"I-it hurts so much… It hurts, ah, ah, I can't…"
Tristessa sighed for the umpteenth time, unable to stop the phantom pain emanating from her amputated leg. For seconds, it felt like an electric current flowing relentlessly, sending scorching hot stings through the limb that had been left in the Mercer-Archeos' front yard, reduced to ash; for another, it was as if insects kept moving and biting, leaving poison within her, turning nonexistent muscles and nerves into coagulated jelly.
Filling her lungs with heavy, noxious air, Tristessa couldn't stop sweating and crying. While she suffered endlessly, some witches danced around the campfire, while others cooked chunks of wild meat brought back from the darkness along with the brutally torn limbs of their sisters who hadn't returned.
"How is it possible that something like this could happen to the world?" she lamented, listening amidst the ruckus of the Coven to the lightning bolts shattering the uneven balance of the high dark heavens, and the wind mercilessly battering the bodies of the titans. "Turning reality into this sounds like something only a god is capable of."
"The Evil Dream is created by the Shadow Queen…and knowing that is terrifying, isn't it?" Severus asked, his animosity as steadfast as his battered body, even with those chains trying to crush him to the ground. "That the Dark Lady is capable of something like this makes one wonder what kind of demon she is. It is said that she warps everything she touches, corrupts everything with her thoughts, and drives to madness anyone who dares to defy her."
"How terrifying…" she muttered, realizing that Severus was speaking to distract her. To get her to focus on something other than the suffering of her injuries. A good intention, sadly in vain.
"Indeed. Legends tell that from the Empyrean of Dead Gods, sitting on her Throne of Frozen Black Tears, the Shadow Queen watches all of Nekrom without even blinking. An evil that does not rest, that does not sleep, but dreams, with desires for domination and everlasting darkness."
Tristessa's imagination traveled into the blackest void. A mighty and terrible tyrant, clad in dark-steel armor, sitting on a black chair…
"The Evil Dream is the result of the Shadow Queen's restless mind, filled with cruelty and malice. When the cloud of Discord falls over the territories of the Empire, we have no choice but to wait for it to pass, under the protection of an Evil-Warding Pillar. Those away from the protective barrier, like us, well... There are very few people capable of telling the tale of surviving the Evil Dream."
Learning more about the misfortunes of that new world in her eyes was counterproductive in the current situation; every well-intentioned word spoken by Severus filled her with more anxiety and hopelessness.
It was a miracle that the raven-haired girl still retained any sanity after all the horror she suffered during six long days marked by her utter failure to save the lives of those who were already dead. But now, that endless pain she couldn't ease in any way, and that new knowledge of the Enemy of the World, seemed about to drive her mad.
"This pain won't stop. It hates me, it wants to kill me..."
"…I curse myself a thousand times for not having brought a single potion with me… Not a single drop to regenerate spiritual energy, not a single drop to recover vitality. Nothing…" she heard the elf lament, carrying the survivor's guilt of knowing that, with more time and preparation, he could have done so much more during the Coven's attack. "I must be the worst alchemist in the entire Dominion... No, in the entire Empire."
"Severus... Don't say that..." the girl whispered, straining massively just to catch a glimpse of him. That simple movement of her eyes shattered her sense of balance, and she fell sideways onto the ground. Her mouth filled with ash and rotten earth, stained with the titan's blood. It was cold... Very cold.
"Girl!" With her vision distorted by the crash of her head against the soil, she could only see a silhouette on the ground moving toward her. From the sounds of exertion and pain, it seemed Severus was crawling in her direction. "Come to me."
The effort burned through her muscles and bones. Crawling like a worm and wriggling blindly, Tristessa closed the distance and managed to climb onto the blood elf's bare torso until she could rest her head against his chest. It was very warm, and the beating of a heart struggling to survive was a caress to the soul she hadn't even realized how much she needed.
Now that she was on the verge of fainting and wanted to do nothing but sleep using the elf's chest as a pillow, Tristessa found reason to form a broken smile.
"And to think you slept on my lap..." she whispered weakly, mostly to get the frustration about the non-existent past out of her chest. Sadly, Severus had heard her.
"I think you're mistaking me for another man." He hadn't meant to, but that comment made Tristessa bite her lower lip to keep herself from sobbing. Truly, returning from Death was cruel. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Triss…tessa…" she replied, shedding tears that evaporated almost instantly upon touching the elf's skin. Such was the magnitude of a heart on fire. "Do you really...don't remember me...?"
The elf remained thoughtfully silent before answering:
"Until tonight, I didn't know you."
It was shocking how a few words plunged Tristessa's troubled soul into utter desolation, despite knowing full well what Death and Resurrection were capable of: by sending her back in time, Severus wouldn't remember her.
No one would remember anything, only her. And no one would be able to understand her despair, her anguish... The deep emptiness that loneliness left inside her chest.
How could she believe there was hope anywhere in that doomed life, trapped in a loop cruelly imposed by forces beyond human understanding?
How could she persevere and save herself and everyone from inevitable Death? How could she offer resilience in the face of such colossal adversity, in the face of such evil?
"I don't know you…and I think that was a fatal mistake for someone like me. I, who lives on trial every day of my life, judged you only because of the Discord that your soul emanates, without even giving you the benefit of the doubt," Severus told her, his voice reaching the depths of the abyss she was sinking into. "If my ancestors saw me now, they would be ashamed of my stupidity. It doesn't help much in the situation we're in, but… I'm sorry, Tristessa."
That warmth... That speck of light, shining for her while being so lost in darkness... Tristessa didn't hesitate to cling to it and keep her spirits from falling completely into oblivion. It gave her the strength to persist, even if only a little longer.
"Stay by my side until the end, please…"
"Of course. I won't let you die alone in this cursed place."