The remains of the day, you spend with Titania, showing her sword form. She has no training in swordsmanship and watching her swing the curved blade like a cleaver makes you wince.
You leave her to leap about and climb the trees like an excitable child, learning the sword by swinging it about like your father encouraged.
You go sit by the Grace for some time, resting. The hunger still gnaws at you, but it is almost starting to become... normal. You dread what it'll be like to actually eat when the time comes.
Somehow, you're tired.
"Melina."
She appears moments later.
"Ezekiel."
"I have a question ---" you take out the little golden flask of restorative medicine "--- got anymore of these?"
"For what do you need it?"
"Hey! Zeke!"
You turn to look at Titania. She throws a heavy stick forth and as it flies away from her, she vanishes from sight, and faster than the eye can see cuts the stick in half.
"I figured it out!"
"Her."
"Who is that?"
"A friend. Can you also turn runes into strength for her?"
Melina keeps staring at Titania. "Is that a misbegotten chimera?"
"You're very observant." Somehow you're also more interested in looking at your new friend rolling about and laughing.
She turns back to look at you, and for the first time you see her with an expression of something other than neutrality. She looks deeply perplexed.
You smile. Making an impression is important.
"So. Bottle, runes into strength, are those services exclusive to Tarnished?"
"I--- I mean I--- I can certainly brew you another dose of restorative from a golden seed of the erdtree, and a sacred tear. As for runes... I suppose I can. I've never done so before --- Ezekiel, what in all the land?"
You shrug. "I've decided to become Elden Lord. A Lord needs knights, no?"
Melina gestures emphatically. "A bloodhound knight misbegotten chimera?!"
"What, never seen one of those before? They're all over the place down here by the Weeping Insula."
She stares at you for a long spell, then she giggles. "You are a jester."
"They call me that, you know. Jester."
Titania has laid down out among the shrubs, looking up at the twilight sky.
Melina stands. "Good luck in your travels." Then she vanishes into ash.
<div align=right>
Atop a tower, night sky above.
Something falls from the cosmos.
It lands before you.
Median, annulary.
They twitch.
</div>
You wake up there, between the two old trees by the Grace. It is evening.
"Oh, you're awake! I found food!"
That gets you back to your senses, and you see Titania sling an entire goat from off her shoulder. Its throat has been cut, and there's a lot of blood in the fur.
"Did you let it bleed out?" is your first question.
"I didn't want to get blood on my cloak, so I held it upside down for a while until it stopped bleeding."
You emerge from your cloak, and your hunger is more present than ever. "We need firewood and tinders, I'll do the butchering." You remove your gauntlets and armwraps to avoid getting guts on them.
"Who was that one you talked to?" Titania asks.
You draw your dagger and roll the goat's belly upwards a little, and lay a cut along the centerline to begin skinning it.
"Melina. She's... some kind of woman that will help us later."
Titania goes off in search of firewood, and you go proceed with the butchering: gutting and cleaning; jointing the hooves, shoulders, and hips. It is hard work, and your apatite grows.
When she returns, you have to show her how to build a fire --- as close to the Grace as is feasible without being under the low canopies and risking setting the trees ablaze. You teach her to use flint and tinder
Seeing the flames rise is invigorating.
"Say, do you know if meat rots?"
Titania looks at you. "What?"
"I'm thinking we can't eat all this meat, and I've nothing to cure it with..."
"I don't know, I mean... hm. I guess a few weeks ago I ate from a carcass some wolves had left behind I think, and it was... dry?"
"Flies? Maggots?"
"What are those?"
You whistle for Torrent, and stow the legs of the goat in his roomy saddle bags. The meat you cut to eat is from the shoulder and back of the animal. You let the initial fire burn down to embers and skewer slivers of meat on whittled sticks --- when you make it to Morning, you'll have to visit a smith for a skillet and a potter for a cooking pot. And a bowyer and fletcher for hunting implements. And a salt merchant...
Titania is content to eat slivers of meat raw; you lend her your dagger to pluck the carcass. You'll have to find her a utility knife. You also need one --- a dagger is a poor replacement for a good knife.
Whatever were you thinking, setting off for the Lands Between without proper gear...
You watch her pick apart the dead goat, slurping down narrow strips of meat.
Staring into the fire you think of that strange dream. "Isn't it weird?"
"Hm?"
"Titania, how in all the land did we become friends?"
