Chapter Text
When she was finally dragged back to the realms of conscious thought, the feeling of smooth sand under her hands was the first thing she noticed. Then came the cold, as if where she was had never known sunlight upon its landscape. The third thing was the silence, and how oppressing it was, like a weighted blanket of thick wool.
She cracked her eyes open, and she saw the sand was white. Crystalline white. She saw her hand near her face, and she managed to sweep her fingers through it, leaving gentle swirls. She was lying on her stomach with her face pressed into it, and soon she became aware of a bone-aching chill that had seeped into her body as she lay unconscious.
Her eyes slid closed again. She had never felt so tired in her life.
Wait...
Was that right?
A slight frown crossed her brow, her mind starting to search for a memory of how she ended up...wherever here was.
There weren't any.
Not a single one.
Her eyes opened again and she attempted to move her body into a sitting position, but it was a struggle. Her limbs felt so heavy, her clothes felt like thick plate armor. Clothes? Oh, yeah. Thank the gods she wasn't naked. She looked down at herself, assessing the torn flowy black pants belted around her waist, and the equally torn and frayed black top tied over them. She wore a white crop top under the black one, covering her chest modestly. Her feet were clad in white stockings and woven sandals, and around her waist, strapped over everything, was a scabbard inlaid with lavender colored flowers, their vibrant green vines, and bright golden dragonflies. In that scabbard, she discovered, was a blade whose hilt was wrapped in a silky ribbon of white and lavender, the pommel adorned with a bright golden chain and a pale blue topaz dragonfly charm dangling from the end of it.
She pulled it part way out of its scabbard, and marveled at how bright and well taken care of the metal was. What she was doing with the sword, she had no idea, but apparently, it was important. She sighed, and looked to the landscape around her, hoping for some sort of landmark.
There wasn't any.
It was white sand dunes for as far as she could see, the crystalline sand reflecting the flat light coming from a crescent white moon seemingly tossed haphazardly into a blank, black sky.
There was no wind.
There were no trees.
There was no sign of life.
And...there was no sound.
She found this odd, noting the weird silence again. Surely, if this was a desert, there would be at least a rustle of wind across the sand?
But no.
She leaned forward, propping her arms up on her lap, and plopped her head into her hands.
This was certainly a debacle.
A thought occurred to her, and she set about checking herself over for injury. Aside from a couple cuts on her arms and legs that were healing, and a handful of bruises here and there, she was fine. She was in the middle of checking through her scalp, combing through her long, silvery lavender colored hair, when she heard her very first sound.
It was a low, guttural growl.
Her hands froze in her head injury assessment, and her ears quickly triangulated the sound from coming off to her left. Slowly, she forced herself to get to her feet, and she turned to assess the growl.
She frowned.
She had about three seconds to assess the threat before the lizard beast lunged for her.
Her body acted on its own; when the beast got close, she dodged and then checked her pathing, jerking out of the way when it flicked a thick, sticky tongue out at her. It growled again, louder, a pair of bright yellow and red glowing eyes trained on her movements sunk into a weird white mask-like thing on its face.
She dodged again, faster now that she was moving and warmed up, and without even thinking about it, she took the blade from its scabbard and moved in closer to it, somehow knowing to aim for its mask thing. It reared back onto its back legs and gaped its mouth, and a dozen more tongues shot out, all with sharp hooks and sticky mucous covering them.
She swore and corrected, jumping to one side and glaring at the beast.
Well, then.
She had no idea what this thing was, but she apparently knew how to fight it.
Best to follow instinct then, yes?
She readjusted her grip on the blade's hilt and dove to its side, meaning to get behind it. Four of the tongues found her, honing in on her somehow, but it didn't slow her down. She sliced through them and the beast screamed and started rubbing its mouth, blood spewing from the stumps still wriggling around in it. Giving its head a good shake, it leveled its glowing glare onto her, and then with a jerk, its front claws elongated into swords themselves, and it lunged at her again, quicker this time.
Her body took her to safety, and then she jumped into its face, kicked hard off of its snout, back flipped so she was on its shoulder, and then drove her blade deep into its forehead.
