cheeks, over the tip of her nose, Marcille kept her arms wrapped firmly around the dazed, bloodied tall-man, daring the world to try and take her a second time.
It was a comforting sensation, slotting their bodies together, a familiar one. It made the elf's mind flutter, fog up, and drift away to simpler times, days where the most she had to worry about was the next test, or whatever mischief Falin had undoubtably gotten into when she was supposed to be in class. Marcille yearned to turn back time, to have one more afternoon where the two would be peacefully co-existing in their own little dungeon, where Marcille would be working away at whatever little project she had tucked under her wing, and where Falin would be scribbling away at whatever letter she intened for her brother. Marcille yearned for the sweet taste of Autumn raspberries on her tongue, and the sweet warmth of Falin dozing in her lap.
"Marcille?" And yet, glancing up, hearing Falin's quiet, hoarse voice, the elf could only reach up dainty fingers to wipe the blood away from Falin's eyes, and fruitlessly try and catch the moment between her palms.