There were times when one or the other of the two would vanish from the cave, only to return a few hours later, often with a mostly withered piece of fruit. They would drop it next to her, and she would eat it gratefully, not even caring whether or not it was safe for people to eat. She hoped that they, too, were managing to get some kind of meal for themselves.
Over the days, Arianna had ventured out of the cave from time to time but never went far. She did wear a mucky and plain short dress, but no shoes, and the ground was littered with dead and sharp sticks, mostly hidden in mud and slime. Whenever she left, the wolf would accompany her.
She did try to go out once, when the wolf was not there, but the raven put up a stink, flapping its tattered wings and squawking something fierce. She didn't want the bird to harry her, so Arianna decided to just wait before leaving. The bird may be just as starved and weak as she, but it also has very sharp talons.
That being said, Arianna noted that her two companions appeared to be quite intelligent. She knew that wolves and ravens were both very smart animals, but these two seemed to possess a more human-like understanding of things, which was odd. Memory or no, Arianna knew that animals were not supposed to be as smart as humans. But she could not deny that the pair did, indeed, have quite distinct personalities, and she often caught them together, seemingly holding some kind of silent conversation, complete with glaring and—on the part of the raven—aggressive gestures.
Most of Arianna's time was spent simply contemplating how she got here and attempting to regain her memory. She did vaguely recall being cold and wet on the back of the wolf at one point. Likely this was how she had gotten to the cave.
As for the time before that, she had had at least a little luck recalling things. She still could not remember the bulk of her life, but she did remember a place of airy light, a fresh breeze, and the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Or so she assumed.
But, from what Arianna could fish up from the swamp that was her own mind, reflecting her current surroundings, was that she had died. She didn't know how or why, nor could she recall anything from the life she had lost, except for a faint sense of unhappiness. She did remember, with a little more clarity, what happened after her death.
Her first coherent memory was of the woman: a girl in her late teens or early twenties, with silver hair and golden eyes, dressed like a goddess. In fact, Arianna was quite sure that the woman had been a goddess. She seemed pleased about something at first, gazing at Arianna and two other retrieved souls that also stood before the young beauty.
That pleasure turned sour rather swiftly, at least where Arianna was concerned. The Goddess rejected her and, with nothing more than a passing dismissal, threw her out of the heavens with a claim that her soul would quickly dissipate out in the wastelands.
But Arianna hadn't faded, had she?
She remembered falling, her insubstantial energy form plunging toward a cold and desolate landscape. A sense of fear had flared within her before being replaced by resignation. Then that too had been replaced, this time by pain.
In her memory, Arianna felt great pain as she struck against something. Something invisible except for a flare of bright light as her soul collided against it. Her pain was so great then that she forgot about accepting her fate and instead, instinctively, began trying to preserve it. She remembered pulling on the energy around her, scalding her soul-stuffs, and blinding her in her panic.
If the energy was burning her soul, then she needed to make armor for it. And what was the best armor for a soul? A body, of course. So, Arianna's last memory was thinking that she needed flesh and bone to contain and protect her soul.
Sitting at the mouth of the cave, Arianna gazed down at her thin, pale hands and marveled at them. This was the body that she had fashioned for herself. She had no clue how that was possible, nor if it was the same body she had in her previous life, but it clearly got the job done. She had survived the fall and her contact with the force she had collided with.
Yesterday was the first time she had gotten a look at this new body. She and the wolf had made a short excursion from the cave, slowly making their way down from their hill toward the swamps a small distance away. It had been stinky, slimy, and gross, but it did mean that she had found a reflective surface to view herself in. The cave held a pool of clean water that she had been drinking from, but the darkness meant she could not see her reflection.
In the swamp, however, she saw herself at last. The colors were a little distorted due to the murkiness, but she had gazed down at a blank-faced woman with long hair in a black and blue gradient, with captivating silver eyes and almost sickly pale skin. She guessed that, like the goddess, she was about eighteen to twenty-two years of age. Though, she had no clue if that was her actual age or just what her mind made up for herself during the construction of this body.
In the end it hardly mattered. As far as Arianna was concerned at that moment, she was merely a few days old, and that was that. This was the start of her new life, and what a strange one it was turning out to be.
A raven's garble from within the cave had Arianna looking up from her rocky perch. Already she had begun to distinguish between the bird's various calls, and this one seemed to warn her of the wolf's approach. It could have just meant that 'someone' was coming, but seeing as how the wolf was the only other being she had seen so far, she just associated it with him.
