Half-Kin

Here's the chapter!

I admit I had to rewrite it several times. About five or six times (it was more, but I'm forced to stop counting there because of that fucking abomination thing the internet created). I had a lot of doubts about continuing in the direction the story is taking because, even though I've had this planned for quite some time, I wasn't entirely sure it would be a good idea.

In the end, I decided it was better to stick with my original plan. Even so, I'd still love to hear your thoughts on it.

In fact, this chapter probably has a few writing mistakes here and there, since I wasn't able to do my usual editing pass.

Well, with that said, if anyone wants to support me, or read 3/7/13 chapters ahead, you can do so through my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still sincerely appreciate you reading. Thank you so much!

Have a good day, everyone, and I hope you enjoy the read!

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.

[...]---[...]

POV: Alice.

I remembered the cold and the fog, the sea.

The Sea of Fog.

I wandered for years upon years that I could no longer remember. My memories had vanished completely long ago. Whatever had once been "me" had drowned in that sea alongside everything else I represented—or had ever represented—in some distant past.

Whatever remained of me could hardly be called "me" at all.

The only thing I could say I knew was that I was searching for something, returning to somewhere.

Yet I couldn't truly remember knowing that place either.

I often wondered whether such a place was my home or merely another prison...

Upon the Sea of Fog, I sailed without a lighthouse and sank.

My heart was lost to the sea.

And not even the maddest soul could have found it.

Then, amidst the dense fog I had long since given up trying to cross, forever lost in solitude, far from my destination, I saw the light.

It shone high in the sky, brighter than any star, more human than any man, lonelier than I could ever remember feeling.

Like a castaway adrift within the dense fog of the great sea where I was lost, I followed the light the Lightkeeper kept burning.

The orange light that shone above all things, the light that, merely by being gazed upon, filled the missing gaps within me, granting me knowledge and the will to continue.

Even the spark of Grace that existed within my chest retreated, becoming something tame.

My memories had not returned and never would. Whoever I had been before had died far from home, and what remained—half had drowned in the fog forever, while the other half was so fractured it resembled dust.

Yet from the light and by the light, I was named Alice.

Then I awoke.

[...]

The moment I looked upon the being I knew to be the source of the light that had guided me through the Sea of Fog and given me my name, I froze.

I knew he was somewhere within these same lands. I could vaguely sense where he was, much like someone can vaguely sense the sun's position in the sky while standing outdoors.

Part of me had wanted to meet him sooner, to seek him out.

Yet that same part of me was utterly terrified.

...What if he hated me?

The thought genuinely terrified me.

Death and pain were old, familiar friends of mine. I knew that much. Even during the short time I had spent in these lands, I had already died twice.

And even before that, I felt that death had never been a stranger to me. Nor wounds. Nor pain.

But loneliness, oblivion, and rejection were the things I truly feared.

I didn't want to go back there.

I didn't want to return to that place...

Especially if it came from him.

So, staring at the back of the orange-eyed human I knew was named Devas—who, for all intents and purposes, I could also call my father—I froze.

Beyond everything I was feeling, his presence filled the entire area as well. I had the vague impression that perhaps he didn't even mean to do it, and that it was simply a byproduct of what—or who—he was.

Instinctively, I looked away, focusing on the Great Rune Melina had vaguely explained to me. I felt it was easier to look at that than at my father.

Then he turned and looked at me with his single orange eye.

The same color that had saved me.

He didn't seem aggressive. Quite the opposite. I felt he knew I wasn't a threat to him. Not that I could be, but still, I felt he knew I was his ally somehow.

Because I was. And I always would be. After all, I owed everything to him.

In fact, he seemed almost playful for some reason, even amidst the anger I could feel leaking from him, directed at the body that had fallen apart behind him moments earlier.

Godrick, or something like that, if I remembered Melina's explanation correctly.

That was why I had a weapon in my hands. I had come to fight him and claim the Great Rune, but it seemed I had arrived a little too late.

