Ruins of what remains Second Ring

The outside world had become a peculiar place. Snowdrifts whipped up by the wind had become frozen mid-air, giving the ruins of the city a crystal-like flair. Light sparkled and reflected off the white snow that covered everything. Tharia quietly walked through the legs of a giant creature that had been frozen in place. The rows of six eyes on the maw still looked alive but she had checked – there was no flame of life left.

The girl kept her head low, only disturbed by the occasional sound from Annabelle up ahead. Golden light flashed in rapid succession. After the goddess had swallowed the collection of spheres, she now sported a regular arsenal, from swords to axes to just about everything in various minor variations. Tharia glanced at her short sword and the inactive barrier staff. She suppressed a bitter chuckle. Envy, her? No way.

“Well, killing this pillar will be fun? Personally, I vote for letting them freeze to death”, said Tharia with one eye on the large pillar. Now that they were closer, it turned out to be a weird mixture of pale, cloth-like flesh above and open muscle below, both covered by golden fields. The large sphere on top was covered in eyes that seemed to observe everything.

“It seems insurmountable”, answered Annabelle.

“So did every enemy we faced so far – and then we went and killed them anyway”, said Tharia. Annabelle nodded and continued towards the intertwined creatures. Truth be told, the human girl saw no way that they could even harm a creature with these proportions. A fire could do the trick, but they had no way to start one without Sisi and the sprite was still out of action.

Her feets dragged through the layers of snow. This was to be one of their final battles, but it felt like a funeral march to her. Despair had soaked in. The icy winds did their part in sapping the strength from them. A couple of kilometers wasn’t usually a big march for them anymore, not even for Tharia – despite her disability. Yet she felt like she couldn’t walk another step. One step after another, she would sink into the thick snow and have to fight her way out of it, just to sink in again.

Soon, the feeling changed, however. It felt like she was walking on a swamp and whenever her feet touched the ground – or rather compacted enough snow to hold her, it seemed as if a shudder ran through the snow up ahead. They were getting close. She realized hundreds of flames had appeared in her vision. It was a regular battlefield, clothes-like fought with fleshy horrors. Observers stood in the streets and served as food for both. If the golden fields got to them, they exploded into clouds of parasitic wheat that quickly burrowed through the snow. In case the clothes-like got it, the observers were sucked dry and then turned into nests for dozens of new floating creatures.

A strange looking rat suddenly took notice of Tharia. It scurried towards her and got on its hind legs.

“FOUND. YOU”, it scowled. A quick jab of her short-sword killed it before it could finish speaking.

“Aye, we’re there. We ready to kill this thing?” she asked of the goddess. Annabelle’s response was silence at first until she shook her head.

“That’s the kind of confidence I want to see”, joked Tharia and sighed. It was a slightly unfair match: Two girls with puny weapons against towering existences, each with their own army of monsters. What could they possibly do to win? It’s not like they could just waltz straight to the heart, poke it and then move on. Could they? Tharia suddenly slapped her forehead and started laughing. Annabelle gave her an odd look in response which only made it worse.

“Gosh Annie, we’re dumbasses”, the girl finally said while gasping for air, “You’re a goddess, Annie and I’m a monster that seeks life. It’s kinda the whole point. We don’t fight like humans anymore. We cheat. Here’s what we do!”

She walked up to Annabelle and wrapped her arms around Annabelle. Despite the snow, regardless of the creatures locked in battle around them, Tharia suddenly placed a kiss on Annie’s neck. A strange air unfolded around them.

“Let it out. Open your domain”, Tharia commanded and kept up the slight pecks. A moment later, they suddenly stood on the wooden floor. The domain wasn’t large but it formed a protective bubble around them, yet it also disconnected them from reality. Stuck in this half-world, they were more or less blind to what happened around them. Annabelle looked at her with a confused and slightly excited look.

“Not now”, Tharia said with a wink and leaned away from Annie, “Now you will concentrate on keeping this domain active. That’s all you need to do. Leave the rest to me.”

With that, she closed her eyes and focussed on the largest two of the flames. One was on the ground level, the other was high up in the sky. A grin formed on her lips. She was a fucking genius. Reveling in her own adoration, she opened her eyes again and then pointed forward. Together, they used the domain as a sort of tunnel.

Every few steps, Tharia would get their bearings and then point them in the right direction. A sudden noise made Tharia stop, she gave a sign to Annabelle to wait and then pulled out her short-sword. Tiny feet scratched over the wooden floor, by the time the rat popped around the corner, Tharia was already in place to drive the sword straight through it.

