The nights here were very cold. It practically curled the bone and gripped it so tightly that you felt as if your soul was being cooled by the hands of the dead. Luna was all too familiar with that feeling as she tore a branch down from a stable enough looking tree. The cold never caused her too many issues.
"Hm? We have enough firewood." Fia called to the knight as she sat on the log near their makeshift fire. They had set up camp just a small jog from the bridge, but the look of a battlefield beyond had both decided to take a moment to recoup and plan.
"It's not for the fire." She broke off the large metal side of a buried weapon, likely the cleaver of a troll that fell in battle.
"Ah. You do need a new tool."
"And I know just the kind for a place like this." She began to break down the metal, piece by piece using a rock until it was a curved rectangle with a jagged front face and a very sharp back.
"So what is our goal?" Fia pushed at the fire with a stick as their fish cooked.
"Find a way back and meet up with the others. Then get them back here."
"Here?"
"This is where I was headed originally with Marika when everything was said and done. Took me a little while to realize."
"The Shadowlands...? What possible reason.. would..."
Their gazes met at an angle with a heavy silence the fire did little to cut. "... Save her. Fia." Fia watched the knight. There was no lie.
"Then why do your lips say it like it is a threat?"
"Maybe at the beginning... it was."
"It was?"
Luna stood, growing frustrated with the dull edge of her carving knife as she walked around the fire. "Yes. At first. At first? I could not stand her!" She threw her hands up in exaggeration. "But..."
"She grows on you just as you did on her." Fia giggled. "Like you have on all of us." She gave a cheeky grin to the knight.
"Heyyyy," She wagged her finger at the deathly priestess, "I am just honest. That is all."
"Mhm. A rare thing."
"... Yeah..." She sat back down with a soft thump, returning to working over the piece of word into the makings of some long axe like handle.
"Hey." Fia rested a hand lightly on her leg. "We will find a way back to them." She could see the frustration now was at losing her lover in the chaos. Having not been there to help. She was acting rough, but Fia could see the panic in her eyes when she thought the priestess wasn't watching.
"Thank you, Fia." She gave a tender smile. The dark, shrouded woman returned it, feeling a deep sense of comfort being so close to Luna. Her newer magic felt... fitting. It reminded her of her own but far more direct. It was almost purer, but that word felt incorrect. This magic seemed to reject the concepts of purity and impurity.
"We should rest soon."
"You do. I have first watch tonight."
...
She breathed out slowly, holding her face as she struggled a little. Fia didn't know yet, and Luna was sleeping again. She had to keep up the facade for a little while until her idiotic 'real' self woke back up. Heiress was no help either. She was stuck inside fixing all the fucking damage.
She sighed as she leaned her head back against the tree, slowly picking at the wrappings around her newly finished blade. It didn't have the gear mechanism it would normally have, but right now, it wasn't a time for the knight to be picky.
"It'll kill. That's what matters." Nahul tool a long, ragged breath as she held her face in the off hand. It felt strange to be out with no pieces of her mask, but it also felt rather good. "And kill well." She peered through the space between the hunter's cleaver blade and its handle with one eye and a wild smile.
"And it will kill well."