A landscaped dyed a pinkish-red. Skies plagued by crimson clouds. Dead trees and abandoned ruins.
The corruption of Caelid was plain to see no matter the distance.
"You will not find what you are in search of in those lands. Nothing but suffering awaits those who cross into its boarders."
"Maybe." Jin agreed as he lowered his telescope. Melina, seated on the saddle of a horned steed, stared at him, her right eye aglow with a golden light. Despite her ever-present plain expression, he could pick the faint traces of annoyance. The slight quirk of her brow and barely noticeable downward curve of her lips; the few tells that she had weren't something most would notice.
Jin stored his telescope in one of the pouches at his hip and stepped forward, plummeting off the edge of the mound they stood on. Melina followed, that steed of hers prancing off nonexistent platforms the whole way down.
"And yet you intend on going." Melina stated more than asked, her quiet voice crystal clear over the whipping winds.
Jin hit the ground running, speeding across the grassy fields of Limgrave.
He had died. He didn't remember how but he knew it to be true. And yet, something or someone had brought him back, pulling him to a land he'd been exiled from so long ago.
Tarnished was the word people here used to describe people like him. If there were others like him, the dead and exiled brought back to life, then it stood to reason that others of his clan could be somewhere out there.
Akai could be alive.
Whatever state the land once known as Caelid was in, he'd scour it from top to bottom until he found those he lost.
And, as always since their first meeting, Melina hounded his every step.
…
Jin twisted on his heel, a massive beast of a dog barreling through several dead trees. The relentless thing skidded to a stop and turned, leaping at him with a guttural snarl, its jagged teeth stained with rotted blood. This time he jumped, gripping the handle of one of the katanas at his hips. As its massive maul crashed into dirt Jin descended, ripping blade from scabbard.
A single focused slash severed head from body.
He swung his katana once more, splattering the infected blood from his blade across the tainted dirt.
He knew of the Scarlet Rot and what it could do to its victims, but he'd never seen it play out on such a wide scale. Just as the environment had been twisted by its presence, so too were the wildlife. Packs of small stray dogs attacked anything and everything that crossed their paths despite looking ready to kneel over themselves. The massive birds and canines shared in that aggression, driven mad by their affliction.
If Akai were here, he would already be dead. The weak couldn't survive in a place like this.
Maybe Caelid would just be another dead end.
"Aaaaah!"
Jin's head snapped in the direction of an ear-piercing scream. That was the scream of a child.
He took off running, kicking up red tinged dirt and speeding past dead leafless trees, until he found himself coming up to a craggy cliff. Below, one of the massive ravenlike creatures that haunted the skies of Caelid jumped and lunged, its beak slamming into the dilapidated ruins of what once was a mighty fortress. The stone held beneath the tireless beating but more of the eroded stone fell away with each one.
More screams came from within the ruins the giant creature assaulted.
"Get away from her!" A yell filled the air, followed by blood.
A small girl, rushing towards the ruins, had thrown some kind of knife at the bird and cut through its rotted hide. The creature's peaks ceased and it turned, its dark eyes glowing a dangerous red hue.
Without stopping, Jin leaped, hand at his katana once more.
The bird leaped off the ruins and with a flap of its damaged wings landed over the running girl, throwing off her balance and forcing her to tumble across the dirt.
Jin took a deep breath, nearing the creature.
The overgrown bird reared its head back.
It shot forward as he tore his blade from its sheath.
This time crimson flames accompanied his slash, his blade searing through the bird's feather body. It screeched as it was split in half. The moment he landed, Jin twisted around, blade pulled back with both hands, and step forward, skewering its fallen head.
With a yank, he wretched his blade from the head and turned.
The fallen girl stared up at him with widened eyes of gold framed by neck length red hair. Portions of her face was crusted up and her skin paling. A victim of the Scarlet Rot, soon to be claimed by it by the looks of things.
Jin kneeled and placed a gloved hand on the girl's messy hair.
As if brought to her sense by the action, she shoved away his hand, clenching a knife fashioned out of bone in her hands as she scrambled to a stand.
"Stay back!" She practically snarled, ready to snap at him if he took so much as took a step toward her.
She was no different than a corner animal.
"Mary!" Another smaller girl shot past him, throwing herself at the defensive girl. "I-I-I thought-"
"Quiet!" The one with the knife, Mary apparently, ordered. Despite the harsh tone, she positioned the girl behind her, one hand still pointing the shabby dagger at him. Both red-heads with similarly frail builds and signs of the Scarlet Rot. A pair of siblings doomed to an unfortunate end.
"Mary, he saved us." The other girl whispered, peeking out from behind her sister. Unlike Mary, there was a certain curiosity in them that one would expect from children.
"I said quiet!" Mary ordered again. She took slow steps back, the pair gradually inching away from him. Once she was satisfied with the distance between them, she grabbed her sister's arm and took off running, leaving the ruins behind.
…maybe he should've said something?
The wind shifted, almost heating up, and Melina appeared at his side. "Those flames. I have never seen anything like them." She said. Jin grunted as he stood up. Odd as she was, it was no surprise that Melina realized that those flames weren't the product of his katana.
His gaze fell to footprints left in the crimson dirt.
"Certain death awaits those children." Melina voiced his thoughts. "So long as The Lands Between remains without a lord, that is all that awaits those here."
Jin sighed. Of course, she'd spin things to fit her objective.
"Then I suggest you go find this lord of yours." He said, following in the children's steps.
