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The campfire’s crackling dance had long since come to an end. Little more than a dimly red afterglow of coals amidst the smoking ashes remained. Cinders were scattered with every gentle breeze brushing through the pit, before they faded into the dark of night. No wood was left to feed the flames, no breath to fan them, and no stars above to measure the passing of time.
Still, the sight before them granted some peace, while it lasted.
Lost in her own thoughts, Gillian was slowly stirring the embers. In their stead, she would have preferred the continual golden shine of a Site of Grace to accompany them until the very end. They’d always provided comfort, not through warmth, but through guidance and rejuvenation. As manifestations of Queen Marika’s divine essence, she’d believed them to be eternal, too.
Alas, with the Erdtree burnt down to its roots and subsequent turns of events, their light was largely snuffed out. Those who refused the embrace of encroaching oblivion were a mere handful of souls. Nature itself, from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky, was slowly but surely succumbing to the spreading blights.
One such individual clinging to life through sheer obstinacy was sat opposite of her. An old acquaintance by the name of Istvan, a knight who became Tarnished himself. Against all odds, his purpose and sense of self survived every single hardship he’d been met with. His scaled armour told countless tales of battles fought, of ferocity and fervour, of frenzy and fealty. The metal was so dulled and dirtied, not an inch reflected the glow between them.
His legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap, he was regarding Gillian’s listless motion for a while.
“What is it?” she asked absent-mindedly.
Equally forlorn in the night, Istvan’s gaze trailed up her bare arm to a face framed by tousled, honey-coloured locks. Golden eyes were peering back at him from underneath a curly fringe.
“I was just reminiscing” he replied.
Gillian hummed and pushed the poker deeper into the ash.
“Would you care to indulge me?”
The dry chuckle he let out sounded more like a softened huff.
“Should it please you, I shall. My lord.”
She couldn’t make much of his expression, nor the rather weary smile he gave.
“Twould please me more, if you did not call me so.”
He was well aware.
“Unspoken or not, the truth it remains” he shrugged.
Obviously.
They had no need to argue. Gillian fulfilled the god-given charge. She ascended the throne and took on the mantle of Elden Lord. She mended the Elden Ring and ushered forth a new Age of Order. To what extent? The circumstances spoke for themselves. In fact, they couldn’t have been further from the supposed perfection she envisioned. Death blight and scarlet rot were locked in a ceaseless contest to claim the world whole. The grim future thus portended was an eternal reign of night.
But, their lord she was. Everyone was saying so. A lord of the ashes, to a god turned stone.
“Wrought and signed by my own hand” she uttered remorsefully, “may your thoughts be kinder than mine.”
Anything was better than watching the light fade and be pulled along, if only in spirit. Their hope undeniably was dwindling, yet neither dared relinquish however little remained a moment too soon. Not in utter despair, let alone to a lapse of weakness. Surrender was not an option, after all they had endured.
Another breeze brushed over them, bringing with it the nocturnal chill. Istvan reached for a drifting ember. The spark dimmed in his palm.
“In all this ruin, I find one instance worth recalling.”
Gillian wanted to hear it. She leaned back, one hand in the damp grass, the other leisurely on her thigh.
“Once upon a time, when rays of gold bathed our home” he began, “I came to a conclusion. That beyond all reasonable contest, you, my dear Gillian, were the most trying creature to ever walk beneath the Erdtree.”
Such was a title she bore with greater pride than that of Lord.
“Twas in our formative years, when you still possessed your juvenile talent for appearing wholly unimpressed by matters that rightfully ought to inspire awe.”
Or caution, more often than not. The instances in which either applied to her character were plentiful.
“We’d been traversing Liurnia’s lakes for a day’s time. If memory serves, we were on our return from the capital to Stormveil Castle. You had made out a particular spot by the eastern shoreline, where we were to set up camp.”
Somewhere in the shade of the trees, shielded from the burning-bright sun and the coming thunderstorm during the night.
