Mariwa: An Ivian Tale

As they traversed the manor, Holly tried imagining what this mysterious Lady might be like.

She had known this place was large, but underestimated how much. It honestly felt more like traveling! It dwarfed Elder Seneschal's own home by so many times, with corridors that looked positively endless, that she was afraid of guessing it's size.

The word that came to mind wasn't manor then, it was castle, those magnanimous places where the princes and kings and knights all lived together in Elder Seneschal's favorite stories. The key difference was appearance: those were supposed to be lavish and beautiful, but here? Barren hallways of barren walls, barren floors, lined with barren doors, dim lights, and no windows.

Not lifeless, though: the place was spotless, without so much as a drop of mud or speck of dust to be seen, and she could hear life quietly shuffling about in their daily affairs, always out of sight.

In her frank opinion, it was extremely creepy.

Who would, or could, make a place such as this? She had to be important, Agare even called her a Lady, so perhaps a noble? If she had soldiers, then maybe a general or some war hero? But Elder Seneschal had told her women could neither join the military nor give orders to soldiers outside their personal retinue, so maybe not?

Then again, Elder Seneschal had told her women couldn't own property they didn't inherit from widowing, and only if they could prove they had no family of their own to turn to, so who knew?

Suddenly, something came to mind.

"Agare, can I ask you a question?" she said.

"Depends," they said.

"A-are you a woman too? Are you guys like one of those bands of outlaw women who raid villages in rebellion?"

"I am a man, and we are no bandits, no."

"Oh! Sorry then, it's just that you have such a nice voice..."

"So I have been told," Agare said, then after a few seconds of silence: "...Thank you, I suppose."

"You're welcome! Can I ask you another? If you're suppose to be leading me to the manor's owner, shouldn't you be in front of me instead?"

Indeed, since the moment she left her room, Agare had firmly stuck to his position some four or five paces away from her, carrying the rear. Granted, he had been guiding her, though there really wasn't much to be guided in such a straightforward sequence of hallways, and had been nothing if not patient with her unsteady gait, but something about this really heckled her.

"This is perfectly fine for me."

Two lefts and some many doors later, in a place she guessed was around the exact opposite place of her room, Agare told her to stop and step back a little from one in particular. As far as she could see it was no different then any of the others they had passed so far, but she didn't question it.

Agare lightly knocked. "She's here!"

At this point she would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous. Her mind was swirling with increasingly stranger fantasies on the identity of this mysterious owner, when she noticed that Agare was looking straight at her.

"A-Agare?"

"Does my appearance scare you?" he asked, tone unreadable.

"H-huh?!" She almost answered with her foot in her mouth, stopping herself in the nick of time, "N-not much, no. I mean! I was b-back then, during the fight. It really took me by surprise! B-but I'm getting used to it, I think, not like I have grounds to be freaked out anyway..."

"I'm not asking you this because I mind what you think of me, but most of those who live in this mansion are Faceless like me."

"I know! Or, I guessed anyway. It's alright! I'm not going to run away screaming or calling you Rootgnashers or anything."

"Rootgnashers?" Agare asked, very quietly, "I suppose it doesn't matter. I will hold you to your words, then."

"Can you at least tell me who she is? I mean, she probably knows at least a little about me by now, right?"

"She is the Marquise."

Holly froze. The name carried an air with it that was as solid and heavy as any Will, hers or otherwise. She nearly wanted to kneel then and there, a sign of respect for what might be the most important person she ever met, but Agare must have seen through her.

"... And she is completely different than whatever you just imagined. You will see with your own eyes, so come."

With no other options, she did as told.

This was no bedroom, was the first thing she noticed. It was twice the length of her room, with no beds and a heavily barred window facing a shadowed cliff side. It was filled with strange paraphernalia of all sorts: gadgetry piled at the corners of a table, with space only given to a large map and the many figures placed above it; shelves and shelves full of unidentified things such as bird shaped contraptions of metal, disks of stone centered by dull gems, and weird shapes of sticks and threads; flasks with bubbled slimes and jars crawling with insects; old weapons here, rusty tools there...