Sure enough, winding its painfully thin form between the dead and mossy trees, was Arianna's fur-covered companion. This time he came empty-handed, and Arianna's stomach didn't seem to mind overly much. Common sense told her that she should be feeling hungrier than she had been, especially since she had been existing off spring water and three half-rotted mystery fruits. She did feel hungry, but not anything close to starving. Mostly it was just an annoying sensation that niggled at her from time to time.
Was this new body of hers even real? It was real enough that she felt pain in her feet when she stepped on a stone, and she also got sleepy at night. So, it was real and functioning, whatever its true state of being.
Did anything happen while I was gone? > The wolf asked as he sat next to the mysterious woman, allowing her to run her thin fingers through his fur. He had begun to grow accustomed to her touch now, and given she had not attacked in the last couple days, he accepted that she meant them no harm.
The raven was still stubbornly holding out, however. Arianna—as she had told him the night before in a mumbled, sleepy slur—had yet been allowed to touch the bird, despite making the attempt a few times.
The wolf glared at the raven before deciding the pint-sized bite wasn't worth the effort, instead settling in next to the woman in question.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The raven eyed the pair for a moment longer before deciding to get nearer while the girl busied herself stroking the wolf's back.
He said, fluttering over and landing as far from the woman as the stony perch would allow. She looked his way but did not try and touch him this time, thankfully.
"What?" asked the wolf, incredulous. Not surprising, given that normal beings could not do this. Not constantly, at least. But that was what the raven was sure was happening here.
Indeed. Normally that would have been true, but the proof of the opposite was seated right on the ledge with them.
Still looking unconvinced, the wolf let out a short breath, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to extend his consciousness outward, sensing the mana flow around them. To his surprise, it seemed that the raven had been right; there was the faintest of sensations of mana being pulled into the girl.
Worried—an emotion he never thought he could feel for the accursed summons of the Witch—the wolf sat up, causing the girl to coo soothing words his way that he ignored. Instead he placed his wet nose to her forehead. She was warm. Too warm...
"She is running a slight fever..." he told the raven, dejected.
The wolf narrowed his eyes on the avian but didn't bother to comment on the topic again. If he had truly been serious about killing the girl, he would have done it, if not right under the wolf's very nose, then during one of the times he had been out hunting. Besides, he also could tell that the raven was warming up to the girl. They and the 'Saints' might have been mortal enemies, but here, in the dome, everything was equal under the threat of imminent death. The girl was company, and it was the desire for such companionship that had brought the former combatants together in the first place.
No, the wolf was more worried about the mana being absorbed by Arianna than he was about the murderous intentions of the bird. Pulling in some mana was fairly typical, especially for mages or spirit beings such as the wolf and raven. But they did it on an as-needed basis. For mages it was to cast spells, and for spirit beings, it was another form of sustenance, needed just as much as—or more than—food and water. But to take it in without end would overload a person.
The constant pull of mana was making the girl sick. No doubt it was what caused Arianna to pass out when she first entered the dome, having absorbed mana from the cage itself before breaking through.
"You alright?" Arianna asked the wolf, stroking his head once again. It seemed to be gazing at her with some worry, even after it moved its cool nose from her brow.
Like always, the animal did not answer her, but he did get to his feet and shake out what was left of his mangy and matted fur. He made a 'woofing' noise before leaping off the rock and heading back out of the cave. It looked back once, and Ariana took that as an invitation for her to follow.
She followed the wolf, the bird deciding to tag along as well. He led them towards the swamp in a direction that she knew would lead to a place he sometimes caught rather anemic-looking fish. Arianna had been hesitant to eat them at first, especially since it didn't seem like she needed to, but thought that it may be a good idea to try and build a fire after all. She didn't really know how, except that hitting a flint stone might do it, or rubbing sticks...
If those had been methods she had used in her former life, she could not remember employing them. But dying of starvation was a real possibility, and that would be a waste of this new life. Eventually she would get hungry, so she might as well try and eat now.
Though, looking around at the sad landscape, she wasn't entirely sure what it was she was trying to live for. There was nothing in this place. Just a few scattered, half-dead animals, herself, and the raven and wolf from what she had seen so far. Even the swamp itself seemed eerily quiet most of the time. Every now and again she would catch a weak bird call or the croak of a frog. All in all, this place simply seemed to be a cage for the soon-to-be dead.