She chews and swallows. "I thought you were chimera. I asked you for help. I realized I was wrong. You wanted to help anyway and made an effort to gain my trust and gave me arms and a name, like, just because?"
"Why did you ask me for help?"
"You seemed... trustworthy. And the kids throwing rocks, that was just... kids shouldn't throw rocks at people."
"I seemed... trustworthy?"
"And then I saw you come out of the stone circle with a dead guy who looked like he had been really scary, and that guy with the wolf head. Figured you had fought together, that you were strong."
Titania looks at the meat you're cooking, and then into the fire. "I... also had a dream, the night after I followed you and the wolfman."
"Oh?"
"I was atop a tower, and there was like, this great big hand --- but it was missing three fingers."
"I've had that dream too, just today."
That is certainly a coincidence. "Ever dream of fire?"
"Sometimes."
"How old are you?"
"Hm... Thirty-ish passings of the seasons?"
You don't know precisely either, but probably around thirty. "Me too."
Taking one of the spits out of the fire, you poke the thin piece of meat. It feels done, so you pull it off and eat it, tearing off chunks with your teeth like an animal.
Titania seems trustworthy, too, somehow. Fate is surely playing a trick, pushing the two of you together.
You wake up by the Grace, to a foggy morning, sitting nestled up against Titania. You fell asleep by the fire, which has now burned out --- she must have moved you.
Somehow you don't mind. She breathes slowly.
Is this love? Surely not --- you've no desire to see her unclothed, except perhaps to bathe together, or to tend to her wounds. Bathing is perhaps a good thing to consider. She smells quite strongly --- not unpleasantly, just animalistic and unwashed.
Maybe it's a different kind of love.
Maybe you two are meant to be together.
It feels right. One day you might be Lord, and she will be your Knight.
You look up at her face, peaceful in expression. Reaching out of your cloak to stroke her cheek causes her to stir.
"Hey," you say.
"Hey," she rumbles back.
You get up and stretch, Titania does the same, but on all fours like a great big cat.
Whistling for Torrent causes him to appear, and you set off out to the cliffs, and along them towards the bridge, now invisible in the fog.
You ride Torrent; Titania has long legs with strange joints and no trouble traversing the rough terrain.
"We need to get you a horse."
"It'd have to be a big one."
As the bridge comes into view, you both cover your faces, and head onto the road.
"No names from here on out. I am Jester, you are Nameless."
"Yes Ze--- I mean Jester."
There's soldiers stationed there, with great ballistae pointed towards the Weeping Insula, rather than away. They let you pass quite unmolested.
You wonder if you will have to fight your way through that blockade --- you hope traveling with Grace will prove to let you bring Titania along.
"Do you think this is about the uprising?" you ask.
"Maybe."
A little down the road sitting on a log by a low wall, you encounter a woman. She is dressed in a dirty gown and a headwrap covering her eyes. She is both slight, pale, and what's visible of her face, very pretty.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
You dismount and approach. "Yes, m'lady?"
"Might I lend your ear for a moment, please? My name is Irina, I've escaped from castle Morne. The servants there..."
You hold up a hand towards Titania, sensing her anger at the word.
"... They have rebelled. I do not know much, my eyesight's been weak since birth, you see. But I heard the howling and the battle."
You crouch down. "How did you escape?"
"My good father Edgar is the knight commander; he secreted me out of the castle and city, but himself snuck back in. He claims it to uphold his duty."
"He sounds like a man too brave for his own good," you say. "My name is Jester, I am heading there, to Morning, to look for someone else. Shall I look for him as well?"
"Please, would you be so kind? Give him this locket of mine, that he knows I ask for him, and perhaps must feel it his duty to return with it to me." She takes a fine necklace off and hands it to you. You hang it around your own neck for safe keeping.
"Irina, your plight is true and good. I shall find your father, and if need be I will haul him back here myself by the scuff of his neck..." You take her hand and pull your veil aside to hiss her knuckles.
"Oh, many thanks, you are very kind. I haven't anything to pay you for---"
"For a pretty woman such as yourself, I will go to the ends of the world," you say.
Irina blushes. "Oh! Why, ser Jester, that is very forward of you."
"Worry not. I already have one my heart beats for --- I shan't ask your father for your hand in marriage when I find him. Unless such a white lie would make him return to you all the faster."
She laughs. "Oh your name is very fitting. Good luck, Jester. I shall wait for him here."
