"Did you really?"
He was surprised by this revelation. Of course, he knew Ruffliette already had a tendency to collect whatever she saw. That was why she had plastered that strange and dangerous Sign to the very front of her notebook.
And of course, now it made sense why such a thing had no effect on her.
He fought hard to suppress a laugh.
She was already crazy. It was impossible to make a crazy person even crazier. Thus, it was just a symbol to her.
Ruffliette nodded her head.
"I found many books scattered throughout the city, but I couldn't make sense of the language within them. So I just jotted down whatever I saw in their imagery, and pulled clues from the environment. It wasn't hard to piece together at least a solid theory…"
What? But the Lords speak our human language, don't they? How could she not decipher the written language? Was it written differently than we do?
"When the Lord- ah, the Castellan that we encountered spoke, what did you hear?"
Ruffliette eyed him strangely. "The same as you, a garbled jargon. I didn't understand a thing."
"But he was speaking our language. How could you not understand him?"
She shook her head. "What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy?"
Artemis's eyebrow twitched. If anything, you're the one who's gone crazy here.
"Never mind. Forget it. I was mistaken." He waved his hand dismissively, turning away.
What is going on here?
I was sure of it, we were speaking.
Why can I understand the Lords, but Ruffliette can't?
Artemis suddenly froze in place.
He sensed a presence at his side, glancing with a violent disposition out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't standing far away from him now. It was observing him clearly, closely, blatantly.
The pale-eyed shadow stood tall next to him, gazing directly at him.
He slowly turned his head towards Ruffliette.
"Do you see it?"
She glanced up from the black booklet, but only barely. It was like it had some mystical binding to her gaze, as if it were her whole world, the only thing she could bear to see.
"Yes, the tree is quite beautiful… I've never seen anything like it…"
Ruffliette had no clue what she was referring to. She didn't even pay the shadow beside him a glance. Either she was the most oblivious person he had ever met, or this was just a thing that only he could see.
Perhaps he was really the one going crazy after all.
He couldn't sense any life coming from the shadow. It emanated an aura of coldness, like the frost of winter had descended next to him.
Artemis looked over it, studying every inch of its form.
There was no hint of detail in its body, besides the fact that it held a humanoid shape, apart from when it sunk away into the depths of the collective shade. Its two dotted-pupils that glowed a faint yellow were the only proof that it was even living. When it would blink, Artemis was sure that it was real.
Over the course of the past day, he had almost forgotten about this mystery.
What was the purpose of the shadow?
Was it just another monster? If that was the case, then why didn't it attack him?
What is it you want, shadow?
It looked directly into its eyes, as if it sensed its thoughts, and raised its hand slowly. He followed this movement, watching as its finger extended, and slowly but surely, pointed right up above them.
Staring at the cavern ceiling, which was the breadth of the white-trunked tree's canopy, he saw a faint crimson glimmer peeking between the weave of branches.
There was a large set of eyes staring directly down at him.
"Ruffliette, we shouldn't stay here any longer."
"What, why? I'm almost done with my notes, can't we remain just a minute more…?" She didn't even glance up from her black booklet as she spoke, which is why she didn't notice when the great beast descended upon her, its shadow eclipsing her as it opened its mighty maw. Dozens of rot-speckled teeth shot downwards, threatening to split her in two in the next second.
Damn it!
A warmth surged through his body in an instant.
Artemis drew the silver talwar and hurled it over his shoulder. The blade flew straight past Ruffliette, lodging itself between the jaws of the monster. It dug into the roof of its mouth, spilling its blood onto the ground, but it had already raised one of its tendril-like limbs high into the air, ready to strike.
She fell backwards onto the ground, the black booklet soon following.
"Ah, f-ck!" She exclaimed, hurriedly scuffling backwards. "Damn it! Damn it!"
He grimaced, lurching towards Ruffliette.
This was the last time in his life he would ever get lucky, he was absolutely sure of it.
And to think, he had wasted such a perfect bout of fortune on the crazed woman.
He couldn't perform such a perfect throw. This wasn't something he had trained for, it wasn't even something particularly practical.
But in that split moment, he had become sure that he could accomplish it. It was… odd.
Obscured by shadow, it snapped down on the blade. While it didn't shatter, the force caused it to fly outwards, spinning several times before burying its point into the soil below.
He grasped the hilt of the blade as he rushed past, standing before Ruffliette as he swung it in an arcing motion, blocking the strike of the monster's tendril. It snapped like a whip, a resounding crash echoing through the cavern.