Then he opened his mouth, revealing two rows of remarkably straight white teeth.

"It only took three breaths to kill him."

His voice came out casual, perhaps amused. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the body, where two massive axes lay upon the ground atop enormous clothes that no longer covered any body.

The Great Rune floated there alone.

"Are you going to fight me for that... rune?"

I blinked slowly and looked at him.

Even if I didn't know him. Even if he wasn't my savior. Even if he wasn't, for all intents and purposes, my father.

Even without all that.

Even if I knew nothing at all.

I gave the only real and correct answer anyone could possibly give to the question, "Are you going to fight me?" when it came from that human.

"No fucking way."

Then I slung my greatsword onto my back and turned away.

Not merely because the very idea of fighting him terrified me—for there was only one possible ending to that—but because I didn't know how to face him.

Not in battle. I simply didn't know how to talk to him.

What would I say? What could I say? What was I even supposed to say here?!

'Hello, nice to meet you. I'm the empty shell you filled with your light and, for all intents and purposes, your daughter. How's your day going?'

I lightly shook my head, dismissing the ridiculous thought as I continued walking.

I managed five steps before his voice rang out again.

"You... what are you?" he murmured, staring at me. "There's something strange about you..."

I stopped in place.

Of course he would notice...

I turned slightly, looking over my shoulder before speaking without truly thinking.

"That's a rude thing to say, especially coming from someone who looks like you."

I regretted the words before I had even finished saying them.

Damn this body and its weird instinctive responses!

To my relief, Devas didn't seem offended. To my concern, he actually seemed curious and confused.

His visible eyebrow rose as though something had caught his attention. Then he answered without hesitation.

"At least my ass isn't hanging out."

He gestured downward with his head.

I tilted my neck and looked over my own shoulder, following the direction he indicated.

The dark, worn cloth I wore from the waist down was torn. It consisted of strips of thick fabric and a few old leather plates loosely fastened together after my last real set of armor had been destroyed, barely covering the sides of my thighs.

A large tear across the back left the pale left cheek of my ass completely exposed to the cold wind—not that the cold really bothered me.

Perhaps that was one of the reasons I hadn't noticed it before.

I blinked twice, slowly.

He was right.

I felt slightly... Not embarrassed.

This body wasn't really capable of that. Whether I had inherited that lack of shame from my father or because—even before all this—body shame had always been a very vague concept to me.

Modesty didn't have much room on a battlefield.

Something like being embarrassed about being seen naked would only create hesitation, interfere with movement, and consequently lead to death.

And even if I never stayed dead for very long, it was still something worth avoiding.

Even so, I reached behind me and tugged at the rags, trying to cover a bit more exposed skin.

It wasn't embarrassment about being seen, exactly.

It was embarrassment about being in such a pathetic state right in front of him.

...Alright, maybe it was a little embarrassment, but damn it!

I turned back around, hiding my ass from view and looking directly at him.

"Pot, meet kettle."

I pointed a finger from myself toward him. His eyebrow rose even higher.

"And at least I have clothes, not... whatever that thing you're wearing is supposed to be. And I seriously doubt you're wearing anything underneath it, so in a way, I'm actually better dressed than you."

I felt like I should simply shut up and leave, but I couldn't...

He blinked twice before pointing a finger at me.

"You've got rags. And your nipple is showing."

Without breaking eye contact, I moved a hand to my chest and pulled the loose dark fabric over, covering myself without even looking.

"That doesn't change what I said about you," I shot back, maintaining my posture.

"Now it's the other one," he replied casually.

I blinked.

I looked down.

The cloth I had pulled over had covered the left side, yes, but the movement had stretched the tear on the opposite side, leaving my right nipple exposed.

I gave a dry cough, quickly pulled the rags up properly, and looked back at him, lifting my chin in a clear challenge of "Well?"

Devas didn't answer with words.

He simply reached his right hand to his left shoulder, grabbed the collar of that cloak of shadows, and pulled.

The shadows writhed.

They dripped and slithered across his body like black sludge, retreating and revealing what lay beneath.