The beast screamed again, clawing at her and giving her a good swipe across her right thigh and hip, but the burning sensation that came from it was quickly pushed out of her mind when the beast suddenly flipped over onto its back and gave her a mighty kick with its back legs.
“OH!” She was sent sailing, crashing into a sand dune hard enough to rattle her entire body and clack her teeth together. The beast was wallowing in pain, still clawing at the sword now stuck in its head, blood still pouring from its mouth, and she pushed herself up out of the sand and glared at it. “You took my sword, you bastard,” she growled, surprising herself with how feminine her voice sounded. “I'm going to need that back!”
Somehow, she wasn't exactly sure how, she sort of almost 'teleported' back to where the beast was writhing, and she appeared right above its head and took hold of the sword's hilt. With a mighty heave, she pulled it free with the aid of a foot planted onto its head, and before it could attack again, she gathered her strength and brought the blade down on its mask, splitting it in two down the middle and sending a spray of ichor into the sky and across the sand.
The beast screamed one more time before finally falling silent, its body slumping into just a dead carcass, and she stood in shock when it started turning to dust and floating off into the sky until there was nothing left of it, not even the blood splattered everywhere.
Well, save for the foul smelling crap smeared all over her clothes. That seemed to stay.
She let out a tired breath and sank back to the sand to dress her wound. The damn thing tore more of her clothes, leaving very little to use as bandages, so she took her black top off and started slicing it into strips the best she could. The parts that were soaked in the creature's blood were discarded, and soon she was left with a wound dressed in enough makeshift bandages to last her for maybe half a day. Down to just her white crop top and one pant leg, she readjusted her sword belt and looked around again.
Her leg and hip were starting to really hurt, and although the bleeding stopped for now, she was still at risk for a massive infection if she didn't find help soon.
Ah, help.
Yes.
Help that probably didn't exist in...wherever this was.
Right.
She sighed and got to her feet. Well, if she was going to die, she might as well make as far away as possible from where she had fought the masked beast. Where there was one, there was likely more, and she didn't really feel like meeting its friends.
As she trudged along, trying to keep her balance in the deep sand, she thought hard to what happened before she woke up.
At first, there was nothing but a blank, empty canvas, and it frustrated her to no end. She couldn't even remember her name. The sword at her hip was important, of that she was absolutely sure. Her instincts told her as such. There was also something else, something...unsettling, that lurked in the back of her mind. It watched her as if stalking her, waiting for her to remember it was there. What it was, she didn't know, but her instincts told her it was important too.
Her feet began to grow numb, walking in almost ankle deep cold sand. She lost her footing a few times, toppling over because she misstepped, before she finally had to sit down and take a breather. There wasn't anything to make a fire with, nothing to eat, nothing to drink. Her head started to hurt a few miles back, and now that she wasn't moving, it slowly kicked up into a pounding drum line. Her thigh and hip were killing her, and the deep scratch marks were starting to ooze blood again.
A sharp, chilling wind chose then to kick up, and having no long sleeves to cover up with, all she could do was wrap her arms around herself and curl up as tightly as she could. It still swept over her, stabbing her with tiny particles of sand it stole from the dunes.
A single tear formed and slid down her cheek, and her heart dropped a thousand miles.
She really was going to die, and she didn't even know if she had a family to grieve for her.
The wind swept through her hair, and she reached to grab a handful of the long locks. It was a beautiful lavender color, and she could see tiny hints of silver here and there as highlights she was sure would catch the light...had there been light to catch. Curious, she pulled out her sword and used its polished metal as a mirror. A pair of sparkly pale blue eyes looked back at her, framed by a delicately shaped face and a pert nose. A light set of freckles sprinkled their way across her cheekbones and nose, and her ears were small and curved. She tried making faces, hoping to maybe trigger something to remember, but all she managed to do was grow more frustrated.
She smiled at her reflection as a last ditch effort, and finally, a tiny light bulb went off somewhere in her brain.
She looked like her father.