You look to the bridge --- within sight, sure, but the safety is debatable. On the other hand, for a blind woman as lovely as Irina, mingling with the soldiers would be... unwise.
"I shall make haste."
You mount up and continue.
Some distance down the road, out of earshot, Titania speaks up: "Why the fuck are we helping that woman?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"I don't care! Did you hear what she said? 'Servants,' she called them. We were slaves."
"She's blind. Whatever she knows, she has likely been told by others. And she has no power. The knights and lords and guards and slave drivers; direct your ire at them."
"... Fine."
You ride onwards, through a pass between sheer cliffs --- a formidable choke point to defend against invasion. Should some lord from the north decide to quell the rebellion in Morning, they will have a hard time.
Beyond lies an open landscape, that seems to slope down towards the sea, with leagues of farmland. As twilight falls, rainclouds roll in with light rain and the dark of night.
"We should seek shelter for the night," you mutter.
But Titania puts a hand on your thigh. "Something is out there," she says.
You squint into the rain. It is very quiet, and your cloak is getting soaked despite the wax-treatment. Perhaps the weeks at sea ruined it.
And then you almost see it. The shadow of a rider. Coming towards you.
"I don't like the looks of that one," Titania says, and pulls on you, away from the road. The knight sets into a gallop towards the two of you, and you spur Torrent into a gallop immediately.
But there's no forest to seek refuge in, no trees to climb --- the rocks, perhaps. But the rider will reach Titania before she gets to safety. On Torrent you could probably outrun him.
You draw your sword, and pull gently on the reins. Torrent skids to a stop, turns hard, and sets into a gallop towards the knight.
In the dark you see him swinging a wicked flail. He is like the golden-clad one, riding an enormous horse and being of equally enormous stature himself.
You pick a side, approaching with him on your sword hand side, and he readies to strike you down. But as you reach the moment of the clash, you spur Torrent and he understands your meaning perfectly: in a great impossible leap he sails over the flail strike and you lever a mighty chop directly at the knight's throat.
It doesn't kill him, of course, but it leaves him rattled. He reins in his horse and you see him put a gauntlet to his gorget. But he brandishes his flail once more --- now that he has seen what Torrent can do, he will be expecting it.
But what he doesn't expect is that you've taken his attention for long enough that Titania has snuck up on him. She leaps up to his height and tackles him off his horse. They tumble on the ground together, and then she vanishes from sight, appearing in the air --- you see the glint of a dagger in the knight's hand.
She lands and he strikes at her with the flail. Titania moves to intercept the shaft and the spikes hit her. With a mighty pull, she disarms him, and proceeds to pummel him into the mud with his own weapon. Again and again and again.
You hop off Torrent and go to her. "Hey, Nameless, enough!" The man's armor is dented and bruised, and he has stopped trying to defend himself with his arms --- he's barely moving. "You're hurt." You put a hand on her arm, where the spikes of the flail has shredded the fabric.
"He tried to kill you."
You take out your bauble of restorative, and hand it to her. "Drink this."
While she does you go and pick up the knight's own dagger. A wicked, long, ornate stiletto. You return to Titania with it. "Give him a clean death."
Titania rubs her injured arm. "What the hell was in that bottle?"
You shake your head and press the weapon in her hand.
She goes over to the knight --- to his credit suffering silently and not begging for mercy --- and puts the dagger through his eye.j
The runes of this kill encircle Titania, just as it did with you. "Let's find a Grace." You look to the sky to glimpse the faint rays of Grace guiding you to the next safe place to camp.
Spurring Torrent into a walk, you head further away from the road along the rocky landscape. Up a ridge is a patch of trees and a small lake, and on a shelf in the stone is the Grace. Torrent leaps up to the small landing in a single impossible bound.
"Uh, Zeke?" Titania points, and you look. There stands the knight's steed, four equine legs sticking out from under a great big black cloak of fabric.
It slowly comes over to Titania. It stops right in front of her, giving a snort, as if waiting, bowing its head.
"Leave it be," you say.
On a whim, Titania takes hold of the cloak covering the beast's head and throws it back. Under it is the head of a creature that is not quite a horse --- in particular it has two great big curled horns like that of a ram, and golden eyes with horizontal pupils.
It shakes its head some, leaving its grey mane to flop about. Then turns its head sideways to regard her with one eye.
"Try come up here."
Titania backs away a bit and climbs up to the grace in two hops. The steed follows in a leap, much like Torrent, landing with the grace of a goat.
"Melina?" you say.