She only paid so much attention to those, because next she saw the room's occupants.

At its far end, two figures stood each to one side of a large tasseled rug, weaved in overlapping geometric patterns of red and yellow. If Agare was like the hero of a story, then these she could tell with almost absolute certainty would be knights: Tall and poised, heavily armored in plates of steel from head to toe, faces hidden under oppressive helmets, each carrying a fearsome cleaver the length of a man's leg.

They didn't shine, however. Their armor did glow a little, almost imperceptibly under the rooms many light sources, but not like those of tales, as if they carried a little of the sun in their pockets. Their armor more closely resemble the other Faceless' from before, lightly banged and scratched, unpolished, without embellishment, but still obviously functional, though the left one's bore a particularly gruesome concavity on their flank.

She decided they were guards then, and didn't need to guess to whom. Her illustrious host sat in between them behind a large wooden desk, a horror beyond her imagination that made hairs she hadn't had for many years wanting to raise behind her neck.

She had both hand peacefully resting over the desk. She had a gorgeous dress, orange with long frilled sleeves and a high stiff collar, bold to the point of scandal the way its cleavage dipped as far as the eye couldn't see, revealing her heavy bust and milky skin. A necklace of silver with a red gem shone as if new, obviously cared for greatly.

None of these details could hold her attention for long, even when some by all rights should.

Holly had seen much, been treated to much, enough she believed herself adaptable. Had she not fought God? Had she not faced Agare's... facelessness? Had she not endured years in the dark of her room, under lands nobody but the Godspeaker dared venture?

So perhaps she could face this with time, too. Right now, she wanted to scream.

The Marquise stood there, calm and collected, completely lacking a head, a void flowing in its place.

Unlike Agare's perfect oval, like he had simply always lacked a face to begin with, the image that her void conjured was one only described to her by Hazel of a poorly administered decapitation: it was slanted towards the right and the front, small flaps of ripped skin resting against her neck, the void beyond raging through wounds like cracks, unlike Agare's gentle liquid swirl and closer to a living, breathing creature, muscles softened into jelly pacing in circles, almost spilling out before being hastily contracted.

She had no eyes, of course, but didn't need any for Holly to know from the depths of her being that she was being watched, measured. Predator and prey, neither clear on which was which, unblinking and tense for the slightest twitch of a limb, sure it meant a fight for their lives.

A minute, an hour, or a day later, the Marquise sighed. Or rather, she mimicked a sigh, voicing a dreary "Huuuuaaaaaaah..." before clapping her hands together.

"Sorry!" she said, in an unexpectedly girlish voice. "They always say I should be more mindful of my attitude, but how could I resist?! I've been wanting to see you up and about for soooo long! Come in, come in!"

At that point Holly, who had resisted an assault to deep held beliefs on the workings of the world she didn't even consciously knew she held, that stood in the middle of the room with her legs trembling and no real support beyond animal fright at displaying weakness, fell on her rear with a loud thud.

Before she could touch the floor, the Marquise was already on her feet.

"Ouch!" she said, walking around her desk. "Careful there! Fordu, you said she had gotten better!"

"She had," Agare said. "Don't blame me when you're the one who scared her out of her feet."

When Holly looked back to the Marquise from Agare, she was suddenly close, very close, in fact closer than anybody other than the Elder or Hazel dared come without obligation. She stared dumbly as the headless woman reached out with a hand.

"Come on, I'll help you up! Sorry about making you come all the way here when you're still recovering, it's all this doofu's fault!"

"She had!" Agare said.

"I-I am, uh, Lady Marquise. Your Majesty?" Marquise obviously had no face, but with the way she stopped moving Holly could almost see her eyebrow quirking up, "Y-your Highness? M-my Lady!? I-I'm terribly sorry, I'm really not sure how to address you, I-I was raised away from nobility so-"

"Oh, that's what's getting you in a tizzy back there?"

"I-I'm sorry about my hairs too, they just do that..."

"Gihihi!" The Marquise said, "Now now, no need for those kinds of formalities over here! Honestly, to tell you a secret..." She bent down until her voice was nearly coming from right outside Holly's ear, "That's just my naming sense! I'm not even remotely close to being a noble, just teeeeeeerribly lazy!"