“Yeah we get it, you found us”, she said with a sigh and returned to Annabelle, “Let’s go that way”

A god’s domain really felt like cheating. Not only didn’t they have to exhaust themselves by waltzing through snow, but they also skipped all the small fry on the way. They literally walked past beautiful rooms, decorated with luxurious splendor, instead of pacing through a snow-choked apocalypse. Soon, Tharia had started humming and Annabelle chimed in with a beautiful singing voice.

“Little Tammy danced, yeah she danced in the night, danced in the night til the ring gave her fright. It was the old king’s gift that had made her run, yeah it had made her run into the morning sun. Dancing, dancing in the light, watch Little Tammy burn up bright – because the morning sun, when you get there, yeah when you get there, it will burn your hair...”

Tharia suddenly burst out laughing, “What the fuck kind of song is that?”

“It’s the song about Little Tammy”, answered Annabelle with a confused look.

“Girl, Little Tammy finds her true love in far-off lands. She doesn’t get burned by literally running into the bloody sun. Uh, wait a second”, said Tharia. She once more held up her short-sword and dashed towards a wall covered in lush carpets. A tiny flame crept through the walls. It didn’t for much longer as the short sword punched through the carpet and the paneling behind it to kill whatever it was that had sneaked its way into the domain.

“Where did you learn that song? Let me guess, that one guy? He was pulling your leg, hard”, Tharia said with a grin, followed by a kiss on the cheek.

“Your voice is actually quite nice. This is the second time I’ve heard you sing. You should do it more often”, the human girl added, yet Annabelle stopped walking.

“You forbade me from doing it”, the goddess snapped. That doll-like face showed turned down lips with a furrowed forehead and wrinkled nose. Annabelle looked pissed.

“What? No? Wait, I did, didn’t I? It was in jest, surely you didn’t... oh bloody abyss”, Tharia stumbled over her own words. Had she done something like that? Maybe? Just as Tharia was about to plunge into a crisis, Annabelle couldn’t hold her laughter anymore. The goddess laughed and it was then that the human girl realized, she had been teased.

“I guess there comes a time when the master is beat by her student”, she finally said and then chimed in. It felt good to laugh again. Even though it was laced with nervousness. The tunnel would get them to the heart of the golden fields. What awaited them there, was a different question altogether.

They were no longer laughing and joking. Solemn quietness accompanied them as they inched closer to the largest flame Tharia had ever felt. Around them, the domain started to crack. Parts of it broke away to reveal living walls made of flesh and strange shapes. With the increased temperature, Tharia quietly mused they had to be inside of the golden fields by now.

No words were needed for them to get ready. Tharia simply used a handsign and then lifted her short-sword. Annabelle, on the other hand, brought out her equipment. There really was a pang of envy in Tharia as the doll-like beauty armored up in a split second, including a golden shield and helmet now.

One last nod and the domain fell away. A nasty smell immediately assaulted Tharia. Decay, mixed in with unspeakable other odors. There was an odd ambient light around them that gave the flesh-walls a special kind of ambiance.

“Any enemies?” whispered Annabelle. The goddess was walking in front. Quick motions of her head betrayed her tension. Tharia reached out with her special vision but recoiled immediately. Flashes of light danced in front of her eyes.

“Too many. Like staring into the sun. Eyes and ears only”, she said and rubbed the base of her nose. The flashes faded away but it took another few steps before her vision returned to normal. They quietly paced through corridors made of flesh. Strange ligaments hung from the ceiling and their steps left wet smudges on the ground.

“I’m not sure it knows we’re here yet”, whispered Tharia. Annabelle nodded in acknowledgment. A loud thumping noise came from up ahead and the corridor opened up into a large chamber. The golden fields had swallowed up an entire village. Remains of walls stuck out of the ceiling, along with toppled over roofs and parts of the road still plastered into the ground. The architecture didn’t look like anything from the city and was more reminiscent of the places outside.

Central to the room was a well on the floor. A cluster of human bodies grew out of it, hoisted up by strings of flesh. It didn’t take an expert for Tharia to know that many of these had been dead for a long time. There were bloated bodies that hinted at being drowned in the well, some had wounds from weaponry. These were the source of the stench.

“This is it, right? Can you feel any of your essence in it?” asked Tharia. Annabelle closed her eyes and shook her head.

“None close by, fairy. Just the star above”

The human girl quietly walked closer to the cluster of corpses. She had to put a hand in front of her mouth to bear the stench. Pulses of life ran through the bodies but it was the pulse of something much larger.

