Later, at the orchards of Purity Forest…

Upon reaching the village at the forest’s edge where the devatas of the Central Church dedicated to the renewal effort lived, the remainder of the journey was done on foot by Elena, Nhaka, Isha, and Claire. Much had been done in the centuries of Arcadia’s existence, and these orchards were, if anything, a brazen testament of ongoing resistance against corruption so deeply seeped beneath the snow and the earth from wars fought so long ago.

Isha looked around in wide-eyed wonderment, following closely in Nhaka’s wake as the Beholder led the way forward. There was death and decay all around her within the earth, and she could not help but wince. And yet, there was life as well. Renewal, in the potted saplings tended by the devatas working dutifully all around her, and the samples of wildflowers and fronds sprouting in troughs of soil. There were even ponds dug into the ground, with crystal-clear waters that flashed silver with fish.

“Had a lot of centuries pass since those days,” Elena remarked nonchalantly when she noticed Isha’s curiosity. “It’ll all be good again, someday. Eventually.”

“No thanks to you, obviously!” Nhaka chimed in without so much as breaking her stride. “But that’s okay, because you’re better at doing other things for the good of us all!”

“Such as, dare I ask?”

“Murder, to just name one off the top of my head!”

Elena smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

“What else can I say, my Lady? We can’t all be perfect like you.”

“I’m glad you’re fully aware of that, Elena!” Nhaka exclaimed, pausing in her tracks as she turned around to smile at her Vizier. “Sarcasm aside, you can be such a pet at times! Not to mention…”

“Anna!”

Before Elena, Isha, or Nhaka could speak up, Claire rushed past all three of them. With tears of joy forming within her brown eyes, she walked as briskly as she could towards the petite figure with green eyes standing just a few paces away, who was admiring the fish swimming in a nearby pond. For she was to Claire, no matter who or what she had become, her sweetest little sister, Anna de la Lune. Dressed in black robes, with embers of ethereal fire simmering lightly upon her skin in shades of white and purple, the light of a crimson glow most familiar could be seen emanating through the fabric covering her left breast, as well as black chains protruding from her arms and her back that ended with bladed edges spilling forth upon the ground around her like the drapes of an iron cloak.

“Sis… is that really you…”

“Yes!” Claire exclaimed. “I’m so glad you came…”

“Yeah, I’m glad as well…” Anna said in reply, her voice little more than a heavy whisper as tears of her own formed in her green eyes. “I feared the worst, being so far away from you for so long… even though we write, but I never get to…”

She paused for a moment, in wide-eyed wonderment when she noticed the greatsword slung upon her elder sister’s back.

“I’ve been working on learning how to wield one in my free time,” Claire said with a smile as she glanced momentarily over her shoulder at her greatsword’s hilt, putting down her picnic baskets as she walked up towards her little sister. “Self-defence! I still have a lot to learn… getting used to its weight on the road, and all…”

Anna nodded approvingly.

“I see, sis. I’m glad…”

“Anyway, let me just…”

“No, don’t touch me!”

Taking a step back, Anna glanced down at the harrowing links of her eldritch chains, eyeing them as tears rolled down her eyes. She then looked at her elder sister, who nodded tearfully in turn.

“I’m sorry, sis.”

“It’s okay, Anna,” Claire said quietly while Elena, Nhaka, and Isha caught up to them both. “You’re right. I… understand.”

“Regardless…” Anna said with a grimace, as her gaze left her elder sister in favour of her companions. “I’m glad to see you all again, Miss Mezalune, Miss Elena, and Miss…”

“Um… my name is Isha,” Isha said with a warm smile as she stepped forward to extend a hand towards Anna. “Isha Ayan. Aunty Claire told me about you, and it’s good to finally meet you!”

Blinking the tears out of her eyes, Anna’s grimace turned to a smile of her own as she shook Isha’s hand.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Miss Ayan. I hope…”

Taking a step back, Anna let out a scream that caused everyone to take a step back of their own. She grit her teeth as she clutched at her hand, and her green eyes widened, tears of blood trickling down the both of them as she glared at Isha.

