Chapter Text
The lost lands were long, lonely, and dark. Outcast or not, it was no place for anyone but a chosen, and without a Wise, Juno o’ Lira walked the rot alone.
Almost.
“Behind you!”
Juno spun on her heel and rose her blade face up, intercepting a bolt of Aether aimed for her chest. The force of the impact pushed her back, heels digging into the rot, but she swung her sword aside to cast it to the ground, and charged in retaliation. Cabbage hovered about her head, calling out warnings when they were necessary, and otherwise silently fretting over his warrior. Juno threw her hand skyward, re-shaping her sword into an imposing hammer, which with a shout, came crashing down on the last of the Nuemera.
Standing near a ledge toward a wide, rushing river, the strike made the dirt tremble beneath her feet. Juno held the pose for a drawn-out beat, breath heaving from her lungs, then let her hammer dissipate into the air, and stood straight.
Cabbage leapt out from the marble on her halo once more, and asked, “Valor o’ Lira, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Juno replied, wiping sweat from her chin, “thanks for that warning. That would’ve hurt.”
“Of course. Still, you suffered a great many injuries in that battle. Perhaps you should rest at a Waysprout. There was one not far from here.”
She didn’t respond immediately. Cabbage hovered around to face her front, and saw clear as crystal the hesitation in her expression.
“What is the matter?”
“N… nothing, I just… whenever I do that, the Nuemera come back.”
“But it is important you are well-rested before you challenge the nest. If you manage to weave it, the Nuemera that re-appear here may cease to be.”
He quietly observed the small changes in her face; her brow lifting, her eyes returning from their fatigued squint.
“You’re right,” Juno said slowly, “yeah, you’re right. The nest takes priority. I could use a break too, maybe I could throw together that recipe Filia—”
On the edge of the cliff, the stones beneath Juno’s feet cracked once, then splintered to pieces, throwing her down. Cabbage cried her name, but it was cut off by the unseen tether of her divine gear forcing him down with her. She fell silently, wide-eyed, too exhausted to scream, and plummeted into the river.
The water roared in her ears. It invaded her nose and eyes and ears, crawling down her throat and bringing a horrible, dull sting before she could surface with a choked gasp. Cabbage was nowhere to be seen, and a frail attempt at rasping out a cry for help died when an invisible force shoved her beneath the waves again.
Her arms and legs flailed for purchase, hands scraping on jagged rocks sharpened by Nyx’s influence. Thin trails of blood blended into the the dirty stream. She emerged again, and could do naught but cough. Her every nerve was alight like the sparks in a powder keg, but the length of her journey thus far meant her adrenaline shot was weak. The pain hardly subsided.
Stars and spots clouded Juno’s vision, as her hands thrashed at the water like she might succeed in shoving it away from her. She had no breath to hold when another tug yanked her under the water, and her sight shrank to a pin. The strength of the river turned her sideways, and just as she drew near the surface, her head struck something, and all went black.
Juno could have been convinced an eternity passed in her absence. Or mere seconds. There was no true method of discernment, simply a distant voice rushing toward her.
“…no… Juno… I beg of you, stir yourself…!”
A ragged cough forced her into consciousness, but it did little to clear her eyes. Throbbing pain crushed every part of her, from every angle, leaving her unable to do so little as lift her head from the stabbing gravel she laid in. The river yawned behind her, nipping at her boots, eager to pull her back in and finish what it started. However, she was too far to be swallowed once more by the abyss, granting her the freedom to stay as she were, throwing up water between pathetic trembling whimpers.
“Juno,” Cabbage said, “thank the gods. Please, talk to me.”
“Ughn…”
Minutes dragged on, Cabbage worriedly floating around Juno’s head while she expelled the water from her lungs. Blood seeped into the gravel and stained her clothes.
Finally, a faint whisper escaped her. “C…Cabbage…”
“Yes?”
“Wh…” she paused to cough more, quietly with her shredded throat, “where are we…?”
“If I’m not mistaken, we should be in the Koro Valley area. This is the outskirts of the rot.”
“’M… Safe?”
He hesitated. “Safe enough.”
“Good. I c… can’t move. I need to… lie here a while longer, I think.”
“O’ Lira, no,” Cabbage pleaded, “you mustn’t fall under once more without someone to help you first.”
Juno didn’t have the strength to plead otherwise, nor to beg forgiveness when her eyelids fluttered. Regardless, her limbs moved independently, pushing her to her side, then her knees, then shambling toward a boulder to lean against. Stumbling to its side felt nearly the same as colliding with the ground. She couldn’t help the sob to fall from her lips.
“Just need… to get where some… someone can see me.”
She summoned her blade to wield it as a crutch, stabbing it at the ground and pressing into it with both hands on the pommel. Her right leg dragged awkwardly behind, and a screaming headache meant Juno couldn’t push a dozen or so steps at a time without struggling for breath. Her body, her mind, her very spirit were lead, and a spike of fear seeing Nuemera in the near distance served to worsen the effect.
Ever so slowly, deep crimsons shifted into greens; murky waters to clear. The hexagonal grids of dry dirt restored to soft grass. Juno trudged through a thicket of trees, and onto a dirt path.
“Safe,” she said quietly. The easing of such awful, shrieking fear turned her legs to jelly, and Juno was unconscious before she hit the ground.