"L-Lady Marquise!" Holly said, heart suddenly hammering like thunder for completely different reasons, "C-careful with your dress!"

"Just Marquise will do!" She got back up, nonchalantly fixing her clothes. "And besides, it's nothing everybody here hasn't seen already, right Lady Naked?"

Holly looked back and forth, almost expecting it to actually be somebody's name, before realizing she was playing the fool. "B-but I'm different, nobody here would look at me like that..."

"That's what you think! But honestly, I think with just some confidence you would look rather fetching!"

She blushed. That one she had never heard before.

"But anyways, if my ears haven't tricked me, I've heard from Fordu you talk about this 'sickness' of yours quite often. It's why you haven't given me your hand already, right?"

She nodded, "W-we never figured out if it was infectious or what not. Besides, I'm pretty dirty..."

"Yeah, I can relate. Nowhere good to take a bath up here I'm afraid! Say, pretend I never heard about you, that we are literally seeing each other for the first time. Could you tell me your name?"

"I'm Holly. Holly Seneschal!"

"Well, pleasure to meet you Holly Seneschal! They call me Marquise, just Marquise, and don't I have good news for you!"

"Uh? What kind?"

"I had to handle you a fair amount when you arrive, to learn how badly you were hurt, right? Touched your organs a bit! You have such wonderful kidneys, but I digress. I can tell you with a 100% confidence that what you have isn't even a little contagious. Life would be very different otherwise, believe me!

"And to even better news! I don't mind getting my hands dirty. I even like playing in the mud when the fancy strikes and time allows! So don't worry about me and grab my hand. Unless you don't want to? That's fine too, it's been a pretty hot Flowering Season, talking on the cool floor is perfectly alright with me!"

Holly didn't know what to say anymore. She watched the Marquise's hand, waving up and down teasingly almost as if hypnotized, struggling to digest anything the other woman said at all. She reached back for an instant, before retracting.

"I-I'm afraid of cutting you with my nails." Was Holly's last line of defense.

"... Nails, you call them?" Marquise said.

"Yes."

"Has somebody ever told you you have very gorgeous nails, Holly? Like polished milky quartz."

For a second, she felt like she had swallowed her own tongue. She coughed, to clean both mind and throat, then said: "A-and really scary too, aren't they? So large and sharp."

"Nope! You'd need to be ten times bigger with claws like Ravishs to scare me, I'm a tough girl! Besides, if the idea makes you uncomfortable, we could always use our other hands, If you don't mind? I don't see any nails on that one."

She didn't know what a Ravish was in this context, but the idea of rejecting her any longer felt unbearable. She hesitated for a few seconds more, but finally accepted the help. It was awkward, the way her hands were so much larger than the other's, her spindly fingers finding poor grip to hold on to, but the way Marquise pulled her up she might as well have been as light as a feather.

"Now, hold on to me, I'll bring you to your seat. It's one of the comfiest in the manor!"

And she didn't lie. Putting a shoulder under her armpit, then changing her grip to simply holding her by the waist when both realized Holly would most definitely not be getting anywhere in that half squat, she brought her to the plushiest chair Holly had ever sat on in her entire life, cushioned with velvety pillows and sculpted with gorgeous spiraling clouds up and down its limbs. In comparison, the Marquise's "throne" looked to be a completely ordinary wooden chair any carpenter's apprentice could make.

Both sat, the Marquise put a fist to her neck and did a little "Hum hum!" then said, "Well, much better, isn't it?"

"I-I think I made your dress a little moist. Sorry about that," Holly said.

"It's no bother! This thing has been through so much worse anyway."

"I-if you say so."

Marquise clasped her hands together, leaning back against her seat, "So, Holly my dear, what have you been thinking of this abode of mine? I'll admit, it's not the most luxurious, but I hope everything has been to satisfaction so far?"

"It's been fantastic, Marquise! The sun, the breeze, the smells..." Holly said, exploring the contours of the chair with her recovering hand, "A-and thanks for the meat too! And for taking care of me! Agare told me I'm only alive thanks to you?"

