The excruciating pain she was going through was nothing like any headache she had felt before, it was as if her brain was being split in half with the screams of agony echoing through her mind, the pain of a myriad others that came before her kept bombarding her with an endless stream of madness and sorrow. Her consciousness gave in from the neverending suffering as she passed out cold on the snow.
She found herself in a familiar place, though the usual shattered sky was no longer fractured, it had a faint orange glow in the darkness, as if sunbreak was nigh. However upon looking down, she no longer looked at only water but a torrent of crimson void swirling below her.
Despair so great not even the holiest of light could ever restore back hope, it was a pit of ever growing darkness crawling with tormented souls. Yet Leona could only swallow dry the instinct to jump back and scream.
"Well, welcome again to my domain, Leona Crossford."
As if an excuse to avert her gaze from her feet, she looked up towards the familiar voice of the self proclaimed true deity of this and many other worlds.
Lastraeus' form seemed much more vivid this time around, the haze was much more vivid as if it had finally taken a solid appearance, now it was even possible to discern him wearing a thin cloak made of dark red miasma over his form.
Upon seeing him, it felt like all her fears had vanished as her eyes narrowed before she began to ask.
"Was it you? The one who saved us."
He chuckled, promptly making the tormented souls beneath his feet to writhe as they formed a seat with the unsettling gooey limbs and hollow eyed heads sticking out from every corner of the throne, thankfully she was able to keep looking straight at him, preventing fear from taking over her already shaken mind.
"As much as I wanted to show off, I prefer not to meddle in human's affairs. If your fate was to die there I wouldn't have lifted a finger to help. But as it stands, you seem to be someone important in many people's eyes. Congratulations."
"You speak as if you know the person who helped me."
"He is my former champion, unlike you human lot I don't easily forget those who served me well."
She had a vague memory that his former champion was a master of magic, but she never expected to be helped by someone with so much power. Even so, that only made her feel bitter, not for being helped, but from not being able to do anything when it mattered the most. Her own knowledge that she deemed vast, was nothing if not a speck of dust compared to what she witnessed that night.
Upon noticing a faint dark haze emanate from her, Lastraeus let out a short laugh which caught the Princess' attention, prompting her to look at him. He simply waved his hand in disregard of her annoyed stare.
"Accept who you are, your fears, your failures, your shortcomings so that one day, you may become stronger. A good tale is not always crafted with the finest of materials after all."
It was unusually nice of him to say such things, after all, the only Lastraeous Leona knew of was the cunning god that would control many people for his own amusement. Something that always hung in the back of her mind, what would an almighty god want from her?
There were too many questions and not much time. Even though she remembered exactly what happened to her the moment before coming to that place, there was no way to tell how faster or slower time passed in such a place that defied all laws of nature.
"Nevertheless, I shall still watch you. Victory or defeat, I await the completion of your tale."
He snapped his fingers and Leona could feel the world spinning once again but this time there was no pain or headache but it surely felt like her body was being distorted and crushed.
The next second she blinked, she noticed she was facing the snow on the ground and upon standing up she realized her clothing was barely damp.
'So does time there pass on his whims?'
She thought as she turned her head to the side and saw the knight also laying with his bareback on the snow. After approaching him, she used a small amount of mana to reinforce both of her arms with vortexes of wind to try and lift him. And surprisingly, after adjusting the strength of the spell she managed to pull him through armpits out of the thick snow and place his back against a ruined nearby tree.
Leona sat down beside him and sighed. Even though her body no longer lacked mana, exhaustion was starting to catch up to her.
"'A good tale is not always crafted with the finest of materials.' Huh."
She muttered under her breath as she slowly closed her eyes. Thinking back on her journey up until now, many of the lives lost in this campaign could've been saved if she was stronger, if she had true mastery of magic or even the blade, maybe, just maybe, lives could've been spared. Pain, suffering, sadness, averted.
But that was in the past, there was no way she could've known. From that point onwards she needed to grow stronger and acquire the power she needed to protect those in need. It was an honorable act, selfless ambition in the eyes of others, but to her it was more than that.
It had to be done, if she was to see the world both of her parents died for come to reality, she couldn't be just a Princess anymore.
Closing her hands in anger of herself, she felt the cold solid touch of a familiar texture. Her eyes opened and looked towards her right hand, beneath there was a polished gleam of steel.
She picked up and noticed it was the very same blade that once almost took her life in the void, was it not for the strange rules that reigned in that place. The small handle felt comfortable between her slender scorched fingers.
On the other side of clearing, Phoebe noticed the Princess standing beside the unconscious knight while seemingly looking down at him with a dagger in hand.
'Wait is she… no… it can't be!"
By instinct, the high elf tried to reach for the longbow that is usually strapped to her quiver, but she had forgotten it in the snow sledge, which meant there was only one option to her, close quarters.
Almost without making a noise she rushed towards Leona, only to realize she put the dagger alongside her own throat.
"Princess Leona!"
Phoebe shouted but it didn't seem to even faze her as the Princess grabbed the entirety of her hair around the nape and brought it forward. With one swift swing of the dagger, she had cut almost three palms of her lustrous hair with the sharp blade.
The high elf stopped in her tracks, seemingly lost for words for what she had just witnessed. Leona scattered the rest of the strands on her left hand as the freezing breeze carried them through the air towards the sky, each string fluttering against the night's bright sky like a breeze of gold. She dropped the dagger in the snow and looked at her open hands before firmly closing them once the last strand of hair flew away, her gaze turned towards the sky as the wind brushed against her now short uneven hair.
She turned around to face Phoebe behind her.
"Phoebe, let's go."