The information and names came to me instinctively.

He was wearing dark jeans, a pair of casual black mid-top sneakers, and a gray graphic T-shirt. Printed on the shirt was a medieval knight wielding a giant pair of scissors, with the words "Sir Cumsize" written across it in large letters.

...It was still strange knowing all these new languages.

"What was I saying?" he asked.

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

My mind stalled for a second, trying to process not only the stupid phrase on his shirt but also the fact that none of it made any sense.

"You weren't wearing that before!" I pointed at his legs. "Your feet and shins were exposed beneath the cloak literally a second ago, and it was obvious you weren't wearing anything!"

Devas merely shrugged and let go of the cloak.

Immediately, the shadows twisted violently.

Long black centipede legs sprouted from the dark fabric, grabbing its edges and dragging the darkness back toward the center of his body as it crawled across his skin. Pale white eyes and crazed red ones opened across the surface of the cloak, blinking frantically and at random while the "fabric" crawled over him.

When the shadow completely swallowed him once more and covered him as before, the sneakers and jeans that had been visible around his ankles a millisecond earlier had vanished entirely.

All that remained were his previously bare feet and shins.

I stared at him for a moment.

"Petty..."

In response, he spread his arms slightly, palms up, in what I interpreted as a sort of "What can I do about it?"

Strangely enough, I couldn't help a small smile.

I felt much more at ease now.

He had managed that without even trying...

While I was thinking, Devas extended his right hand and touched the air. Almost as if he were plucking the strings of a guitar only he could see. His fingers brushed through empty space several times, his brow gradually furrowing while his gaze shifted between the spot he was touching and me.

After a second or two, he stopped and murmured quietly,

"The world was trying to hide you from me?... Why?..."

He wasn't the only one confused.

The world was doing what?!

His expression became distant for a moment. His eye lost focus. The orange began to melt out of his skull, staining the air around his right eye like oil paint spreading through the water of a lake.

He stayed like that for five, maybe ten seconds before blinking, and all the "paint" withdrew back into his eye, which once again looked like nothing more than a blazing sun resting in its socket.

"Oh..."

In that single word, he somehow conveyed surprise, shock, and confusion without changing his expression at all.

His face contorted violently for a moment before he let out a slow sigh.

I shrank slightly at the sound.

"I am literally one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three years too young for this..." He shook his head and pointed at me. "You. What left you in this state?"

I accepted the change of subject—and the lack of any explanation for what that sentence meant—and looked down at myself. I inspected my body for a moment before answering.

"But I'm intact?" Had he noticed some internal injury?

I knew his eyesight was good, but I didn't know the true extent of it.

Devas looked at me with a flat expression and spoke slowly, as though explaining something to someone particularly dense.

"I'm talking about your clothes. Who killed you badly enough to leave your armor looking like that?"

So he knew I had died before...

"The first time or the second time, D-Devas?" I asked.

He released another heavy sigh and ran a hand through his gray hair.

"Explain both."

"The first one was right after I woke up," I began. "I'd just killed a huge creature, an abomination with multiple grafted arms carrying a pair of swords and a heavy shield. Right when I was about to search its corpse... I tripped and fell off a cliff. Died."

I ignored the utterly skeptical look he gave me.

Slightly embarrassed, I continued.

"The second time was about half an hour ago. I was on my way here when I ran into a gigantic man riding an enormous horse. Both of them were completely covered in golden armor that looked kind of like tree bark, and he carried a colossal halberd. He caught me off guard with a strike I couldn't dodge and split me in half. My body basically exploded. That's why my clothes look like this. I didn't have any others to wear."

I was still going to get revenge on that bastard.

If his horse hadn't run faster than Torrent, I would've gotten away. I wasn't even trying to attack him—I just happened to pass near him!

And crawling around naked to recover what was left of my armor hadn't been fun either...

Devas listened in silence and nodded.

Then he snapped the fingers of his right hand.