She appears from thin air, in a swirl of ash. "Ezekiel --- what is this now?"
"We killed a rider in black armor, his horse followed us. Or rather it followed her. Hey---"
Titania turns to you.
"Could you introduce yourself to Melina, here? And give your real name, she already knows mine."
Titania towers over Melina. She gives but a short bow. "Hi. I'm Titania."
Melina looks from her to you, then to the horse. "Well... that steed there is of the Night's Cavalry. Riders appointed and once led by the Fell Omen, they roam the land during the dark hours, searching for errant warriors --- Tarnished --- to slay. In his day, the Fell Omen was a hunter of your kind. Some say he still lurks in the Lands Between."
She steps forward towards the beast, gently reaching out a hand. "He is a spectral steed, like Torrent. Though not as venerable and wise." Melina looks at Titania. "They choose their riders --- were you the one to slay the Knight?"
"Yeah."
"Then he may have chosen you. Take good care of him and he will be a lifelong loyal steed."
Titania approaches the animal.
"Hold your hand out, slowly, palm up," Melina instructs. "His name is Squall."
She does, and Squall sniffs her hand. Then she rubs him on the bridge of the nose, which he seems to appreciate.
"Melina," you say, and she turns to look at you with her one eye. "Titania dealt the deathblow to the knight. She has runes; would you do me the favor of strengthening her with them?"
Titania is looking your way at the mention of her name. Melina holds a hand out towards her.
"Lend your hand to me."
Melina's slender hand is all but engulfed in Titania's strong paw.
"Close your eyes. Share with me your thoughts, your ambitions, the principles you would follow."
And then as soon as Titania does, Melina withdraws her hand, startled.
"Is there a problem?" you ask.
"Not as such, no. The transmutation is complete..."
You look to Titania. She clenches and unclenches her hand a few times. "Hm. Feels good." She grins. "Feels like I should kill another knight."
"Then what happened?" you press.
Melina looks to you. "Ezekiel, do you deceive me on purpose? For sport, perhaps?"
You furrow your brow --- wearing a veil has led you to learn how to emote well with your eyes and brow alone. "No?"
"You are no Tarnished! You are Empyrean! Titania is your Shadow!"
"I have little idea what that means."
Melina rubs her beautiful forehead in exasperation. "Very well, of course you do not. But I was very right in considering you different from other Tarnished warriors I render my aid to. I... I am not certain our collaboration can continue."
"Why not?"
"Because the Tarnished are guided by Grace to become Elden lord. Empyreans are chosen by the Two Fingers --- the vassals of the Greater Will --- to enact... a paradigm change."
She looks down, seeming troubled, and you take a step closer.
"Who else are empyrean?"
"Queen Marika the Eternal, among others."
"What's a Shadow?" Titania asks.
"An extension of the Empyrean's will, the complement of their being and soul, a strong protector. Marika had Maliketh, to whom she is said to have bequeathed a black blade fashioned from the rune of death itself. Empyrean and Shadow will always be born on the same day."
"Wait," you say. "So--- The Two Fingers, whatever they are, thinks Titania is supposed to be my servant?"
"Of a sorts."
"That is both insulting and denigrating," you protest. "Titania is my---"
"Shadow," Titania interrupts. "Zeke..." she comes up to you and puts a hand on your shoulder --- warmth felt even through your rain-soaked doublet. "It feels... right. I want to be your knight. When you asked me to follow you, I--- there's nothing I'd rather do. You feel like family to me, kind of. I don't know."
You put your hand on hers. "But, is it your will or that of some finger-y being?" Something tight sits in your chest.
"You named me, Ezekiel. We have an accord --- we're going to Morning so I can say my goodbyes, and then see you Elden Lord. Maybe more." She glances at Melina.
You feel a tear run down your cheek. Something recalls to you how your father would speak such sincere words of love to you. Words fail you, and you look away to wipe your eyes.
"An Empyrean and their Shadow are of one soul, if the scriptures are to be believed. Even if you dismiss her, you will never be rid of her," Melina cautions.
"Shut up, lady," Titania mutters. "You okay, Zeke?"
You nod, emphatically.
She bends down to hug you, and everything in the world is right. You hold each other tight for a long while. Eventually you draw back.
"One soul, huh?"
"One soul," you repeat.
"I'll follow you to the ends of the world. Your will is my will."
"One soul, one will."
"I like the sound of that."
