Linde Xe' Almna's Story

Aetrius looked at her and gave her a small smile as she spoke returning her hug, but after she was done there was some silence that filled the room for a few moments. Eventually she sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at Linde and spoke.

"I...I haven't been able to sleep well in a while, Linde...Everytime I close my eyes...I...I see them..The nightmares, the sounds...everything. I can't sleep anymore and when I do, it's either pure darkness and silence, or nightmares filled of things that have happened..W-would you know why? Is it guilt?"
she said as she looked down and then back up at Linde, with a rather sad and somewhat scared look on her face, something she never showed to anyone was her being scared, that was until now anyway.

At the inn, Linde stood before Aetri with a soft, quiet stare. She didn't know whether to be sad, sympathetic, or something else. But as she closed her eyes a new feeling began to flood through her heart. And as her eyes opened, she walked forward towards Aetrius...

"My love," she whispered as she cupped her face in both hands.

"Is this about the other night? When Kieran said you have a mark that brands you as a murderer in Shaharan?" She asked softly.

Linde smiled and leaned in, planting her forehead against Aetri's.

"I'm a doctor. My job is to save lives. Protect health, wellness, and the potential for a future. And yet..."

She leaned back, tears welling in her eyes.

"I guess my brand is more in my soul than on my body." She whimpered as her tears began falling.

"I've spent a lot of time with Kyero. More than I'd care to admit. And in that time I did things I never thought I myself capable of... And the taking of lives was one of them."

She sat down next to Aetri and gently pulled Aetri's head to her chest, stroking her hair and resting her cheek against the top of her crown.

"There's a saying among healers... "In high enough doses, that which cures can kill." I guess they were referring to people like me, because I've used my knowledge of anatomy and herbology to take lives in spades when I was traveling with him. Being beside the Red-Eyed Demon. Hearing him talk. Hearing his persuasiveness and cold logic... It takes a toll. Weakens your defenses. Makes you question..."

Her tears dripped into Aetri's hair.

"I'm... A murderer too. The only difference is I was never caught and branded physically. But I've taken lives I should have in the name of battling Te'i Sai. Lives I never questioned until they were gone... I made mistakes, and it's cost me dearly. I've prayed to the Gods every night in my heart for forgiveness. To bestow sympathy upon this foolish child who refused to ask the right questions at the right time... But I know in my heart the Gods are not so forgiving."

She lifted Aetri's head up, looking her in the eyes for a moment before planting a soft, warm kiss to her lips.

"The sins of our past help shape our future, my love. But they do not define it. Live in the now, with me. And let's use this chance to help the future princess reclaim her throne to atone for our blood-soaked history." She whispered, again pressing their foreheads together.

---

Back on the rocks, Kyero had heard the sounds before Lonan. However, he didn't make a move to respond to them. Instead, he remained still and composed. And when Lonan came back, Kyero opened one eye to observe his approach.

Linde listened calmly as Aetrius spoke. Throughout, her face changed. Oblique eyebrows shifting to neutral and back to oblique. Her lips ever so slightly tightening and going slack. And her head subtly coming up and tilting back down. And as Aetrius finished speaking...

"I understand." She whispered.

Linde slowly came forward and sat on Aetri's lap, wrapping her arms around her neck and gently touching their foreheads together whilst closing her eyes.

"And I believe you, my love." She cooed.

She slowly lowered her forehead and slid her face alongside Aetri's, brushing their cheeks together. Leaning forward so their chests pressed together, she wrapped her arms more tightly around Aetri and gave her a tight, strong hug.

"Thank you for telling me the truth about yourself, Aetrius." She whispered, relaxing a bit in her embrace. "As I said, our past does not define who we are today. Whatever it is you've lived through, what you live through from here on out is by your choice. And this time you're not alone."

She slowly leaned back, smiling warmly.

"I'll be here with you. I promise." She leaned forward and gave Aetrius a soft, long, passionate kiss before leaning in and embracing her again, content to sit on her lap and potentially even fall asleep if she was left there long enough.

---

Kyero arched an eyebrow at Lonan as he spoke and sighed softly to himself as he stood up and followed him.

"So what's your plan?" He asked quietly.

Aetrius couldn't even look Linde in the eyes as she spoke to her, her eyes constantly darting around the room and away from Linde. She was the first person Aetrius openly talked about it to, and it did take a large burden and an even larger amount of stress off her shoulders, but she still felt ashamed of the events that she talked about. But as she listened to Linde, she could sense the sincerity in her voice, and she was only able to return the hug ten times harder and stronger than Linde's own.

She remained completely silent for a few short minutes as Linde remained sitting on her lap and giving her a tight embrace. But eventually she slowly began to speak, but what came forth was nothing but uncontrollable sobs and muttering as she tried to talk to Linde. If she was able to understand what was being said of course, which roughly would translate to her simply thanking Linde for believing her and what she said, as well as constant apologies every now and then as tears ran down her face and she held onto Linde tightly as a storm of emotions were finally being vented, sadness, anger, frustration, hate, disappointment, almost every negative emotion she had been penting up was finally being released, and all she was able to do was sit there, with her arms around Linde and silently cry until she would finally have enough.