Instantly, a pile of clothes and assorted armor pieces appeared out of nowhere, clattering onto the stones beside him.

There were all kinds of equipment: leather breastplates, light steel armor plates, chainmail, coats, thick cloth trousers, random shirts, and various boots. The pieces came in different sizes, though all of them were fairly large, and most bore carved runes and enchantments of different colors etched randomly along their edges in languages and symbols I simply couldn't read.

"See what fits and take as much as you want," he said.

Then he cast a brief glance toward the Great Rune floating behind him, as though checking something, and took a step forward.

He vanished.

Even focusing entirely on him, I couldn't see where he had gone.

The very next millisecond, he reappeared a meter away from me and grabbed the "air" with his right hand.

Pulling on the "air," he yanked Melina out from wherever she had been hiding.

His hand was firmly gripping her right shoulder. Melina's single eye was wide open, her expression displaying shock and disbelief.

"Is this specter some friend of yours or some kind of haunting?" Devas asked casually, neither releasing her shoulder nor looking away. "I can exorcise her for you if you'd like, Alice."

I blinked, focusing on something else for a moment.

"I never told you my name."

"And I never introduced myself," he shot back immediately. "But it's only natural that we know each other's names, isn't it?"

I stared at him in silence for a moment.

"Please don't exorcise or kill her," I said, turning my gaze toward Melina. "Her name is Melina. She's been acting as my Maiden and guiding me. And yes, she's my friend."

I wasn't even sure Melina could really be considered my friend.

We had known each other for... maybe five or six hours at most. Seven, perhaps. And we had barely exchanged any words.

But I felt that if I didn't say it, Devas might simply eat her right there and then.

In the literal, culinary sense.

"Maiden?" Devas repeated, stretching the word out slowly as his smile widened.

For the first time, he looked away from Melina and turned toward me, lifting his gaze to meet my eyes. That eyebrow was raised again.

"Just a friend, then?"

I blinked, taking a second to understand the implication.

"That's not what you're thinking!" I blurted out, frantically waving my hands in front of myself. "Maiden is just a title—a role! She helps me turn runes into strength, that's all! It has nothing to do with—"

Devas simply nodded, cutting off my defensive stammering.

A small smile appeared on his face, amused and somehow incredibly proud.

"Alright, alright," he said, raising his free hand in a peaceful gesture. "I'm not prejudiced. Don't worry."

"But I literally just said that's not—!"

"Go get dressed," he interrupted gently, nodding toward the pile of clothes and armor on the stones before I could attempt another defense. "Pick out whatever you need while I have a chat with your specter 'friend.'"

He turned his attention back to Melina.

She still looked somewhat shocked by the fact that she had been forcibly dragged out of the spirit plane—or wherever it was she stayed when invisible—and, more importantly, seemed confused by the way Devas and I were talking to each other.

I could tell from the way her gaze kept shifting between him and me.

"Or perhaps calling her a divine spirit would be more accurate, wouldn't it?" Devas mused. "Or at least something close to that..."

A divine what?!

His eye lingered on Melina's left eye—the one that remained permanently closed and marked by that peculiar symbol I couldn't read.

"Tell me," he said, "would you happen to know someone named Ranni?"

Melina blinked, finally emerging from her stupor.

"What?"

"Ranni," Devas repeated, making a vague gesture with one hand to indicate height. "Small. About your height. Doll body, blue skin, giant witch hat, has the other eye—"

"I know of her," Melina interrupted, her voice cautious. "I am merely surprised that thou dost, Foreigner."

"...Can everyone tell just by looking at me?" he muttered under his breath.

I was tempted to point out that nobody even needed to look at him and that his presence alone was more than enough, but I decided it was better to simply watch.

Melina's open eye drifted away from his face and settled on one of the two swords floating behind his back.

The one that didn't possess the incredibly disturbing eye.

She clearly recognized it.

"Thou..." she began. "Didst thou slay Blaidd?"

The tension in her shoulders visibly increased.

Devas followed her gaze for a moment before looking back at her.