“Hey now,” Elena warned as she eyed the lines of Anna’s sigil. “Let’s not get too hasty here…”

“I’m so sorry!” Isha exclaimed, shivering as her mortal façade faded away into holy blood that soon settled into a crimson simulacrum of the elven girl that she once was. “I think it’s… I’m not sure what it is exactly, because Aunty Mezalune and Aunty Elena have the same problem whenever we touch. Are you… um, undead? Or… Hellbourne?”

“Yes, I am,” Anna stated, the green lines of her sigil forming upon her hand as she brandished it at Isha, who immediately ducked behind Claire in a rushing surge of crimson. “Is this your true form, Miss Ayan?”

Trembling behind the safety of her human Aunt, Isha nodded.

“You hide your true self, just like that worm…” Anna remarked curtly, the bladed ends of her eldritch chains rattling erratically upon the ground as she spoke. “Don’t think that hiding behind my sister is a good idea. Because if you dare do that, I’ll make sure not even death can save you from me!”

“No, no, no! You’ve got it all wrong!” Nhaka exclaimed with a burst of good cheer as she walked up to Anna. “It’s not at all like Izoria Vhal!”

With gritted teeth, Anna’s bloodied gaze turned towards Nhaka, who returned that with a very toothy grin of her own.

“Is that so, Miss Mezalune? Anyone who’s a friend of yours and Miss Elena’s… is a friend of mine. But, she’s not like us at all… it hurt so much to even touch her…”

“Yup! It’s a long story why that’s the case, but she’s a friend of ours indeed! Trust me! She’s such a gentle soul, she’d never think of hurting you!”

“It’s true, Anna!” Claire exclaimed, only to have her outburst be quelled into a nervous smile as she shuddered slightly at the warm sensation of crimson ichor clinging upon her back. “Isha didn’t mean that at all! It’s all just a big misunderstanding.”

She then glanced gently over her shoulder, smiling at the shuddering mass of holy blood that had coalesced behind her, who was now clutching her cleric robes with what looked like blood formed into fingers.

“Right, Isha?”

Looking over Claire’s waist, Isha nodded once again. When Anna saw this, she nodded solemnly and lowered her hand, crushing her sigil into green shards that quickly dissipated into the cold air.

“I’m sorry as well, Miss Ayan. Shall we, um… try again? That’s what sis says that I should do, whenever I make a bad first impression.”

Slowly but surely, Isha slithered past Claire’s feet as a crimson puddle. She stopped right before Anna, the ichor of her formless body rising up to take the shape of an elven girl forged from holy blood. And within seconds, she had fully reformed into her mortal façade. Her Convent School uniform, socks and shoes, all fully intact and unblemished as her body of crimson ichor claimed the appearance of mortal flesh once again.

“It’s all enchanted stuff! Only the best!” Nhaka whispered to Elena and Claire as all three of them watched on from the side. “I had the weavers of the Mage’s Guild custom-make all her clothes for her!”

“Um… my name is Isha Ayan,” Isha said to Anna, performing a curtsey by lifting slightly the edges of her skirt. “It’s nice to meet you!”

“And I’m Anna de la Lune,” Anna said in reply, putting her hands together and smiling a smile so sweet that Isha too, smiled in turn. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Ayan!”

This was met with a round of applause from one set of hands. Both Isha and Anna turned to look at Nhaka, who continued clapping as she smiled at the both of them.

“Now, with that outta the way…” Elena said with a smile of her own. “Let’s get going. The Keeper of the Forest awaits us.”

“Yes, indeed!” Nhaka exclaimed excitedly, as she turned on her heel and beckoned for everyone to follow her. “We’re almost there, so come along!”

Later again, at the outskirts of Purity Forest…

Here, and for the surrounding acres far ahead, the corrupted and dead trees had been felled. Replaced, with saplings and fronds from the orchards that had been planted into the earth and snow cleansed by holy and life magics, that had grown into trees and flora tall and vibrant enough to reach up towards the sky.