"Bah, such a big tongue on that one, don't you think?! Honestly, I'm just glad you liked it, we've been really scratching our heads over how to treat you. You wouldn't believe the kinds of fights we had over your diet!"

"O-on my behalf?! Oh no, I'm so sorry..."

"Don't worry about it, don't worry." Marquise dismissed with a hand, "What is a little fight between peers anyway? I wouldn't make for a good leader if I forced everyone to agree with me, don't you think? You need a breadth of different opinions and angles, else you stagnate."

"If you say so..."

"Nobody knows their shit enough to be right all the time, after all. Not even me, believe it or not! Good ol' Fordu over there saved me from bad ideas so many times it's a miracle I'm still kicking! Now I save him from his."

"I-I've been meaning to ask about that... I thought his name was Agare?"

"My name is Agare," he said, sounding a little peeved.

"S-sorry, didn't want to talk like you weren't in the room. But why is she calling you Fordu?"

"I am Agare to-"

"-People who he doesn't know too well yet. Kind of an intimacy thing, y'know? It's just that we're such a chummy duo, I can call him honeybuns and he wouldn't bat an eye!"

"... You wouldn't dare," Agare said, now leaning back against the wall, closer to the window.

"But let's not lose any more time on our dour little doofus over there, he's not the one I've wanted to meet today! There is so much I've been meaning to say, to ask, that I don't think we can fit it all today, so let's with start with you! Anything you've been curious about?"

"A-a lot too! Too many things!"

"Good!" Marquise said, leaning forward and craning her neck a little down, "Start anywhere you want! There are just a feeeew things I can't tell you about, but we'll deal with that as we go."

Feeling a tad nervous again, Holly began to tap at one of her armrests, enjoying the sound of wood being knocked, "W-well, if I can start anywhere... Where are we?"

The Marquise was quiet.

"... Already got one?" Holly said.

"Kind of? Gihihih!" said the Marquise, tapping at an invisible chin with her finger. "Won't tell you specifically where we are, but I can say that we are somewhere in the Ivian Chain, if that wasn't obvious."

"I never heard of an Ivian Chain before though?"

"You didn't?" She quirked her neck to the side. "What did you call the mountains around the Hollows then? Mt. Tremor and its little babies, that is."

"Oh, I know Mt. Tremor! But as for the smaller ones, we just called them the Mountains. We were forbidden from going that far, and the older folks didn't like us even talking about those places, so..."

"So you never felt too comfortable talking about it with people who might know."

"Well, Elder Seneschal didn't mind it so long as we asked in private, but he didn't care much about the topic." Which is why she imagined he never brought her any geography books.

"Let's do a quiz then! Do you know what country Lesser Hollow used to belong to, Holly? And the name of the island that country is found in?"

She though about if for a second, "Hmmm, It's Galehold! I remember now, the Elder told me about it a couple times. He didn't like it very much, used to say if they ever found us out they would shove worms into our mouths until we choked!"

"Well, they certainly wouldn't be very happy about what was going on in your village, that's for sure." Marquise said.

"I think I've heard we lived on an island, but the name... Ivia?"

"Good answer, close enough! It's Ivias! Wouldn't you know, a lot of people are so surprised to learn Ivias is an Island with how big it is, but it's not even the biggest in the whole world! In fact, do you know-"

"M-Marquise, if you excuse me?" Holly said, clutching the armrests tight.

"Go ahead, Speak your mind!" Marquise didn't lose a beat. Maybe she wasn't mad at her then?

"I think this is very interesting, and I would love to learn more about it later for sure, b-but right now would it be okay if we talked about other things first? Please?"

"Oh!" Marquise shook her neck, "Me and my fat mouth again! Sorry, sorry, absolutely."

Holly took a deep breath, steeling herself to head somewhere she didn't want to, but knew she couldn't avoid forever.

"M-Marquise." She gulped, "How long have I been here?"

"... Hmm. You don't remember? You stirred awake a couple times during your treatment, so I've told you before."

