The Fallen Leaves Fall Yet Again..

Tarnished's Tale

The Tarnished was beyond shaken. He didn't understand how Marika had made the jump with him, or how she had even followed him to the Roundtable in the first place. Now he had to wonder if just her being here with him would cause any unprecedented changes to occur in this journey.

He was on high alert, his Greatsword drawn and pointed at the doors of the Chapel of Anticipation. 

However, he hadn't realized that the enemy was in the room with him already. He flinched as he was suddenly flung into the wall and held up against it by an invisible force.

"Stop ignoring me! Now answer me, where is it that you have stranded us!" The Tarnished tried to fight back against the force, but he always felt tired after being sent back to the start of his journey so when caught off guard, there wasn't much he could do, but talk. 

"I... went back." He groaned out in pain as the force tightened, and it felt like his armor was beginning to close in around his body. "What do you mean you went back? If you had not noticed, I am here too! Where is back, what is this unfamiliar church? Where are we?" 

He tried to ignore the pain, but it was beginning to get to him, he didn't want to be permanently dawning this armor for the rest of his life, so he had to act fast.

The Tarnished struggled, and reached down grabbing his bell, and rang it. 

Tiche shot out of the ground, and Marika instantly threw a golden spear in the assassins direction, but Tiche spun around it gracefully disappearing and reappearing behind Marika, grabbing her wrist.

Marika lost focus, but caught herself and turned her hand towards Tiche and slammed her into a wall, and then the one opposite of that, then the ceiling and lastly the floor. She lifted Tiche back into the air, and scoffed, while a rageful tear dropped from her eye. 

"You must be one of the assassins that started this. It's all YOUR fault, why I even shattered that damn ring in the first place. You and your disgusting companions murdered my son for that little blue witch! It seems that you're serving your time though, as a spirit slave. Never to truly live again!" 

Marika raised her hand high, and brought it down straight into her husbands waiting one. Marika froze, and tried to raise her other hand to catch him, but he grabbed that hand too. Tiche fell to the floor and patted herself off, before standing off to the side to let them talk things out.

"Marika, I'm sorry, but you need to calm down and listen. This situation is very complicated, and very very serious." His grip tightened around her wrists, and she recoiled. 

"Tarnished, you're hurti-" 

He swapped his hands and put both of her wrists in one hand, raising her wrists above her head and pinning her to the wall.

"Shut up, and listen." He stared her down and waited for her to show she was paying attention.

She whimpered and nodded her head, staring directly into his eyes through the holes in his helmet. 

"Alright, we are no longer in our world. I went back to the Roundtable, and I was sending myself back in time to when I first started my journey to become Elden Lord, I was not aware that you would be taken with me, but you were never supposed to be there in the first place." 

The Tarnished regretted her being here, he didn't want her to get hurt or worse for someone to find her while he wasn't around and she died. He looked down for a moment, and Marika chose to speak. 

"How could I not have been with you, I shared the most amazing night with the first man in years that I have genuinely loved since Godfrey, and he leaves me in the middle of the night shooting off into the night?"