"So you really do know her..." he murmured, sounding pleased. "No, I didn't kill him. I saved him, actually. But that's a story for another time. The sword is tax."

Melina fell silent for a long moment, studying the human standing before her.

"Ranni is an... acquaintance of mine—"

"Sister?" Devas interrupted.

Melina stared at him deeply before releasing a soft, strangely weary sigh.

"It's complicated..."

He seemed to accept the answer. Or at least accept it enough for now.

Devas released her shoulder and nodded toward the area beyond the massive stone archway through which I had arrived.

"Let's talk over there," he said. "I have a few questions."

"So do I," Melina replied.

I noticed her gaze briefly fall upon Devas's left hand before, in the blink of an eye, she vanished into the air, dissolving into golden particles.

Devas watched the particles for a moment before beginning to walk away, those six blood-things floating around him while the two swords followed close behind.

It was... Actually pretty cool.

"Don't intimidate her!" I called after him as he walked away.

Without even turning around, Devas merely raised one hand and lazily waved behind himself.

"Go cover your ass, Alice," his voice echoed back across the courtyard. "I won't hurt your Maiden. And don't touch the rune-thing until I get back!"

I watched his back until he disappeared from sight.

With both of them gone and myself now alone, I found my thoughts drifting back over the last few minutes.

It was something I often caught myself doing.

Whenever I had nothing important to focus on, my mind would instinctively wander, revisiting and reviewing my memories, checking them one by one as though trying to make sure they were still there.

Not in the sea. Not in the fog.

Meeting... I still wasn't sure whether I should call him my father, or even think of him that way. Meeting him had gone well. Far better than I had expected.

To be honest, I had been terrified it would be much worse.

There had been a very real fear that Devas would attack me the moment he saw me, believing I had somehow "stolen" his light to fill my empty shell. Or that he would simply reject me in disgust.

After all, as much as I might think of him as a father, the same wasn't—and couldn't be—guaranteed on his side.

Yet somehow, incredibly, he seemed to have... accepted it?

I couldn't really tell.

We hadn't spoken about it. We hadn't even acknowledged it aloud. It had simply become understood.

In fact, he had merely figured it out. I hadn't even been given a chance to explain. But from the way he treated me—without pushing me away, even being... protective, perhaps?

I thought so.

I walked over to the pile of clothes and armor he had left on the ground.

Undoing the ruined leather cords, I pulled away what remained of the dark rags, discarding the tattered fabric carelessly to one side.

Now completely naked in the middle of the castle's cold courtyard, I crouched down and began sorting through the pile, pulling out pieces, holding them against my body, and searching for things that would fit.

Devas seemed much more terrifying than I had expected.

The dense, oppressive presence. The self-moving shadows. That orange eye. The casual brutality of someone who had killed a demigod in literally three breaths.

But as I slipped my arms into a dark, thick-cloth shirt that appeared to be my size, I paused for a moment.

In a way...

It also felt right.

After all, fathers were supposed to be a little scary, weren't they?

[...]

POV: Devas Asura.

I was... confused...

Maybe "shocked" would be a better word. But I was good at adapting, so I probably didn't look that way on the outside.

... How the fuck did I accidentally create a daughter?!

Of course, Alice wasn't exactly my daughter. She was closer to one of my creations than anything else. Almost like one of my Nightmares.

However, she was... complete.

When I created a Nightmare, I was imitating life. Pretending to paint. Imagining a painting that didn't exist and momentarily dragging that painting into reality. With Alice, I had somehow, by accident, painted a real canvas that already existed, but had been blank.

The closest I'd ever come to doing something like that was what I did to Tyrian. Even then, all I did was twist and distort. Tyrian was still Tyrian; I merely tore out the piece that was Tyrian, corrupted it, and turned it into a Nightmare.

He wasn't truly alive, not in the proper sense of the word. Like my normal Nightmares, he was an imitation, not something real.

Alice was different...

Thinking about it more carefully, she was actually my first Hallow Puppet, even though I hadn't used Shadowflame to create her.