"N-no, sorry. I remember the end of the fight, after that... It's all a blank until I woke up yesterday."

"Yeah, I guessed you weren't very lucid back then. If only you could remember the things that you babbled!" Marquise said, but continued before Holly could ask her to explain, "Sorry, no jokes now! Holly, you've been with us for a month and two days, mostly hanging on the proverbial balance. I was expecting you to not wake up until at least next week, but seems we're lucky."

She felt stunned. She had guessed she that their fight against God wouldn't have been the day before, but a whole month completely gone from her life? "W-wait! I-if I've been- it's been- w-what happened to Lesser Hollow?!"

"Before I answer that," Marquise interrupted with an open hand, "would you mind telling how much you remember from that night? Only if you're comfortable, of course."

"W-why?"

"You don't need to tell me if you don't want to!"

"I-I'm not saying no, I-I just want to know why."

"I promise you I'll tell the reasons after, alright? But I need to hear you first."

Holly sighed. She definitely did not want to spread that wound wide open, not when it still wept, but really, she was surprised to realize she trusted Marquise. She had been warned again and again to be careful around strangers, not only by the Elder but many of the stories the village passed down, but she couldn't help it, there was just something about Marquise...

She took a deep breath, and started from the beginning, from the crowd that came gawk at her in her room to the horrible confrontation with God. She was no Elder Seneschal with the divine gift of storytelling, not to mention how many details had blurred together into indistinct masses in the heat of battle, but the Marquise was a great listener, only chiming in sometimes to ask for clarification, never rushing her nor insisting on something she didn't want to say.

It had been an eternity at the Throne, but the story only took maybe a couple dozen minutes to tell. The Marquise nodded solemnly with a bob of the neck.

"You've really been through a lot, haven't you? My sincerest apologies from bringing this up when you probably would rather be forgetting it, Holly, though I did have a reason: I'm checking if everything is working well inside you. See, I had no experience treating bodies like yours, I'm not actually a healer by trade at all, just picked up things as I needed them. If I broke something, I would rather know sooner than later!"

"E-everything's fine, so far. Thank you again, Marquise."

"But it isn't, is it?"

Marquise stretched a hand over the desk, fingers relaxed yet spread invitingly. Holly only felt trepidation at the sight.

"It's alright. I wouldn't date to keep this hidden from you. After everything, you deserve some honesty."

"... Then do I even need to ask out loud? I d-don't think I want to."

"Are you sure you want to leave it in my hands?"

Holly hesitated, a hand half raised to grasp the other's. She noticed then, that Marquise didn't have palms like she imagined most important Ladies should, soft and smooth, unblemished from sun or labor; they were calloused and scarred, with at least one big cut between index and middle fingers, looking terribly painful.

"M-Marquise," Holly said, reaching out with her own damaged hand.

"Yes?"

"What happened to my village?"

The Marquise didn't answer immediately. Instead, she played with Holly's hand, fingers gently caressing her palm, thumb massaging around her knuckles. Her breath hitched. It filled her with a wretched, if faintly bitter melancholy, but she couldn't take the gesture back now, physically pinned to the other woman by her own will.

"I don't have very pleasant news on that front, Holly. Do you feel ready for this?"

"If I'm not ready now, I won't be later either. P-please, I just don't want to live with the uncertainty."

Another solemn nod, and Holly felt Marquise's grip tighten some. "That fight was quite devastating. The Higher and Greater Hollow had the scare of a lifetime! Some of the worst things around the Hollow fled en mass, and that wildfire grew almost as far as the Hollow Road, before the valley's peculiarities stopped it. I don't know if it came across you or not, but don't worry about Galehold come knocking, doesn't seem like they are searching for culprits so far.

"The problem is the Lesser. I'm sorry to say, Holly, but your village is gone. A few of my own searched the place corner to corner, but they could barely find the ruins, there wasn't one building still standing."

She had expected it, deep down. Not like she had anything left there worth caring for with her family gone. Despite everything, it still felt like a part of her had crumbled.

"N-no survivors?" she said after a few tries.

"Two, counting you. If there were any else, I'm sorry but we didn't find them."