Kyero watched and waited as Lonan went about his performance. While it was an admirable one, it was a bit over the top. But still, it did the job.

Any time Kyero's alias, the Red-Eyed Demon, was mentioned, panicked always ensued. The others were beginning to panic and had drawn their weapons trying to force a formation at the last second.

And then...

Behind Lonan, the world went black. He could see the massive shadow cast from behind him on the area. And if he turned around he'd see a large mass of black energy looming over him like a black wall moving forward with a glowing red orb at its center.

The others froze in place, terrified and shaking. One of them even pissed themselves on the spot as Kyero's eyes suddenly appeared when the orb began dissipating into two smaller and more distinct orbs. Two eyes, glowing red within the darkness, flashed behind Lonan and the wall of darkness exploded. A massive rush of darkness rushed past Lonan and essentially swallowed the enemies. After a few moments, the darkness went away and the enemies were all unconscious on the ground with their weapons broken and their exterior limbs (arms and legs) broken at the major joints (elbows and knees). They wouldn't be able to hurt anyone for a long time.

Kyero then appeared fully, but something was off.

He quickly wept away a few beads of sweat and a drip of blood from his nose before taking a deep breath and turning to Lonan, seemingly perfectly fine with no signs of the sweat or blood remaining.

"I think we have time to find the keys now." He said quietly, his voice somewhat hoarse.

A few moments had slowly passed as Aetrius continued to softly cry in Linde's arms. But eventually she found herself slowly calming down as her mind started to clear and she slowly sat up and dried her tears using her hands. She chuckled and shook her head, looking up at Linde as she gave her a small smile, shaking her head again.

"L-Linde? C-can I ask you a question?" she started, feeling herself become completely calm as she spoke.

"As a doctor, do you know of any good ways of relieving stress? Any techniques that you may know?" she asked as sat up more and cracked her neck slightly as she became more comfortable.

Linde shuffled her weight on Aetri's lap to accommodate making her comfortable, and following the question she looked to the side.

"Hmm."

She shifted her hips a bit... On purpose.

"There are several you could try. I know a number of breathing exercises we could do together, or perhaps we could sit down and rest with a nice cup of tea."

She glanced to Aetri from the corner of her eye.

"But I think the best thing we can do..." She leaned in close, her lips close to Aetri's. "... Is have a sparring match." She whispered.

Aetrius silently sat there as Linde tried thinking of what to do, and felt Linde shift her weight on her, causing a slight blush to cover her face for a moment, but then easily shook it off as she caused her mind to go somewhere else. But her attention was brought back as Linde started to talk again, she nodded silently as she listened, nodding as those suggestions could indeed help. But there was something inside of her that didn't want to just sit around and do nothing. Having been inside the inn had caused her to grow anxious and feel sluggish in the matter of her not going out and doing what she would usually do. But knowing that they were here on important matters meant she couldn't go around and possibly get them in trouble if she mistook a target for a bounty, if they even had any in this town.

But she looked back up as Linde continued speaking, only being brought back from her thought as Linde was now only mere inches from her face, feeling her face go pale white as she hadn't notice Linde moving in closer to here until just then.

"I-I think that would be perfect...I've been feeling a bit...Sluggish and I even think I've been getting fat since our lack of combat..." she said with a bit of a sad tone as she looked at her stomach and gently patted it.

Linde chuckled.

"Don't worry. I'll whip you back into shape in no time."

Linde got off Aetri, offering her a hand up.

"Don't hold back, love. Got it? If you do, I'll make you pay for it... Dearly." She said playfully with a wink.

Aetrius chuckled at her comment and gently took her hand, and got to her feet. She stretched out of instinct as she stood, feeling her back and neck pop and had a look of partial relief on her face as Linde spoke. She chuckled once again and nodded.

"And the same goes for you, don't hold back on me. And if you do, I'll treat you how they treat people back in Shaharan for going easy on someone. Now, after you." she said as she motioned to the door for Linde to lead her out.

As they left Aetrius motioned at Kieran to go keep an eye on the man they were in charge of not letting him out of their sight, which she got up and walked off to go look after the man, "Why do I always have to do the annoying shit..." Kieran mumbled to herself as she went to the room, not caring what the others were up to.

Linde and Aetrius meandered outside and left the city to find a nice space in the countryside to spar in. And they found it in a small dirt clearing amongst the rolling green grasslands throughout the area.

"This looks like a good place."

Linde abandoned her jacket, gloves, and boots to the side and did some basic exercises like jumping jacks and running in place to get her blood flowing before stretching her body.

"Always get your heart going first. If you stretch cold, it does more harm than good." She advised.