With two picnic baskets in hand as she followed the rest of the party, Elena looked around expressionlessly. The outer part of Purity Forest was exactly as she had remembered it when she had previously come here with Claire for the sake of her duties as a Vizier of the Eye, a place slowly but surely healing over the ages. For indeed, much had been reclaimed and restored by the efforts of three generations of devatas from the Central Church who had dedicated their lives to this place. Their combined collaboration and concerted efforts over the centuries with the Keeper of the Forest, who dwelled within the inner heart of Purity Forest, had borne fruit. Even if that inner heart remained rotten and corrupted to the core.

And yet, it was only a matter of time, perhaps, that even that would change. In time, for the good of the world, possibly, as it had been over the centuries ever since the Corruption and the arrival of the Hellbourne, and ever since the rise of the living god Elicia and the conquest of the world that followed in the aftermath of the Corruption. But for now, for Elena, there was a picnic and the arrival of a fellow Vizier of the Eye that awaited her. Whether she liked it, or not.

“Alright everyone, we’re here!” Nhaka announced as she turned around to address Elena, Claire, Anna, and Isha. “Let’s get everything set up! Now, who among you brought that picnic mat that I asked for…”

“Um… Aunty Mezalune?” Isha asked, while her companions around her set to work unpacking the picnic baskets. “Is Elan coming? I don’t see her anywhere, and yet I sense… a really strong corruption nearby…”

“Oh, that can’t be good,” Elena remarked off-handedly when she heard Isha’s question. “That can only mean…”

“That I… am here…”

“Great.”

Elena looked up from where she was, at the black gaze of hollowed out eyes that stared right back at her. Elan, the Keeper of the Forest, had arrived. Little more an undead husk, a corrupted debasement of what was once the purest and most beautiful of nymphs by the grace of Sophia herself.

“Hello, Elan!” Nhaka squealed as she waved excitedly at Elan, who nodded in acknowledgement of her mistress’s presence. “You’re here, just in time for our picnic!”

“I see… that you all have brought plenty…” Elan rumbled in reply as she approached with slow and heavy steps, surveying the spread of sandwiches and wine that had already been placed upon the picnic mat covering the snow. “It is my pleasure… to join you this day… my Lady…”

She then paused dead in her tracks, just a few steps away from Elena. Once more, her empty gaze turned toward her fellow Vizier, who acknowledged her presence with a curt nod as she rose to her full height, the best that she could manage in light of their stark difference in height as they stood before each other while Nhaka, Claire, and Anna, watched on in silence.

“Soul Reaper…”

“Deadwood.”

“My former enemy…”

“You flatter me with your words, Elan.”

“Is that… sarcasm…? This inflection… that I detect in your tone…”

Crossing her arms, and with a grimace upon her lips, Elena nodded at Elan. Who, much to her surprise, let out a deep rumbling that sounded like laughter.

“Interesting… I suppose… that the mortal languages have so much… nuance…” Elan remarked dryly. “Unlike… my native tongue of Enochian. Regardless, I…”

“Um… excuse me? Are you Elan? The Keeper of the Forest?”

Elan turned away from Elena. Together, the two of them looked towards Isha, who had approached Elan from the side. Whose blue eyes, were now looking up the tallness of the Keeper of the Forest with wide-eyed wonderment.

“Isha…” Elena whispered hoarsely. “Now’s not really a good time to…”

“Yes… I was…” Elan rumbled to Isha, her voice rough yet soft like a whisper. “You… are…”

“My name is Isha! Um… Isha Ayan. Aunty Mezalune told me all about you, and…”

Isha paused mid-sentence, unsure of what to say when Elan knelt before her. When what appeared like a smile formed upon her ancient and deadened visage as she gazed into Isha’s blue eyes with the emptiness of her own.

“It is… true… indeed… my eyes do not deceive me…” Elan rumbled softly, as she placed a hand gently upon the side of Isha’s cheek. “You embody… all that remains of Clan Ayan… the ones who claimed her before I could when she blossomed upon Melodia once more... I feared the worst when I sensed their despair from so far away… I am glad… that they still live on within you…”

“You… can sense them too?” Isha uttered, as tears welled up within her eyes and flowed down her cheeks, wetting the hand of the Keeper of the Forest. “Mom, dad… everyone… I miss them, I…”

Elan smiled. She leaned in and embraced Isha, whose mortal façade of mortal flesh melted away into her true form of holy blood.

