Slay the Hierarchy

Consequences

A/N: I'm really sorry for this late update, but there was a mix-up with my assignment due dates so this story had to go on the back burner for a bit. Nonetheless, 400+ votes! I'm seriously floored. Thank you all so much for your kindness and support! Now, for what you've all been waiting for...

For a foreign planet, Argent D'Nur had surprisingly familiar weather, the princess thought.

Though abandoned - the poor, dilapidated state of it telling of that - it was surprisingly habitable. There was fresh water. Small streams of it here and there that when she stopped to drink from one, found it tasted oddly sweet. Fragrant. Like the way water would in an ideal paradise.

She cleaned her face, pressing water into the gashes on her side, frowning at the crusty remnants of blood they had formed. She didn't even want to think about the state of her hair.

Daisy watched the red ripples in clear water for a time before rising to her feet, staring after the Slayer as she followed. He was a lot quieter than she was used to. She thought she had grown fond of his ways, but this silence was... different. Solemn. Beyond her understanding.

Perhaps it didn't have to be if Daisy found herself in a better position; her own thoughts still trapped in a tug-of-war of realities. It shouldn't have felt like a dream. And if not for William and Vega, she was certain she would have gladly accepted it as such.

'Drink.'

They were the first words he said to her perhaps an hour after they departed from the last stream, scouring the lost city once again. The only demonic encounters from there were Fodder; all of which the Slayer dispatched quicker than the princess could take decent aim at even one of them.

The pain and fatigue she felt frustrated her, but she would not breathe a word of it.

'What is it...?' she asked, staring at the blue vial in his fist. She had noticed a few tied to his utility belt but made no mention of them--the princess scarcely felt a desire for much since awakening, really.

'Health.'

Came his blunt answer, and Daisy instead stared at him at a loss. 'I... don't understand. Is it perchance a kind of medicine?'

'That is correct,' Vega answered in his stead, and when he nudged it closer to her, gave the princess no choice but to accept it. The glass felt thin and cool in her hands. 'Acquired is a 'Health Potion'. An elixir that when consumed, greatly accelerates the body's natural healing process.'

Healing.

Though she made no mention of it, one would have to be a fool not to recognise the state of emergency the princess was in ever since their last major encounter with the demons. Her fatigue was alarming. Her dwindling courage and perseverance even more so. She hardly felt like herself ever since she had come to in this world and Daisy knew it as she breathed deep, pressing a hand against her throbbing forehead. And yet why...?

'I'm fine,' she mumbled, thrusting it back. 'I suggest you withhold these in the event of a more serious matter.'

'You need sustenance.'

'I am certain this planet can offer alternatives.'

'Not with demonic corruption.'

The princess burned with indignation. It was a reaction unlike her. One she struggled to fathom as she squeezed hard on the neck of the vial he refused to take.

'No matter,' she said between clenched teeth. 'I...'

'Daisy,' he said so low and deep that it caught the words in her throat. Or rather, his following words were what held her tongue. 'You couldn't have saved her.'