“One of these contains the god-beast. Yet the second we attack, we’ll be swarmed by thousands of enemies at once”, said Tharia and glanced at the dead. She was looking for signs of the crystal chrysalis. Each godbeast so far had one of these somewhere, a core from which the nightmare tested new forms.

“No luck. How do we figure out the right one?” mused Tharia, when she suddenly noticed a motion to the side. It was small, insignificant and she had really gotten used to killing them by now. The rat got on its hind legs.

“FOUND. YOU”, it squeaked and then it all broke down. The cluster of bodies pulsed in response and then pulled back into the well. Fleshy walls around them shivered and an odd hum ran through the main body of the golden fields. Suddenly, it seemed as if the world itself was singing low-pitched nursery rhymes. Annabelle suddenly leaped towards Tharia and gave her a push. Confused and dazed, the smaller girl didn’t defend. Her body hit the well. With two more steps, Annabelle closed in and gave her a kiss.

“Find the right one. I’ll buy you time”, the goddess said and then pushed Tharia down the well, after the cluster of dead bodies. Tharia’s shock and the sheer anger at the supposed betrayal lasted all the way to the ground, where she impacted hard on something her mind would not dare to describe. She stared directly into the empty eyes of a dead body. As the ambient light kicked in, Tharia saw thousands of bodies all stuffed into the chamber below the well. Some of them were ancient, rotten away bones, some even older.

The sound of fighting reached down from up above. Tharia shot an angry glance and perhaps for the first time in a pretty long time, she was furiously angry at her love. What had that been? The anger in her heart clouded her mind with rage. She wrapped her fingers around the short-sword and began stabbing the dead bodies in search of the chrysalis. Admittedly, it also helped in venting her rage.

Annabelle stared at her hands. Why had she done that? Deep within, she knew why. It was for the same reason why she had also lied about only sensing the false star above. There was one more source nearby. Something only she could deal with. The goddess turned around with her heart thumping violently in her chest. Two rows of flesh beast stood to either side of the chamber, they looked ready to go but something kept them in check.

That something walked down one of the corridors on steps of golden light. Trails of energy-flowers faded behind him. His young face was serene and he carried himself with authority. Nothing in his posture symbolized threat but Annabelle was shivering with fear. Her head was bursting with strange emotions.

“Cathrion”, she whispered.

“My dear wife”, the man answered and put up a smile. At no point did he open his eyes. She was grateful for it. Those eyes were haunting and had always been her weak point. The turmoil inside of herself was filled with a sense of guilt. No matter how much she denied the feelings, she still longed for this man. Yet, she had steeled her resolve a long time ago. Her love was for Tharia alone. A quiet voice in her head whispered that it was the same Tharia she had just pushed down the well so she wouldn’t get to see this.

“Honestly, I’ve often imagined what it would be like to see you again”, the king said as he walked closer. There was no crown on his head but he still exuded authority.

“Here you are. As beautiful as you’ve always been. I’m saying this for the love that once used to be between you and me. Can’t you just turn around and leave? This is something that must happen”, the King said and bowed his upper body.

“I beg of you. Leave. This must run its course. The gods must fall and the demons must run free, when thus the sky meets the earth and chaos is born from the eternal struggle, then a better world shall be born from the heart and mind.”

His voice had taken on a zealous tone. Annabelle was still frozen in place. Why, why, why was she feeling something for this piece of shit? It had betrayed her, stabbed her, abused her for his plans and then cast her aside. Yet here he was and she still felt some sort of connection to the man.

“Why did you do this?” she asked with a quiet whisper.

“Curiosity at first. Which boy wouldn’t dream of marrying a beauty like you? You were perfect in all ways but one”, he said and closed the distance between them. Annabelle started shivering. Whether it was rage, anticipation or fear, she did not know.

“Annabelle, my dear Annabelle, you were cold as ice. To you, I was a toy. A superior being had come down from the heavens to decorate herself with the pitiful king of the humans. When a friend of mine told me of a way to not only fix you but make the world a better place? What else was I supposed to do?”

Pretty soon, Cathrion stood right in front of Annabelle. There was an undeniable connection between them. She felt excited, despite standing in a torn up village swallowed up by walls of flesh. Annabelle swallowed.

“So it was pride, Cathrion? That’s all I was to you?”

“At some point, yes. I wanted to break you so you could become better. Never did I dream you’d unleash the horrors upon the world. But listen to me Annabelle, this has been set in motion – so it must be seen through. Which is why I can’t allow you to destroy this magnificent beast.”

Somewhere along his words, something inside of Annabelle broke. She grew calm and determined. A smile crept on her face. Her hands wrapped tightly around the handle of the scythe.