Tendrils of flesh wrapped around its skull like gnarled tree roots, many vertical eyes peering out from within its knots. Underneath its massive mouth, flaps of bright-red skin hung like drapes, tattered and slimy, and instead of limbs, dozens of thick tentacles hung from behind it, their tips pointed and edged like halberds.
This is some f-cked manifestation of some twisted fairy-tale. In the blessed world of falsities, aren't great sacrifices supposed to be done in the name of a lover?
He raised the silver talwar, eyeing down the harrowing titanic abomination, blood rushing from his scalp down towards his neck, brushing past his maniacal grin.
I am a fool for even the slightest human connection.
Never have I acted so rashly. This woman has made me crazy.
"Come, wrap your hands around me." He spoke in a resolute, yet gentle tone of voice.
He was afraid that any other might alarm her too much, freeze up her mind, and lose the control of command. There were only a few seconds left before they both died, anyway. He definitely wasn't going to fight the monster. If he could use Lark's Spirit Bond, it might have been possible… but every part of him ached to crumble, to fall and rest, like the palace's tower had.
As Ruffliette climbed up onto his back, he raised the silver talwar in a reverse position, the back of the blade supported with the length of his arm. When another tentacle lurched forward at an incomprehensible speed, it hit the blade at an angle, causing it to split into two on either side of him. Blood and ooze spilled out onto the two, but he had already rose to his feet, lurching towards the white-barked tree.
The pain from the day's injuries threatened to leave him to the mercy of the tentacled-creature.
He couldn't feel the foot of the leg that had been injured by the skeletal creature any longer. Artemis had grown afraid, afraid that he might not return from this place in one piece.
But more than that, he was afraid of the ever-expansive possibility that he might not return at all.
So, holding Ruffliette on his back, other options branded themselves at the forefront of his mind.
What if he just… dropped her? Let her fall onto the ground behind him, fleeing as she was eaten by the monster?
What did he owe her, anyway?
She hadn't yet fought in his place, like they had made a deal over. Because of the strange veil the Castellan had raised, he had to fight him on his own. Even now, he was the one saving her life.
It would have been so easy to let her go. To let her die so that he might live.
After all, hadn't he determined himself to survive at all costs?
Artemis bit down on his lower lip. Warm blood immediately began trickling down his chin, snapping him back into the current reality.
What was he doing thinking of such pointless things?
When he remembered the fear in her eyes, that familiar feeling surged up within himself. That warmth, that sureness of knowing what he needed to do.
It did not matter if it put him in greater danger. He couldn't bear the kind of person he would be if he let her go, even if it meant he would get out safe.
In just a few seconds, he would make it to the foot of the tree, but the beast was right on his heels!
The creature was simply too large, and the canopy above was rife with thousands of branches. There had to be a space in between them that was too small for it to pursue them through!
There was a small knot within the foot of the tree. It seemed to have a decent depth within. If only he could make it there…!
He felt his injured leg freeze up.
Artemis and Ruffliette toppled to the ground, sharp, agonising pain shooting up the side of his body. He let out a groan, his face buried in the soil as he reached for his blade.
"Run...!" He grimaced, speaking between harsh breaths. "Get there...!"
If she could run away, he wouldn't have to worry about carrying her. He could focus entirely on getting to the tree himself!
His whole world went dark before he could even wrap his fingers around the blade's hilt.
[+++]
"Are you alive still, Artemis?"
It was a soft voice, filled with honey, some sense of reward imposed for the act of risking his entire being.
He opened his eyes slowly, taking in the soft light that bathed the interior of the tree's knot.
Ruffliette looked down at him from overhead, holding his head over her lap as she smiled gently.
"I… still am…" He whispered, hoarsely so.
"Good. You were heavy, I only barely dragged you in here. It would have been a shame if it was all for nothing…"
She paused for a moment, reflecting, before reaching a hand out, brushing a strand of loose hair from his forehead.
"Your hair… is an odd colour. It is not completely white. It is like… it is tinged with darkness, like it wishes to be white, but cannot complete the colour fully." Ruffliette mused, staring down at him as she messed with a strand of his hair.
It was matted with blood, dirt, and sweat. He was unsure why she would want to touch it with her perfect, smooth hands.
It hurt to grin. He did so anyway.
"You're foolish to talk about something so stupid…"
Artemis closed his eyes, allowing her to continue.
There was too much pain, too much confusion, with no use to think about useless things.
He only needed rest.