"T-there was someone else?!" Holly surged up, a move that nearly got her run through by both of the Marquise's guards, halted with a dizzyingly fast gesture from their mistress. "D-do you know who it is?! Please, you have to tell me!"

"You think it might be someone you knew?"

"I-I had another sister. H-her name was Cassia! She's tall, she's pretty thin, s-she's pretty pretty, she has a hair the color of nuts, big eyes, and-"

"Hey hey! Calm down Holly, breath with me!" Marquise said, puffing and deflating her chest noiselessly.

"Y-you breath?"

"What matters is that you breath, Holly! There isn't any reason to panic, because yes, that's sounds like exactly the one!"

The strength was drained out of her limbs, She fell back, limp yet smiling. "Y-yes! S-she's alive! Elder Seneschal, she's alive!"

"Wow there, careful Holly, you're still recovering!"

"S-sorry! It's just, hehehe, she's alive! S-somebody actually survived, and it was her, it was-!"

Just Cassia. Not Hazel, not Elder Seneschal.

She couldn't say she was unhappy, but the thought was sobering all the same. They were the only survivors of Lesser Hollow, alone in the world.

She shook her head, tried clinging to the good of the situation, "M-Marquise, can I see her? Where is she now?"

"She's here yes, but I'm sorry Holly, I don't think you'll be able to meet her any time soon."

She paused, "W-why not?!"

"You know exactly why, Holly," said Marquise, tone sweet but with a hint of warning. "You went through the same thing, after all. She lost everything, except you, and most days barely eats or speaks beyond a few words."

Holly nodded. Of course, How could she be this selfish? If she was suffering, then Cassia who was even closer to the others had to be wrecked. Of the entire family, Cassia was the one who used to visit her the least so they hadn't been close in a long, long while, but nothing excused this slip.

"Why did this have to happen?" she whispered.

"Holly?"

"I-I want to know, what did we do to deserve this?!" She screamed, scaring even herself, "S-sorry, but I do! I know that Hazel and I were outsiders, but what did we do to deserve this?! Was it because I didn't let the other kids beat us into a pulp? Is it because I cussed back the adults when they called me a worm?! Everything the Godspeaker himself said, I obeyed! I did everything I could to keep us safe!"

"Nothing at all, Holly."

"D-don't say that! There had to be something! I-I know now, I know it was all a lie, that God never actually intended to protect anyone, that they never cared, but it can't just all be for nothing! There has to be some sin, some impurity I can cleanse, people don't die like Elder Seneschal for nothing, do they?! A-and that old lady at the Throne, she said my sister sacrificed herself to give me a better shot, but s-she would never! She hated them with her entire soul, she was never shy about it, so why just give herself like that?! All she ever wanted was to be free, to go back home!"

"Go back home?" Marquise asked.

"N-nothing. It's not my secret, s-sorry."

To that, Marquise said nothing. Winded down, Holly slowly breathed in and out, but she couldn't say it helped much with the pain, the shame, the fury. The Elder had always said it was better to talk then let things dam inside, but the rant had only made her feel more helpless.

"... Terrible things, those Ember Blossoms," her host suddenly spoke.

"E-excuse me?" Holly said.

"Ember Blossoms. It's how our people called creatures like this God of yours, Holly. Huge trees with a holier-than-thou attitude! Seen a couple of them myself. I don't mean to belittle what you went through, but to be honest I was relieved when I heard yours wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been!"

"Not nearly as bad?! T-that t-thing destroyed everything! Didn't you see it?!"

The Marquise leaned forward. Holly felt the shift in tone before she heard it, shivering in anticipation.

"They nearly destroyed the entire Island once, Holly. In another world, we would be having this conversation on a wasteland."

Holly gasped softly, even if she couldn't grasp the grandiosity of that statement, she knew it in her skin. She watched as the Marquise rose both hands in front her, fingers all splayed but for her left thumb, mute.

"Ninety days. For ninety days after their huuuuuge Messiah rose and scorched the lands around it into cinder, night turned into day. In ninety days, millions of lives were taken across Ivias, entire cities and city states lost, tribes killed to their last with no hope of avenging themselves. This was bad, it was. That? That was war.