“How will you stop me?” she asked in an innocent tone. Instead of a verbal answer, golden light sprung up around the king. He wore an armor, not unlike the one Annabelle had. His hands held a shield and a sword.

“By force, if need be”, he finally said with a glum expression, before closing his helmet. Without warning, Annabelle leaped into an attack. Three quick steps closed the remaining distance. She swung her scythe for a mid-waist slash – but changed the weapon mid-motion into that of a large-scale hammer. Her opponent brought up the shield and took the full brunt of the attack. His body barely moved.

“Curious trick. I guess you really are a goddess after all, while I’m just a beast”, he said with mockery in her voice, “or was it the other way around? You sure were feral at times.”

His words were followed by an attack from him. He stabbed his long sword towards her legs. Annabelle caught the blade with the lower end of her shield and deflected it just in time. In that same motion, she lifted the hammer above her head and swung it down. While Cathrion was off balance, the full force of the hammer bore down on his helmet. Metal collided and the king fell to the ground with an ugly crack. Yet moments later, he pulled back up as if nothing had happened. He grunted.

“Immortality is nice but it sure does hurt”, he said, “What’s the matter my little night-time screamer? You used to be so lou...”

Cathrion didn’t get to finish his sentence. Annabelle had already figured out he was a freshly born god and thus immune to her attacks. That didn’t stop her from killing him again anyways. Her hammer formed into an axe and effortlessly cut his neck off before he could finish his taunting. While his head reformed, Annabelle whirled around and exchanged the shield for a war-fan. Whirling it up to full speed, it cut straight through the neck again, just as the head came back.

“Let me...”

The goddess knew no mercy. Just as the war-fan slowed down, she closed in on the decapitated but still standing body. She held her fist next to the neck and waited until the youthful face of her former husband formed again.

“... finish my...”

A dagger manifested straight through his head. This wasn’t a person she could love. At best, it was obsession and infatuation. His allure was undeniable but his character was awful. Annabelle hated herself for even daring to doubt what she really felt.

“Three hundred and twenty”, Tharia said breathlessly, “Stupid bitch, gods be cursed, why’d she push me down here? How am I supposed to get back up? Huh? Oh, don’t grin at me you idiotic skeleton.”

Her short-sword drove through the ribcage of another dead body. As decomposed innards spilled out, Tharia was already moving on. No chrysalis either. This was going nowhere. She needed to calm down.

“Fucking idiot”, she howled and punched a fist through bones old enough to easily break on impact “Three hundred and twenty-two. Be smarter, fairy. Calm down. She has her reasons, surely.”

That blasted melody was getting on her nerves as well. Just the all-around oddly merry tune in her ears drove her closer to the edge. A small rat got in her way before the thing could even scream out that it noticed her, she stomped it flat.

“Shut the fuck up”, she screamed at the animal and then plunged her notched sword into the next dead body. No chrysalis either. That left several hundred more while Annabelle was fighting for her life up top.

“Act like an adult, stupid cunt”, Tharia said and this time, she meant herself. She punched her own stomach with full force, driving the air out of her lungs. The pain soothed over the rage in her head. Be smarter, she told herself. Think. With a finger against her forehead, she narrowed her eyebrows.

“The flesh-beasts were like puppets to a child. They wore sword and shield but had no idea how to use them. This music hints at a child as well”

Looking grim, Tharia spun around in place, carefully observing her surroundings. When she didn’t find a child in the room, she was relieved.

“That’s not it then. Stunted growth perhaps. How does immature even look like?”

Grumbling, she once more searched her surroundings until her eyes fell upon a large man with shorts, a simple shirt, and a bow tie. The clothes were much too small and the dent in the head would fit with the stunted mental growth. Surely this wasn’t it, she mused as she walked towards the dead body. There was only one way to find out. She hammered her worn-out sword against the body but the blade suddenly splintered. With confusion, she realized she had finally found her target.

And the target had found her. The large man opened his eyes. There was no life within them, but that didn’t seem to matter one bit to it. Using the large hands, it touched the open chest and pressed against the shimmering crystal within. Tharia quietly mouthed a silent plea: Please don’t awaken, please don’t awaken.

The large man reached out his trunk-like arms for her but she stepped out of range. With a target this slow, even she could fight it. Perhaps owing to nostalgia, she put the sword away and then reached for the barrier staff. Even without Sisi, it was still a weapon. She took measure of the large man and then put one foot for. Exhaustion made her movements sluggish, all exercise aside, she was still a crippled girl without all the magic pumping her up.