That was why she was, for all intents and purposes, an albino.

She had lost "everything" she once was, and although the absence of color was black rather than white, she wasn't "absent." She was "empty" and "blank".

A blank canvas, or nearly blank, that, upon gazing at the orange color of my right eye — the humanity leaking from me in waves when I fell onto this planet — was "painted" once more, its emptiness filled again with light.

She had been nothing more than a shell. Yet the moment she looked upon my light, that state was altered.

A Hollow in body and a Hallow in soul.

Her soul became a Hallow Puppet, a sinless, "blank" soul, while her body became a Hollow Puppet, a body that, having no history, bore no history carved into its flesh and was just as "blank" as her soul.

In that sense, quite literally, her albinism was merely a reflection of that.

Something blank that had been completely and inevitably infected by my humanity, without even being capable of resisting it.

Whatever traces remained of what she had once been were so small that they were absorbed and erased by her new identity, like a fresh painting layered over an old one that had nearly faded away.

If she was nothing and empty, then my nature, much like the world itself, abhorred emptiness and simply denied the existence of nothingness.

And from that, Alice was born.

I... Didn't even know that was possible! Fuck it!

None of it made any sense! I hadn't even done it on purpose! I didn't even know I could do something like that. That ability belonged to Shadowflame, not me!

How the fuck did I create a Hollow and a Hallow Puppet without even realizing it?!

And why "Alice," of all names?!

Like most people, I'd thought of possible names for my hypothetical sons and daughters before, and not a single one of them was Alice!

Fuck, I was way too young to have a daughter her size. She was literally six foot ten. Taller than me!

Her body was one thousand seven hundred and one years old. My ancestors weren't even a thought in the balls of my most distant ancestor when she was still alive.

...And yet, for all intents and purposes, she was my daughter...

I'd have to be an idiot not to notice the way she spoke. She was basically a mirror of me, not of the archaic language and mannerisms the inhabitants of this world used.

She knew English, of course. She could read the words printed on the T-shirt — I had noticed that. And I doubted that was the only language she'd inherited from me.

Even the way she breathed vaguely reminded me of myself.

Hell, even the way she walked and gestured looked like me...

...I sighed.

At least I was certain she was the only one. That I hadn't accidentally created a dozen more just like her.

I knew that because she possessed countless threads, paths, and connections tied to her—things I could see through the Glimpse of Light in the Abyss. There were so many that she looked like a ball of yarn that had been completely unraveled.

And every one of those threads, paths, connections, and possibilities was in constant motion. Aside from myself, she was the only one whose "threads," "paths," and "connections" were changing.

Everyone else's were static. They moved only when I interfered.

She wasn't bound by the world's fate, nor by whatever bizarre and fucked-up Logos governed this planet.

If I was immune — something from the outside that observed everything externally and could alter what would happen in the story — then she was resistant, and despite being something from within, she could still alter the course of that same story to a certain degree.

She was some kind of anomaly.

And I had felt that even before what I'd done to her.

What I didn't know was whether being my "daughter" was the reason she resisted fate, or if that was something she already possessed beforehand.

Before I arrived, her destiny was intertwined with the entire world in countless ways, like some kind of herald of change. Whatever she was meant to do, I could vaguely see that it would change the whole world one way or another.

She was important. She still is.

That's why I knew she was the only one, because she is unique.

I had only managed to do what I did because she was who she was. Any other human soul and body would have been torn apart before being incinerated upon looking at my "light," my humanity, the way she had.

And the world had tried to hide her from me.

... I wanted to kill something.

Or at least part of it had. Or something immensely powerful, like a God, had hidden her. And for all intents and purposes, it should have succeeded. It had concealed the connection I possessed with her.

I didn't see her.

I didn't perceive her, nor what she was, until she was literally standing in front of me, and even then it still took me a while to realize it.

I wouldn't even have known she existed if she hadn't come to me of her own accord. Sure, the stream saw her and detected her. She appeared as an ally on the minimap.