“As Her Grace willed it, our endeavour was nigh foiled by one of those enormous brutes. A mountain clad in fur, with sharpened claws, a maw of an unfathomable dimension and an untamed temper to match. Upon noticing the two of us on horseback, a banquet presented to still its hunger, it rose to its hind legs with such terrible grandeur, that we all should have afforded it due respect.”
Gillian heard their earth-shattering roars in the back of her head. A distant echo, end even then, still troublesome.
“You laid your sight upon it.”
In the same manner, Istvan looked at her. Fearless. Steadfast. Prepared to fight, with a flicker of ferocity glimmering in his irises. The instinctive stance of a warrior met with a challenge. Neither were strangers to the situation they found themselves exposed to, but Gillian had often taken her hunger for battle a step further. Or back.
“Then, you merely sighed.”
As did he. Not dramatically, nor heroically, but as though having to draw a breath was a thing briefly forgotten.
“I inquired as to your intentions.”
He straightened his back and looked her dead in the eyes, mimicking her attitude with surprising accuracy. With his raspy voice, he repeated her exact words:
“away with it, I suppose.”
A part of her hadn’t changed at all.
“I thought you jested, thus I proposed the alternatives. We might avoid the creature, employ stealth or exercise ourselves in the art of patience, until the grounds were clear.”
All the sensible solutions to a problem they were, despite everything, ill-equipped to handle.
“... You listened with commendable composure, I must say.”
Was she? Right now, she was.
Istvan paused and rearranged himself to having one knee tucked up and the other leg stretched out.
“Ere my heart had taken another beat, you had charged forwards.”
Ever so slightly, he twitched. The small fright was long gone, yet the memory of a day, when they were still young and runebears posed a greater threat, was ever vivid.
“I recall thinking to myself, that perhaps I misunderstood your nature. That you possessed some innate immunity to pain I knew not about.”
From an early age, she was well capable of taking a punch. Naturally, she felt pain, each blow, every sting, all the aches in all their severity. If they did not spurn her on, she learned to fight through them with gritted teeth, but she also knew to heed their warnings, lest her life became unduly forfeit.
“The beast, meanwhile, appeared equally astonished at some two-legged squirt coming running towards it with her axe aloft, her mouth agape and her cape billowing behind her.”
What better way was there to announce and embolden than by unleashing a thunderous war cry? Istvan would have agreed, though he was more of the kind showing quiet resolve.
“Were it possible, I would believe its expression conveyed something approximating ‘surely not’.”
He and the runebear, they must have shared the thought.
“My words of advice scarce crossed my lips. Your axe had already embedded itself somewhere above its shoulder.”
Take the spear, attack from below!
Something of greater reach would have been most handy. Istvan carried one for that very reason, but she was too keen on settling the matter armed with what she had – her weapon, her determination and her budding strength.
He found the haft of Gillian’s current weapon half-buried in the grass next to her. By then, the cinders' gleam was so weak, he only spotted it by the faint glow its enchantment emitted.
“I should note, your axe remained firmly in the runebear’s flesh.”
Much to everyone’s dismay.
“And was swiftly absconded with.”
In a playfully sullen manner, he lowered his head.
Regretful as the instance was; Right now, Gillian was fondly looking back. With all the dignity of a knight, Istvan cleared his throat and deliberately breathed through.
“I was yet to process the scene, when a spectacle unlike any other I have witnessed throughout my whole existence unfolded.”
As if to trace the edges of a large canvas, he raised his hands.
“A grand picture, painted in most vibrant colours, forever ingrained into my memory. Of a mighty runebear, rightfully feared and arduously fought, being pursued by a furious maiden.”
He closed his left hand to a fist to represent the beast. With his right, he motioned the little warrior chasing after, his fore- and middle-finger being her short legs. Brave and bold she was, indeed.
“... Who was loudly demanding the return of her property” he continued, his shoulders shaking slightly with amusement.
That’s mine! Foul beast, return at once!
So her voice bellowed through Liurnia’s afternoon forest.
“That hairy, thieving miscreant” Gillian wheezed, “I could hardly let it escape.”