Arianna crouched on the bank of the swamp, glaring into the brown liquid. She had started to get used to the smell of this nasty place, but she was glad that the cave had a clear spring in it for her to drink. She would probably die if she tried to drink this stuff, and she had already done that once.
The wolf prowled along the bank, head hung low, eyes skimming the surface. Meanwhile, the raven soared above them, acting as a lookout. Arrian may not have known it, but there were other beings in this swamp who might do her harm, even if they were just as haggard as the wolf and raven.
Eventually, Arianna got bored of sitting on the sidelines and decided to wander along the edge of the water, scanning both the land and treetops, hoping to see more of the shriveled fruits that the two animals tended to bring her. Above, the raven let out what Arianna would call an 'irritated' caw.
"I am still in sight!" She called up to the bird, mildly annoyed. "Get off my back, Mom..." She mumbled under her breath.
smirked the wolf, his paws ankle-deep in muck as he tried to locate the pale white fishes that hid in the mud. They tasted like dirt, but at least they could be eaten raw by humans.
The bird snapped back, still far above their heads.
The wolf sighed.
The wolf simply rolled his eyes and decided to ignore the raven. He suspected that Arianna was growing on the bird, so arguing was pointless. Though, he did agree that there was a sort of 'creepiness' around her. There was the obviousness of her origins, but also it was in the way the girl behaved. Firstly, she seemed disturbingly calm and adapted to a life spent in a cave above a swamp with two animals she knew nothing about. He did not know much about the world where Arianna and the other 'Saints' hailed from, but he was fairly sure that none of those living conditions applied to what was seen as a normal way of life for them.
On top of that, the girl seemed almost apathetic. A resting 'blank face,' if you would. Even now, when she raised her voice to the raven above, she showed no anger or irritation on her face. There was a spark behind those silver eyes, but it was like she was incapable of showing outward emotion.
"Can I eat these?" The wolf suddenly heard the girl call out, causing him to turn her way. It was amusing that she had also, simply, accepted that he and the bird were just as intelligent as she was without much thought. He had seen enough humans—from her world or his own—have a hard time adapting to something not on two legs having a brain that it was rather refreshing.
Giving up on the fish, the wolf squelched his way over to Arianna. She had entered the tree line and was looking down at the earth. When he reached her side, he saw that she was pointing to the ground, where he saw a small tangle of brownish vines, on which grew a scattering of pale red berries. He looked up at the girl and nodded. They were edible, though he would hardly call them filling. Mind you, nothing under the dome could be described as such.
Arianna crouched back down and started plucking the berries and popping them in her mouth. It was a meager offering, but food was food. Like the other fruit she had eaten since arriving here, these too were shriveled, but they were sweet and not as dry in texture as the others.
She had just finished harvesting the last dark red raisin when she heard the raven bellow out what could only be a warning. Confused and a little alarmed, she got back up and saw that the wolf was also looking up toward the circling bird with the backdrop of muddy cloud cover.
He bounded out of the water and hurried over to where she was frowning at the raven, eyes darting his way for some kind of clarification. It made him feel a little smug that the girl seemed to trust his opinion on matters more than she did the raven.
"Tch!" said the raven, taking off ahead as Arianna took the hint and hurried back toward the cave.
Though the wolf would not put it past the goddess to send wave after wave of mana-charged fog their way on a sub-daily basis, he wasn't sure she actually had that fine of a control over what happened in here. It was more likely that it was just another symptom of the dome not allowing the mana to dissipate as it should, naturally. Maybe this really was the end of them after all.
Arianna was confused over what it was that had sent the animals into a tizzy at first, but as she climbed back up the side of the hill toward the cave, she began to make out thin tendrils of a purplish/red mist rolling in off the swamp, staining the pale trees in a reddish glow. Between the displeasure of the animals and the ominous feel of the thing, Arianna figured that she had best speed up her climb. Clearly this was no normal fog.
She made it into the cave right behind the tail feathers of the raven, the wolf on her heels. The pair hurried farther into the cave, but Arianna stopped and looked back, watching the fog creep along the forest floor. It looked heavy and coiling, and she could have sworn she saw faint, sparking lights flicker through it every few seconds.
This did not look natural. Was it poisonous?
The wolf appeared back at her side and watched the fog for about another ten seconds before nudging her leg gently. Taking the hint, Arianna followed him back into the cave, feeling uneasy. No matter how you looked at it, this place seemed very inhospitable to life... So why were these seemingly intelligent beings living here?