But I, personally, didn't see her.

I ran my tongue along the inside of my teeth while slowly opening and closing my right hand.

It would be nice to have Jinn or Ozma here right now. I'd appreciate their company and advice. Not that they were out of reach; I could talk to them through chat, but...

I sighed again.

I slowly opened and closed my right hand. My reflexes were sluggish, the nerve connections there necrotic. They were healing and reconnecting, but it would take some time...

I glanced around for a moment and stopped walking.

We were standing in the middle of the ruined stone bridge, in the exact same area where I'd shredded Margit's projection minutes earlier.

A few meters ahead of me, particles of golden light flickered through the air, rapidly gathering together.

Melina reappeared.

I took the opportunity to inspect Alice's maiden more carefully.

She didn't possess a truly physical body, yet she still did. If I had to compare it to something, her state was similar to Jinn's.

She wore a heavy dark cloak over thick traveling robes and leather boots. Her short hair carried a faded pink hue, almost gray, hanging carelessly over a face with delicate features and excessively pale skin, though nowhere near as pale as Alice's.

But what truly drew attention was her left eye.

Like Ranni, she bore some kind of rune or mark above the eye, one that also resembled a scar. In Ranni's case, it was above the right eye; in Melina's, the left.

Death...

Only her right eye remained open, revealing an iris of a pale gray color.

"Foreigner."

That was her first word.

"Human who fell from the stars. Devas."

I stared at her in silence for a moment.

"What is that thing you did to her?" I pointed my right thumb over my shoulder toward the courtyard where Alice was. "The runes on her body are strengthening her in very specific ways."

It took me a while to notice it. Every living being I'd encountered had runes engraved upon their bodies, and those runes strengthened them slightly simply by existing.

But the ones Alice possessed strengthened her far more, and in very specific ways. Some were focused on strength, others seemed to alter her dexterity, or even her magic.

And I hadn't the slightest idea why or how.

Melina looked at me with her single open eye, her expression neutral.

"It is the duty of a Finger Maiden," she replied in a soft, level voice.

I stored the title away. It sounded important.

"I serve as a facilitator. I transform runes... the lingering echoes and wills of those who have passed on... into strength, vitality, and vigor for her to absorb."

"Why?" I asked directly.

I also wanted to ask "how," but that wasn't important right now.

Melina blinked.

"Why... what?"

"Why are you helping her? Better yet, why are you traveling with her?"

I narrowed my eye, letting the orange glow shine a little brighter.

"What reason do you have for doing so?"

Melina opened her mouth, maintaining a serene posture. Or trying to. I could see she wasn't nearly as calm as she appeared.

"It is my du—"

"Don't lie to me!" I growled, cutting her off. "Don't even try. I'll know. I always know...”

Melina swallowed the word halfway through.

The green of her serenity wavered for a fraction of a second within her aura. It rippled, the color shifting slightly into muddied tones and a pale white of uncertainty, apprehension, and a hint of fear. She hesitated, her shoulders stiffening beneath the dark fabric of her cloak.

"Why... what meanest thou?" she asked, her voice less certain. "Why dost thou care? Thou hast but just met her... or hast thou not? The two of thee seemed acquainted in a manner I cannot fathom. Is she the reason thou didst fall into the Lands Between?"

I let out a short snort through my nose and opened and closed my right hand.

"If you'd asked me ten minutes ago, I wouldn't have cared. Not at all," I replied flatly. "And no, that's not the reason. I didn't even know she existed."

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling a faint throb in my temples. What a headache...

I already had a headache before, but this one felt different. My body seemed to have developed the ability to have multiple headaches at once, and I could feel every single one of them.

I didn't answer anything else. I wouldn't even know how to explain it properly. And saying it out loud for the stream to hear was an entirely different can of worms...

I simply stared at her in silence.

I didn't need to explain myself either, and while teasing Alice about her and Melina being in a relationship had been amusing, that didn't change the fact that Melina's family had already caused me a dozen problems, and I hadn't even been in this world for eight hours.