…
Their tracks led to a cave.
A smart place to hide out. Old houses and centuries-old ruins could be broken down by the giant creatures that roamed the area. With an entrance so narrow that no such creature could hope to reach them, those two children would be safe from those things.
Jin grabbed a piece of fallen wood from the ground and reached into his pouches. Moments later he was stepping into the opening, walls illuminated by the dancing flames of a makeshift torch.
It was deep. Far deeper than a first glance suggested.
Seconds turned to minutes as he walked its singular cavern but as he stayed the course, he began to pick up on distant voices.
"I wanted to ask him for help but Mary-."
"Don't be stupid, Amy. Those soldiers have never helped us. Some stranger isn't going to."
"But-"
"But nothing! No one is going to help a bunch of diseased kids. We're lucky he didn't try to kill us. I-"
The familiar voice stopped mid-sentence and he heard plenty of shuffling. As expected, the torch gave him away. Zeroing in on the voices, Jin finally reached the back of the winding cave and raised his torch forward.
A blade neared his stomach.
Side stepping the stab, he grabbed the girl's, Mary's, wrists in a tight grip, the dagger dropped with a wince.
Where he expected to find a pair of children, he instead found five different girls of varying age, all with the same ominous shade of golden eyes and messy red hair, huddled around a small fire. Two held up rugged bone weapons, unsure of whether or not they should rush him, while Mary struggled, pulling her arms and kicking at his legs.
Jin shoved Mary and she stumbled back, tripping onto her butt.
"You should charge together." He said.
"What?" One of the girls, the other one he had seen with Mary at the ruins, blurted out.
"All of you are small." He said, his gaze sweeping between them one by one. He doubted the phrase hearty meal was in any of their dictionaries. "And skinny. If you're trying to kill someone, you should all attack together otherwise you'll be picked off one by one."
The children stared up at him. The perfect chance to get a better look at them.
Mary was obviously the oldest, noticeably taller than the others but she herself couldn't be older than ten at the most. It wasn't so easy to pin the others down. The other two with weapons were likely a few years younger than her. Then there were the last two at the very back.
One was a baby, carelessly babbling as she looked up at the torch in his hand, blissfully unaware of the trouble they could all be in. She sat in the lap of the final girl. Eyes half lidded and perhaps the palest of the lot, the girl was propped up against the back of the cave. She barely looked conscious.
The Scarlet Rot's hold was the strongest on that one. A single glance was enough to deduce that.
Reaching into his pouch, Jin pulled out a wrapping of cloth. Pulling it apart revealed skewers of cooked meat to the quiet girls. "Answer my questions and these are yours."
"You'll give us food just to answer some questions?" Mary questioned, skeptically as she got back to her feet. He nodded. "What if we can't answer them?"
"You'll still get them."
Mary held his gaze then looked behind her. Aside from the baby and near unconscious one, the eyes of the others were glued to the offered food, faint grumbles coming from them. A moment later her stomach joined in.
"Fine. Ask your damn questions." Jin held back a snort. This one had spirit in nothing else.
"Have you seen anyone dressed like me?" He asked.
"No."
"Anyone using weapons like mine?"
"No."
"Have you heard anyone mention something about samurai or tarnished?"
"No."
"Are…Are you looking for someone?" The other girl from the ruins suddenly asked.
"Shut up, Amy." Mary ordered with a sharp glare. Amy's face fell and she looked away.
"Family." Jin answered with a sigh. He'd already tried talking to the soldiers mounting a losing assault against the Scarlet Rot but they were either off the deep-end or so full of disdain for Tarnished that they refused to share any info even when faced with death. The few that spoke knew nothing he was interested in.
He doubted he'd find any of the clan in Caelid.
He tossed the wrapping of meat to Mary. She caught it, regarded him cautiously, then signaled for Amy and the other unnamed sibling to come over. "Feed Millicent and Polyanna, then take the rest for yourselves."
"What?! What about you?" Amy asked.
"I'm fine. Now go."
"But-"
"Okay, Mary." The unnamed sibling cut off Amy, dragging her and the food to the other two at the back of the cave.
"We answered your questions, so leave." Mary said, her eyes never leaving him.
This time a snort did escape Jin as he leaned against the cave's walls.
He could already tell the collection of siblings owed their survival to Mary; not many could be faced with starvation and chose to feed others before themselves. It took a special kind of strength. That said, the respect he had for her had its limits.
"You've got quite the attitude. In my clan, my family,-" He added, realizing she might not understand what that meant. "-fights broke out over the smallest things. A meaningless insult, staring a little too long, that sort of thing. Most of those fights ended with someone dead." Mary's eyes narrowed further. "Its safe to say, even the children knew better than to disrespect someone they couldn't kill."
Mary's gaze flicked between him and her dropped weapon. Ultimately, she thought better of whatever foolish idea was brewing in her head and looked away from him with a scoff.
He chuckled then turned to leave.
He paused and reached into his pouch once more, tossing another wrapping of meat along with a proper steel dagger. He left without bothering to check if she caught it.
As he stepped beyond the cave's entrance a familiar shift in the wind heralded Melina's appearance.
"Why help those children?" She questioned. Her tone was even as always, no judgment within. "The Scarlet Rot will soon take them."
"I-" Why did he bother with those kids? He didn't expect any of them to actually know anything about the people he was in search of. He hadn't even planned on giving them food truth be told. That was something Akai would've done.
Akai.
"Nostalgia." He finally answered, walking off.