Her axe was a gift from her father, who would have not taken too well to her losing it, not even to a runebear.
Exhausted from the memory itself, Istvan lifted his hands higher to rub his temples.
“I must confess, I had not previously known these monstrous beasts to reconsider their choices.”
“It fled out of bewilderment” she stated, convinced this was the only plausible explanation.
Of that, he was equally certain.
“I remained where I stood, perhaps to reconcile the contradiction before my eyes. A creature capable of sundering castle gates somehow became prey.”
She smirked.
“At a distance, it thought itself safe from all harm.”
A big mistake. She was no one to give up, she never had been.
“When the horses were under my control once more, I began my search to pick up your track. By all good graces, I would not have left you to your fate, Gillian.”
She knew and she appreciated him for everything he was. A brother in arms. He cared about her, and he definitely did not want to end up having to explain what happened to his companion, were she to perish.
Istvan straightened his back, more out of instinct to compose himself. He had no need to lecture her. Above all, he was well glad they both still lived, after everything they’d been through. What more could he have asked for?
“Half an hour later, we reunited. You were muddied, dishevelled and bleeding, yet triumphant.”
Standing upright, as best as she could have.
“... Bearing your axe, as well as a chunk of a beehive, dripping with honey.”
He paused again. Maybe he was waiting for Gillian to finally reveal her secret, but her lips, though curved and so very eager to part into laughter, stayed sealed.
“Thus I asked whence the honey came from.”
Putting in his best effort to stay serious, he pulled his other knee up, to the degree his armour allowed him to. Again, he borrowed her voice:
“the bear offered a treaty. The honey, alongside the axe, in exchange for its life.”
The same initial look of perplexity spread over his features.
“To this day, I am wondering. I know not why or how any of this played out. Whether the bear willingly conceded or whether you broke into its pantry, in its absence, and the bees were but a diplomatic casualty.”
He waved his hands dismissively.
“I deemed it prudent to judge.”
Gillian copied his motion.
“So, you simply accepted the treat.”
“Aye, I did. Twas most succulent.”
Indeed, the spoils of her venture made the rest of their day a little sweeter.
“And the least I could have done to repay you for tending to my wounds afterwards. They vastly outnumbered the scratches on the bear.”
She brushed over her arms, where not a scar was to be seen anymore.
“Verily, Istvan. You’ve my thanks.”
He nodded once.
“You are welcome. Now I must ask – why?”
He didn’t have to elaborate. Gillian patted the golden battleaxe beside her in the grass. An improvement to her original, battered one.
“The adventure was worthwhile, in all regards. I had my weapon back, we had honey to eat, a safe rest for the night and twas good exercise.”
As well as a story to tell around the campfire. To reminisce, when the days were dark and the mood became too dour.
Of course, her reasoning was as simple as it was obvious. Self-explanatory, in a way. Istvan, despite all differences, appreciated this simplicity, as a direly needed counterpart to recurring complexities, and therefore a wonderful refreshment in the face of death.
“We stood before the dragons, we conversed with the gods. We witnessed miracles and worked wonders ourselves. Alas, no one ever matched the confidence, with which you declared a lethal encounter to be justified by complimentary honey.”
His tone was getting quieter. Not as empty as before, not as dreary. Instead, it felt old, so very old.
“There is many a moment I'd wish to relive...”
All the splendours. Valour, honour, bravery. Friendship, kinship, loyalty. Counsel through wisdom, faith, the Guidance of Grace. A mother’s warm hug, and even a lover’s embrace.
“But, of all things lost to the ages, I find myself most aggrieved no runebears remain to answer me this.”
Istvan rested his forearms on his knees.
“Whether they too passed on the tale of the tiny, furious maiden, who chased one of their ilk through the Tableland’s forest.”
Tired from the mental excursion, his gaze found its way back to Gillian, who was watching the last gleaming ember vanish into a thin trail of smoke. Their ambitions to preserve this world and all its tales were yet to be laid to rest...