It wasn't much, but it was something to run off on.
Well...maybe, if he was still alive somewhere, he would be the one to grieve for her, maybe always fretful that she never came home, maybe always searching for his little girl, hoping that someday, she might make it back to him.
“I'm sorry, Dad,” she whispered, and it felt right. Not Father, not Daddy...just Dad.
She got back to her feet and continued her voyage, stubbornly refusing to feel the burning pain creep down her injured leg and up her side. It was getting infected. The beast's blood must have contaminated it more than she thought.
Hours later, she fell to her knees when her legs gave out from under her. She heaved for air, sweat trickling down her face despite the stiff wind always brushing against her. Her vision was starting to swim, and her heart was fluttering wildly in her chest. She felt like she was burning up; the fever of infection had been ignited, so it wouldn't be long now.
Gasping, she tried to focus on the horizon line in front of her, and she blinked hard.
What...what was that?
Buildings?
Here?
Towers. Tall, white towers.
A wall. A tall white wall.
And...what was that?
Energy? It was so heavy...it felt like it was pressing down on her, even at this distance. And there was a lot of it, seeming to come from the towers behind the wall were.
She chuckled humorlessly.
Figures she would die within sight of possible help.
Her vision swam again and she pitched forward, heaving the leftover contents of her stomach onto the sand. There wasn't a lot. Spit trickled from her mouth as she dry heaved, unaware that she was being stalked again.
This time, there was no warning growl.
Something slammed into her and sent her flying, bringing her mind back into sharp focus as she struggled to land properly. Her body was trying to help her again, but it was so tired...so sick.
She took a battle stance, squaring up to a beast that was canine in form but had the back half of some sort of monkey, wearing the same sort of white mask over its face as the lizard thing had. The monkey half's tail ended in a sharp barb that looked very unforgiving, and it seemed to be dripping a milky greenish liquid.
“I was busy dying, in case you didn't notice,” she spat, her statement coming out in a garbled series of muttered syllables. The monster had the audacity to laugh at her, and it began to circle her, its tail twitching and saliva dripping from its long muzzle full of sharp teeth.
The 'thing' that was stalking through her mind chuckled back, and she felt it...what? Her brain went fuzzy before it forced it to refocus.
You're going to have to do better than that, sweetie, it growled in her ear. The voice, -was it a voice?- was clear as day compared to the haze of the infection spreading through her. Come on now, you've done it before, you can do it again.
“Do...what, exactly?”
Release me, silly girl. I'm your sword's spirit. Speak my name before you get eaten!
“Sword's...spirit...? Name...?”
Ugh...child, if you don't do it, we're going to have an issue!
The canine monkey beast decided then was a good time to attack, and it rushed in with a howl. Her eyes widened and she barely dodged, but was unprepared for how agile it was compared to the lizard, and it very quickly corrected itself. She screamed when it locked its teeth around her legs and shook.
Her body snapped to and fro and was abruptly released high into the air. All the air left her when she realized she was now dropping down into the beast's widely gaping mouth.
Well...at least she wasn't going to die alone.
“Oi, you should let a cat show you how to play with a mouse!”
The beast squealed and yipped when it was suddenly kicked to the side hard enough to send it into a dune and bury it. She was caught before she could hit the ground, and then dropped as the beast snarled viciously and kicked itself free. Giving itself a good shake, it refocused on its new quarry, absolutely livid at the intrusion.
She took in the sight of someone standing in front of her, dressed mostly in white, the wind tangling through a mane of blue hair, and he had his hand on the hilt of a sword just like hers.
The beast made the mistake of attacking him.
In one swift motion, he drew his blade and sliced it from snout to tail, hacking the stinger off for good measure. It seemed to take a second to register it had been killed before turning to dust the same as the lizard thing had. The newcomer flicked its blood from his blade and sheathed it with a shake of his head.
“Damn thing shoulda known better to get this close to home. I wonder what's got 'em all riled up this time?”
“Um...”
He turned, and she had just enough time to see his greyish eyes widen when she fell forward and hit the sand.