Well, this magical girl was pissed. She hammered the barrier staff against his knees and when they cracked with a satisfying sound, she twisted the weapon and then let the other side snap upwards. It threw her foe on the ground.

“I’d like to play with you, but I’ve got an angry date up top”, she said with a puff of anger and then rammed her barrier staff down on the crystal. This time, the weapon pierced straight through it. The large man shuddered and then broke away like a dropped vase, skin cracked open and the crystal underneath turned to ash. In the end, all that remained was a blue sphere.

“That was... what?” Tharia began and looked up through the well. Annabelle’s voice reached down.

“There’s something you need to see, dear husband”, the goddess shouted. Husband? Tharia echoed. A moment later, a slim body fell down the well and landed on the same spot Tharia had landed before. It was Annabelle. Tharia glared at her.

“Husband?”

Instead of an answer, the goddess rushed over towards Tharia.

“No time to explain, I love you. Please trust me”, she said and then forced her lips onto the frail girl. A moment later, she felt the energy drain from her body until her legs gave out and there was nothing left. The goddess held her upright by strength alone and Tharia could do little else but cling on. Her mind was in a state of permanent confusion now. Why had Annie drained her? What was wrong with her?

The figure of a man floated down the well. It was a young man she had only ever seen in pictures. King Cathrion, indeed, Annie’s husband.

“Is that what you wanted me to see?” the man shouted, “you making out with a servant girl? You’re childish, Annabelle.”

The angry look in his eyes betrayed the hurt in his voice. Seeing Annabelle kiss Tharia really seemed to hurt him. Enough that the slowly collapsing walls of flesh eluded him. He suddenly growled and stormed towards them and still, Annabelle didn’t let go of Tharia.

“Fine, have it your way, whore”, he shouted. Tharia tried to get Annabelle to let go, but the goddess just locked eyes with her. When the sword drove into Annie, the goddess twisted her body around and then tossed Tharia towards Cathrion. She had no choice but to fly like a lifeless doll. The king caught her by instinct and looked at her in confusion. It was then that Tharia finally understood at least a fraction of what was happening. Acting frail and helpless, she twisted around in his grasp. Without a trace of her spark, she couldn’t move her legs, no matter how much she tried.

“A cripple?” the king shouted, “you love a cripple more than the king, nay god of the world?”

“I’m going to...”, he added and suddenly stopped as blood ran from his lips. In confusion, he stared down at Tharia. The frail girl had a heartwarming smile on her lips. It was all fake but worked really well to hide the murderous intent in them. Her left hand held the handle of a broken sword. It fit nicely between two ribs and straight into the chest of the awoken god cathrion. That’s why she had drained the essence from her so that the human part of her could kill him.

The man suddenly stumbled and then collapsed on the ground, with Tharia on top of him. She rolled off his dead body and shut an angry glare towards Annabelle.

“I’m sorry, Fairy. I thought it was something I had to do alone, I wanted to protect you from this, but I couldn’t. In the end, you had to clean up my mess.”

Seeing the heartbroken Annie on the edge of tears washed away all her anger. She could be furious at her some other time, now the goddess needed someone strong.

“Can I get a complete sentence?” Tharia said with a smile. Annabelle blinked in confusion.

“That was a complete sentence?”

“I know, just pulling your leg. Help me get up, love”, the young girl said. Almost casually, she reached into the open mouth of Cathrion and cracked aside the jaw. With no regard at all for the former king, she pulled out a golden sphere.

“Right, nearly forgot. Now we’re ready to leave. Carry me, please? Ideally, before it, all comes crashing down? That kinda means today?”

“Fairy, I’m so sorry for what I...”

“The walls are coming down, not now!”

“Oh, right, yeah sure”

The domain came up just in time to avoid the complete collapse of the golden fields. Safely spirited away into the pseudo-realm of Annabelle, Tharia finally allowed herself to fall down on the ground. Her back hit a soft bed instead.

“I just killed a city sized monster by murdering a grown man in child's clothing and then divorced my love by killing her husband. How is this for a Tuesday? Is it Tuesday? Maybe it’s Wednesday”, Tharia mused and let out a sigh. When she looked towards Annabelle, she saw the goddess on the ground, crying. No longer in the mood to joke, the frail girl crawled over and then nuzzled against Annie.

“Shh, I love you too”, she said. That did not stem the tide of tears. Tharia kept saying it anyway. Now was a moment to recuperate but pretty soon they would need to deal with a second monster with the size of the city. She had a hunch it wouldn’t be as easy as with the golden fields. They had lucked out today.

End: Already!? | Coming up: Twinkle, twinkle, bloody star