Titania sleeps, but you sit awake in the drizzle. There's no hope of getting dry, and you have too much to think about. But Melina sits with you, saying nothing, lost deep in thoughts as well.
"Why do you do it?"
She looks to you.
"Why do you help Tarnished?"
"I told you. I wish to progress to the foot of the Erdtree."
"For what purpose?"
She sits in the rain for a while.
"I'm searching for my purpose given to me by my mother inside the Erdtree long ago, for the reason that I yet live, burned and bodyless."
Her face betrays no sadness. She looks at you. "There is something for which I must apologize. I've acted the finger maiden yet I can offer no guidance, I am no maiden. My purpose was long ago lost..."
"You've wellsprings of knowledge to give, still," you say. "And kind words. That, to me, is guidance enough. For all the rest I shall follow my heart."
She nods and looks into the Grace.
"How, if I may ask, do you appear before me if you were burned and have no body?"
"That I know not."
"Hm. Should I in my travels find a way to return you to life, I will see it done."
Then you turn over and nestle up against Titania, falling asleep.
The morning comes foggy rather than rainy, but both of you are soaked. You're hungry, and thirsty, and Titania smells like wet animal --- at some point you will have to find somewhere to bathe.
Titania spends some time getting the rain-wet black fabric off Squall, and you stow the bolts of cloth in Torrent's saddle bags --- it may be useful later.
With both of you riding, the road goes by half again as quickly. Titania sings off key and with no rhyme or reason, happy as can be.
"We'd be able to see Morning from here," Titania says, "if it wasn't for the fog."
Out of the mist comes another rider, and you are immediately wary, until it turns out that he rides a heavily burdened gangly mule, and wears colorful clothes. Same as Kalé.
"A merchant," you say aside to Titania.
"Is someone there?!" he calls out to you. "Buying or selling?"
"Buying!" you call out, and spur Torrent.
"Forgive me one moment, m'lady," he says, dismounting. "I shall set up my display---"
"No need. Do you have for sale perhaps a bow and arrows?"
"I have a crossbow I looted from a dead soldier in the road, and two dozen bolts. Does that serve?"
"If it lets me hunt wild game, it does."
The merchant digs through his mule's packs and finds the weapon, then a quiver of bolts.
You call upon the runes within you and break off a small bauble. "Will this be enough?"
He takes the runes off you and gives you the bolts and bow. "Handsomely. Thank you, kind traveler. Prithee are you going to Morning?
"We are," Titania says.
"I'd advise against. There's a terrible violence there. You might get killed."
"Thank you for the advice."
The merchant saddles up and rides on. You do the same.
What little you can see of the lands around you, you see wheat ripe for harvest, lying in the fields, beaten down by rain, unharvested.
"You lived here long ago."
"What of it."
"What of the field workers?" You gesture. "Why is nobody harvesting?"
"Mostly slaves."
You shake your head in disbelief.
The walls of Morning come into view through the fog, towering over you. A fortress city --- even more difficult it would then be for some northern noble to quell the rebellion.
Outside the gates --- sensibly shut --- lies something big and dead, a corpse made of stone. "What's that?"
"Gate guard. Stone animated by fire."
There's nobody to accost you, nobody to guard the gate, no bowmen on the battlements to attack you. The walls of Morning are unlike anything you have ever seen --- as tall as ten men. You wonder if the castle Morne inside is actually a keep, or just a mansion; any force that could penetrate such a fortification would surely be unstoppable.
"We're not getting in here," Titania says. "I know a way in."
"Hm?"
"There's tunnels in, used by smugglers and in case of siege. There's also the sea way --- if they've blocked off the tunnels, we might be able to get in by the water."
"Lead the way."
You ride westwards around the fortifications --- at no point meeting any soul to question your errands. There's no defenses apart from the formidable wall. You can only imagine how thick the stone must be.
Titania intently looks upon the wall and the features of the terrain, seeking landmarks in the fog, then sets off outwards from the wall. A few hundred paces away, you come upon a cluster of stones dug into the ground. "Down here."
It looks like perhaps a burial mound. There's a stone door which Titania moves, and indeed there lies within a few sarcophagi, visible from the entrance in the sparse daylight.
You dismount, and give Torrent a pat on the neck. "You look after Squall now, boy. Teach him to come when Titania whistles."
Then as if he truly understands, Torrent trots over past Squall and into the fog; Squall follows.
"Let's go," Titania says. "It's very dark inside. I'll guide you."