Ranni had some kind of connection to her, probably a sister. Margit was likely connected to them as well; after consuming the body of his manifestation, I had begun noticing certain similarities in their aura and divinity.

Even Godrick, that bastard who thought he could graft my arm onto himself. I was still irritated about that. He was also, in some distant way, related to them.

Was I being petty? Yes.

But fuck it!

Melina seemed to understand that I wasn't going to say anything more. She fell silent, holding my gaze for several seconds before slowly lowering her head.

Her pale gray eye dropped directly to my left hand.

More specifically, to my fingers.

I could feel her gaze on the "strands of hair" tied around them.

"Art thou ally or enemy to the Golden Order?" Melina asked, her voice suddenly more cautious. "And what relation hast thou to Queen Marika... and to Ranni?"

... Right. There was Marika too, wasn't there?

"I have no idea what this Golden Order even is," I answered. "My relationship with Marika is nonexistent. I've never seen her in my life and barely know who she is. As for Ranni... ours is a purely business relationship."

At least for the moment, that was all it was. Not even that, really. I didn't trust her, and she didn't trust me.

Melina did not respond immediately.

Instead, she fell completely silent again.

One, ten, thirty, nearly sixty seconds passed with nothing but the sound of the wind howling through the ravine. It was actually pretty rude of her to do that. Ranni pulled that kind of shit too.

At last, she released an almost inaudible sigh, her shoulders relaxing slightly.

"I accompany her because we are bound by an accord," Melina finally explained.

She lifted her gaze toward the horizon beyond the walls, where I knew that colossal, glowing tree stood. In fact, you could see the damn thing even from here.

... I didn't like that tree.

"Alice possesseth no Finger Maiden of her own. Thus did I offer her a pact," she continued. " I shall serve as her Maiden, converting her runes into strength, and in return she hath agreed to bear me unto the foot of the Erdtree."

She looked back at me, maintaining eye contact.

"That is all. My sole desire, and only purpose, is to reach it. I wish her no harm."

I stared at her in silence, just as she had done to me earlier.

It was true... or at least part of it was. The part about not wishing Alice harm was true. Yet even though she hadn't lied, she had omitted something.

I didn't know exactly what, but when I focused on her with Glimpse of Light in the Abyss, although I couldn't make out much of her "path" or where any of her "threads" led, I could faintly hear, in the same way I heard those delirious, maddened whispers, the crackling of a distant fire.

It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Trees and fire usually only ended in one outcome.

It's the fucking First Flame all over again, isn't it?...

[...]---[...]

Well, things happen, and I've actually had this idea in mind for quite some time.

I wanted to give the Tarnished some lore, because aside from "he/she came from the Sea of Fog," we know virtually nothing about the character we control. You could say that the lore is meant to be created by the player and all that, so I used that very fact to "erase" who Alice used to be and turn her into what she is now.

Spending so much time in the Sea of Fog did what it did to her, and without Devas's interference, she would have arrived in the Lands Between and everything would have unfolded just as it does in the game. Someone without memories and/or a personality who randomly decided to become one of—if not the strongest creature in that world.

Here, however, she has memories and a personality, as she inherited those from Devas. Or rather, from the humanity within him.

What does that mean? It means she's more important than she otherwise would have been, and far stronger than she should be. After all, she's his "daughter," and carries everything that comes with being his "daughter."

And I'll go ahead and make it clear that she's the only one this has ever happened to. As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, I wasn't even sure whether I wanted to continue with this plotline or not, so she will be the only "daughter" Devas will ever have.

Well, she's not exactly a "daughter," but for the sake of simplicity, that's what it can be called. "Creation" would probably be the more accurate term.

As for the name "Alice," besides being the name of my first Elden Ring character, it also has a reason within the lore itself. It's based on the meaning behind the name Alice.

Just to confirm as well: she is the Tarnished—The Tarnished—and everything that entails.

As always, have a good day and enjoy the chapter!