"Would you believe me if I told that had it been any stronger, your god could have rained fire from the sky? That a single burst of its Divinity would boil your entire village from the inside out? That if it was one of the strongest, it could even give commands to the forest around it, made it its eternally burning slave?

"Out dear Fordu gave me quite a through report on Lesser Hollow and your god. Did it look cute when he showed off?"

"... I don't show off." Agare said.

"Aaaaaw, don't get mad, old habits die hard!" Marquise waved him down. "I understand! What I want to say though is that I know your nightmare, that I saw it in the wounds of dead comrades, and that was just a century and a half ago!"

"Y-you read about that?" Holly asked.

"Nope! Lived through it, of course. I mean, I was a bit too young for field work, but you better believe I watched that endless sundown every day!"

"W-wait, then how old are you?!"

"Now, now, we can talk about me later. Where was I? Ah! The name those three months received was the Scorching Season, I don't think I need to tell you why, right? It left this island with wounds that to this day haven't healed, and likely never will. Your village was one of them, but there are others, places left abandoned and uninhabitable to human beings, towns which once were traveler hubs or famous even outside our shores! And worse too. The Crimson Grave isn't called that for its beautiful vistas.

"Thankfully, most Ember Blossoms are now dead, and the remains of their cult in hiding. Unfortunately, they are not the only threat this island faces."

"Does anything compare to that, though? The entire island..."

"Compare? Pssh! Some are worse."

Holly paled.

"And now you might be thinking, how do we fit in this place?" Marquise spread her arms wide. "I'm not going to be coy with you, I don't think it takes more than a glance to know we aren't exactly your everyday Petunia or Rose. Are we one of those things, then?"

"Y-you aren't! You can't be!" Holly hurried to say.

"Oh, and why do you think so?"

"Y-you were fighting God! O-one of those Ember Blossom thingies!"

"Maybe we were just picking on an enemy in common, and now we can go right back to burning babies and poking crying children with sharp sticks!"

Holly grimaced. "B-but then why am I still alive? Shouldn't you have left me in the Lesser to die?"

"That," Marquise said, lifting a finger, "was sharper. Well done! That's right, I don't want any harm to fall on that cute little face of yours, which is why I spent day and night making sure you were safe and comfy! To whatever measure of comfy we could afford, but those are just details!"

"I-if you don't mind me asking, if you aren't one of the things trying to destroy the island, what are you? Not that I have grounds to judge, but you don't look human. Are you sick like me?"

"...Not the way I would put it, but close enough! Our kind is quite famous actually, maybe you've heard about us?"

"Elder Seneschal stole a lot of stories for me, and told many more he remembered from his youth, so it's possible."

"Awesome! So, we have received a lot of names in the past, depending on who you ask. Phantoms, Madhounds, or my favorite, the Faceless Sect! None of those are quite right though, even if we use them ourselves for convenience's sake. Maybe one of these refreshed your mind?"

"No, sorry! What's your true name then?"

"Well, without further delays, we're the great, the mighty, the beautiful-!"

"The great, the mighty, the beautiful?!"

"The Remnants of Eligor!"

"Never heard of you."

"Oh."

An awkward silence stretched from that. Holly tried not to scratch her armrests, suddenly anxious.

"...Gihihi."

"Uh?"

"Means I get to tell you everything my way, right?"

The Marquise stood up, began pacing the room with an arm behind her back, the other raised to around where her lips should have been.

"We're an open secret, kind of. For over half a millennia, we've been the frontline against the deities that still cling to Ivias as their home, and its people as their sacrifices by right. Every Remnant you see here has fought this war, putting their necks on the line for the sake of stopping the divine and their cruel influence. I mean, look at me!"

"W-wow, you lost your head in battle? And you're still alive?!"

"Nope, lost my head on a surgery table, but I did indeed lose it because of that war!"

"I-is that good? Doesn't sound good."

"I miss the weight, but you get used to it. Makes for one powerful icebreaker too!"