“They’re all…”

“Blessed is she… who endures…” Elan whispered softly, her empty gaze looking warmly at the crimson simulacrum of an elven girl that she had embraced. “She shall receive… the Crown of Life… and her tongue shall declare… judgement… and mediate wisdom…”

“The Crown of Life…” Isha uttered tearfully. “Aunty Mezalune told me about it, about what Aunty Elena did…”

“In my day… it was lost forever…”

With a pause, Elan looked at Elena, who frowned and crossed her arms.

“It was consumed… corrupted by my… fellow Vizier of the Eye. And yet…”

She then looked back at Isha, at the mortal façade of flesh she had shifted back into.

“Like all things of this world… it returns to the earth. As was destined by our Goddess… renewal. Clan Ayan… they named her… Akasha Ayan… found her… accepted her as their own… and now by the hand of fate… the Crown’s child stands before me. Truly, I am blessed…”

“Are you telling me, that Mom is…”

Elan nodded. Quietly, and tearfully, Isha nodded as well.

“I am glad…” Elan rumbled, as she stood up and looked at Elena. “Our Lady… she told me… that it was you who made this possible… the sole survivor of Clan Ayan… the child of the Crown of Life…”

“Don’t know what you’re on about, but I’m just doing my job,” Elena stated solemnly. “You would’ve done the same, I’m sure.”

“Of course… it is our duty to Lady Mezalune, and for the sake of Arcadia and all Melodia…”

“Um… Aunty Elan…?” Isha asked, rubbing the tears out of her blue eyes as they looked first at Elena, and then back to the Keeper of the Forest. “Will you…”

With a start, she stopped talking when a gloved finger was placed gently upon her lips.

“I should say it myself,” Elena said to Isha with a grimace before looking at Elan, who acknowledged her fellow Vizier with a nod. “Elan, it’s far too late now, for what I’ve done to you and… everything else. But I just wanted to say, that I’m, uh…”

With a heavy, hacking cough, she stopped herself mid-sentence. Only to regain her composure soon enough in the deathly silence that ensued, as her crimson eyes took in the sight of pallid, dead and empty eyes.

“I’m sorry, Elan. For everything.”

In silence, Elan stood still, her empty gaze unerring upon her fellow Vizier as she considered Elena’s words. She let out a slow, creaking and rumbling noise like laughter. Nhaka began giggling as well, much to Claire and Anna’s surprise.

“What’s so funny?” Elena demanded. “Damnit, it’s not very nice of ya, to just…”

“I just find it so amusing… is this truly how the hand of fate decrees us to be…?” Elan remarked wryly. “Here, I came forth… to apologise… and you did before I could…”

“Huh. Why the sudden change of heart, dare I ask?”

Elan glanced momentarily at Claire. When she noticed this, Elena grinned at Elan and shrugged her shoulders.

“So, we’re good?”

“I suppose… we are…” Elan rumbled, as a smile of her own formed upon her deadened lips. “Now, after all that has happened… I have no grounds to condemn you as I once have…”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“Indeed…”

With that same smile, Elan looked at Isha. And then at Nhaka, Anna, and Claire. This, she did, before looking at Elena, once more.

“We are all… broken… corrupted… in one way or another. In a way, we are all… kindred spirits…”

“Like a family of six!” Nhaka declared loudly with a huge and toothy smile as she walked up to Elena, Isha, and Elan. “And I’m glad we’re all here today!”

“I’m glad as well,” Anna said with a smile, nudging Claire gently when she noticed the rawness of her elder sister’s brown eyes. “Even if we didn’t have the best start, I’m glad to have met all of you today.”

“So am I,” Claire added with a smile of her own. “I’m glad everything worked out in the end.”

“Indeed, indeed!” Nhaka squealed, her crystalline eyestalks twitching excitedly as everyone gathered up close together. “And so, let’s get this picnic rolling!”

“Yes, we should!” Isha exclaimed excitedly. “We still have so many sandwiches left…”

With everyone around her working hard to have the picnic set up, Elena smiled. Now, the sun was high up in the sky, and the thought of sipping wine with everyone under its warmth was, when compared to the past best left buried in light of the future ahead, a good thing to look forward to.

And so, she joined them.