Melina sighed confortably for a moment as she rested closer to the warm and soft feeling beneath her. It smelled like snowberries and wolf fur.
"You seem quite comfortable, my little candle." Ranni spoke softly beneath her, which made the young seemibg caster near as pink as her own gair for a moment.
"Well... It is a rather familiar warmth." She muttered, settling a little closer.
"Mmm... But perhaps we should evaluate our circumstances before we start any romantics. Yes?" Ranni stroked Melina's hair, eyes slowly drifting around as she took in their new and strange surroundings. They were in the sky. Far, far in the sky. Had Ranni not seen Melina's form in the turmoil of it all, she likely would have fallen to her own end. The same went for Loretta, slumped against a nearby broken wall.
She had scanned Loretta's mind mid-flight and found some hints of what Marika and Melina had achieved. Loretta would be a very powerful ally, and by the glimpses of rage, a spitefully loyal one to this new danger.
She took a slow breath as her and Melina, begrudgingly, rose from the broken and cracked floor. It was a crumbling castle in pieces. It was held aloft in the sky, far to the east of the lands she knew above the sea by a storm that seemed to never end. The structure was aged to a ruinous manilla and faded marble with statues and images of dragons and omen like creatures. The sky above crackled randomly with lightning, and the reborn snow-witch could hear the beat of a living dragon's wings amist the swirling winds.
"Just where are we?" Melina asked as she walked over and checked on Loretta. She seemed to be alright. "Loretta? Can you hear me?"
"Mmm... hm...?" She groaned to consciousness slowly. Battle hardened eyes focused in slowly on the young seeming caster's. "Melina... Yes...?"
"I don't believe we have met, prior ahem, situation not included." Melina smiled lightly, trying to lift humors.
Loretta scoffed lightly, rising slowly to her feet. "Mm... But there are few in Caria who don't know of Marika's candle in the walls." Melina scratched her cheek quietly.
"I assure you, I have never looked in places that my eyes were not usually welcome." Melina gave a sheepish grin that portrayed her guilt a little more than she was likely trying.
"Sure. And I am sure the stars are not stilled in the sky."
"Well." Ranni interrupted with a chuckle. "A few saw to that correction."
"...Surely you jest."
"Nay."
Loretta adjusted her armor a little. This was a huge change. Fate was moving again. "Miquella plans to turn the entire world into a brainwashed dream."
Ranni slowly looked directly at her with a quiet, haunting stare. "What...?" She could feel her throat drying fast.
"He wants to enforce peace. An eternal, subsued, obedient peace." She shook her head. "I thought I could convince him with time, but it seems he has achieved godhood. I do not know if... he can be stopped now."
Ranni turned away, walking toward a nearby ledge as Melina grasped onto Loretta's arm with both hands. "Then surely we must find a way. We are not all mindless thralls yet, yes?"
Ranni nodded. "Not yet, no." She was clutching her palms where they couldn't see, scratching at scars only she saw now on her wrists as she stared at the swirling winds below, considering them for only a moment before gripping onto her life tightly again. She would not break. Not to that petulant fucking brat. Not to Miquella.
"Then there is time!" Melina shouted in assurance.
"Time to do what? Flail? Bark? What good are we but yapping hounds waiting for our leashes? He has subsumed himself into the Haligtree. We have maybe weeks before he begins to bask the entire world in seeds!" Loretta barked back, raising her other hand in dramatic emphasis.
"We have a god of our own." Ranni responded as she gripped the light golden scrap of fabric. What remained of the scarf she always wore as a gift from Marika. She hoped this meant she was alive out there... somewhere. Else, her words were mere bluff.
"You what?!" Loretta shouted as she marched towards Ranni.
"Marika has returned, and every day, her power swells. That surely did not kill her, and I also know," as she turned and faced Loretta, "that we also have another divine in disguise who can take out Miquella."
Loretta considered that as she stated at Ranni's icy stare. There was no lie, but Loretta was sure she was convincing herself as much as the carian that whatever scheme Ranni was concocting would work. "You better not be dragging me into a snake pit, Princess." She nearly spat the word. She had always found Ranni an arrogant self centered bitch, but few royals weren't.
"At least I have the drive to do what needs to be done for the good of all. I require no guilt." Her eyes narrowed, glancing for a few seconds at Loretta's dew like pauldron before glancing back at the knight's eyes.
"Ladies!" Melina shouted as she stepped between them, pushing them apart. "We are not enemies!" She pleaded. Loretta paused, thinking about how much her own distaste for Ranni may be clouding her, while Ranni took a breath and tried to cool the heat she had been feeling. She was prone to bursts of anger, and she hated that spiteful nature of hers.
"I apologize." Ranni said softly. "Truce?"
"Truce." The two exchanged a handshake.
"See?" Melina smiled gently, placing her hand over Ranni's as they shook. "Now. Come on. Let's figure out where we are so we can get back to our family!"
"Family?" Both responded, Loretta with confusion and Ranni with a blush.
"Yeah! We might be a mixed bag of fuck ups and schemers, but I don't think I'd ever pick a better group of them to plan my fight against the end of the world." She made a small cheer motion with her hands in fists, briefly pumped in front of her as she smiled so adorably it made Ranni's heart hurt.
"Well. I see you certainly have found quite the merry band." Loretta chuckled.
"They are a good bunch." She smiled. "Wait until you meet our best fighter." She turned to begin their journey into this shattered ruin, motioning the two to join as Loretta soon took point.
"Tell me of them." She said as she reaffixed her helmet.
"She is the most chaotic idiot you will ever meet, and yet I have never seen a finer killer." Ranni answered.
"She sounds... unstable."
"Shockingly, no." Ranni answered.
"No?"
"I suspect she has compartmentalized her personality. At least two."
"What... what does that even mean?" Loretta asked. Melina already knew, to a degree.
"That she has multiple personalities. Selves. More than one mind. All one person, one soul by what I can measure, but fragmented into pieces. One for casual existence, one for battle, and potentially one for private affairs. Though I lack any knowledge of a latter in personal experience." The knight was too complex and unknowable to even consider such personal ties. She trusted her, even cared for her, but she would not let that trick her into simply thinking that was enough.
"So... Like Queen Marika?" Loretta inquired.
"..."
"..."
Ranni spoke first. "It is... murky to compare them, but, in a way, yes." Melina nodded lightly beside her, happy to try and dodge the subject.
"Well. All talk for the beer halls and tea gardens." Loretta drew up her glaive with a simple curl of her fingers. "There's blood to spill." As they heard the cry of a dragon like omen, and all bolstered a fight.