"W-what's ice?"

"Most nowadays see us as myths. Our enemies hate the idea we might inspire rebellion among their slaves, and our allies like the element of surprise we bring to the battlefield. You never know what a Faceless can do, after all! So no, it doesn't actually surprise me you don't know us. Honestly, if you said you did, then I would be shocked!"

"Y-you shocked me! I thought you were mad!"

"Liked my acting skills? Best table game player around, dear, it's all on the face!"

"So, is that why you came to Lesser Hollow? To inspire us to rebel and fight God? If so, I think you came a little too late..."

"Not quite. To be a 100% clear with you Holly." Marquise said, stopping right besides her, "I sent Agare to Lesser Hollow to find you. We just didn't know!"

"U-uh? Me? Why?"

"That remains to be seen."

Holly stiffened.

"No, no, none of that! No matter what happens, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you! Swear on my name, on all of them at once! But I can't tell where exactly you would fit with our plans when I don't even know if you want to participate, can I?"

"Elder Seneschal did." she said, trying not to sound hurt, "A-and if I said no, that I didn't want to be part of your plans... where would I even go?"

Not that she would. Even if she had better places to be, Cassia was here somewhere, suffering alone. No matter how apart they've become, she wouldn't leave her behind.

"Anywhere your legs bring you, I guess, though I'm glad you're actually considering us!"

Holly smiled weakly. Marquise squeezed her shoulder.

"You wouldn't regret it, Holly. Ask anybody here. Some of them might not like me personally, but I never stiff those loyal to me. Your dreams will be mine too."

"Uhm."

The Marquise left her, approached the map in that large table in the middle of the room. With a languid wave, she beckoned Holly closer. Once she was up and walking, Agare moved her seat closer.

"Holly, you like stories, don't you?" Marquise Plucked one of figures from the map, a knobbly, three pronged thing made of wood with a dull red stone placed in the middle, "Ivias is a very big place, filled to bursting with stories both well-known and hidden. Hard not to! Dashi have lived in these islands for longer than their forests, soaking their precious home in blood and grief to its marrow. Awful, isn't it?"

"Dashi?"

"Oh Holly, you've been done such a disservice by your people, not being allowed to explore and learn to your heart's content! If you stay with us, I promise I will teach everything you missed, and more, so much more." She placed the figure back down, and picked another, a carefully sculpted bust of a woman with the head of some kind of serpent or eel with a spiral shield, no jewel and of a lighter wood.

"T-that would be nice. But what do you want to show me?"

"I like making little doll theaters. It's how I used to solve tactical problems." She placed the figure far right. Holly finally noticed this was the map of an archipelago, one central island much larger than the others, the name Ivias written over the sea above, and slightly smaller below, "I was planning to do this a bit later, but fuck it, this is the perfect time! It's one of those hidden stories, the most important a Faceless ever hears. Problem is, it might take a while, so it might delay other things you want to talk about. Would that be fine with you?"

"I don't sleep more than once a... week? I'm not sure, but I won't get tired, no matter what!"

"But you do get tired. If I keep digging in your brain all day like this, I bet I'll have to carry you to your room, napping in my arms!"

"N-no I wouldn't."

"Hehe, you don't trick me!" Marquise said, tapping somewhere above and to the side of her void, "I've known people like you!"

"Fine," Holly said, pouting. "But you have to promise me you will answer everything I ask!"

"You know I can't, but you better believe I have a whole lot to tell you myself! Never made a friend like you, so I might just end up being the one to ask more!"

"M-maybe. I-I never had a friend like you either, Marquise..." Holly said, hoping whatever she was doing with the little carvings could stop her from noticing her blush, "B-but what story is this?"

More and more figures were placed around the island, many near the woman with the snail shield, others spread in all directions.

"It's the story of our birth, of the god slaying colossus and his warband of outcasts, the cruel cult who made him fell his opponent at the cost of his own life, and the eight fates he left behind for his successors to stop. Our very own purpose, the dream we were made to carry, and the horrors laid before us should we fail.

"This is King Eligor and the Eight Tales."

And so began the story of Holly's new life.