Aetrius mindlessly followed Linde out of the inn and eventually found a small and private area and nodded as this would indeed be a good place to train. She watched as Linde discarded some of the unnecessary clothing and did the same, tossing her boots and cloak aside and took some deep breaths first and crouched down, placing her hands on the ground, firmly planting them into place, she found herself instinctively slowly pushing herself up and began to do upside down pushups with both hands, eventually moving to just one, as this would be one of her old ways of limbering up back in her time at the carnival.

Eventually after feeling her arms loosen and tighten up, and then finally loosen up again, she stopped and let her weight drop down and landed with ease on her two feet. After a few more stretches, mainly with the legs she found herself feeling better already, but she did want to test out how well they could spar together.

"Alright, show me what you got first, Linde." she said with a grin as she whiped some sweat away from her forehead and looked at Linde, ready to proceed with the match.

Linde was in a full front splits, chest against her knee and head against her shin with both hands wrapped around her front foot when Aetri spoke to her.

Her voice was slightly muffled as she spoke, "One moment, love."

She kept her split for ten more seconds before slowly shifting to the other side doing the same for 30 seconds in total. With that done she went to a center split, chest on the ground, bewbs squishing against the ground, and forehead to the ground for thirty seconds.

With that all done, and her body fully loosened up, Linde hopped up and bounced on the balls of her feet with her arms dangling limply at her sides while shifting her head left and right to loosen her neck.

Once finished, she landed flat and smiled at Aetrius.

"Okay then, let's begin."

Linde took a basic stance. Body bladed sideways, lead hand open, up, and held out half her body length, rear hand near her shoulder, legs about twice shoulder width apart making her a rather small target. She kept light on her feet and slowly moved in closer and closer to Aetrius.

Aetrius watched silently as Linde was still stretching by the time she was done, and waited patiently. Eventually when she was done she silently studied the way Linde moved and prepared herself for the sparring. She eyed each and every movement of her body, watching for how she could go in for an attack, or how she would have to defend herself if Linde were to go in for an attack first.

She gave her a small bow before the match began and when Linde got into a stance, she slowly got into a stance as well, one almost mirroring Linde's, but continued to slowly move away from Linde in a circle, keeping up her defenses for now, let Linde wear herself out first, if she could that is.

Linde continued to slowly and carefully shuffle her way towards Aetrius, keeping on her guard and a smile on her face the whole way.

"Are you nervous, love?"

Aetrius looked at Linde and chuckled as she continued moving, "Me? Nervous? Why would I ever be nervous?" she said with a grin.

Linde smiled more mischievously.

"Just asking." She chuckled.

Linde slid a bit closer... A bit closer... To the side a little bit... A bit closer...

And...

A bit closer...

There!

Now in range, Linde snapped her front leg into the back of Aetri's front leg calf muscle.

Aetrius watched as Linde kept slowly inching forwards, and without even a second to blink her left leg was swept beneath her, causing her to give out and and recover for a moment from the surprise attack. "Really, Linde? Who said you could fight dirty?" she said with a small grin on her face as she looked up at Linde.

Linde didn't waste any time on a verbal reply. The moment Aetrius was recovered from the shot she had slid forward to close the gap and slammed her open palm into Aetri's stomach to shove her backwards and keep her off balance.

Aetrius watched as Linde lurched forwards for another attack, this time with an open palm aiming for her stomach, knowing what she intended to do, she waited for her to get close enough....There! Aetrius grabbed her by the arm and with ease used her other hand to pull her in closer and brought down her elbow for the joint between her arm and elbow

Linde wasn't expecting to be grabbed and pulled in, but Aetri was never one to not be full of surprises. Thankfully Linde's training with her father taught her a lot about adjusting to a situation on the fly, and as Aetri pulled her forward, she made the mistake of giving up too much of her body in the process. While she was going for Linde's arm and elbow, Linde was able to bring up her leg, aiming her knee at Aetri's thigh, and her head primed to slam into her chest.

Aetrius wasn't prepared for what came next and without any time to re-correct herself, she felt a pain hit her inner thigh and fell due to the mix of unexpected pain, as well as the pain itself hitting an old area where had received an injury long ago, causing her to collapse to the ground, grabbing her leg.

Linde barely managed to stabilize herself and hop to her feet, glancing to Aetrius as she gripped her leg on the ground.

"You all right, love?" She asked calmly, despite a growing internal worry about the way Aetri grabbed the leg.

Aetrius winced at the pain that shot through her leg, and slowly sat up holding the leg trying to help lessen the pain. She looked up when she heard Linde asked if she was alright, nodding her head she answered, "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just...Just an old injury that I forgot about until now. I'll be fine, I promise. Let's...Let's just continue." she stammered as she slowly rose to her feet, clearly not fully in the shape she was just moments before, but was still in the mindset to practice.

Linde was immediately at her side pushing her back down to a seated position.

"No." She said firmly, gently running her hands along Aetri's leg.

"Give me a minute."

She gently caressed the area where her knee struck Aetrius and, sure enough, she felt minute muscle spasms and weakness where normally Aetri's leg was quite strong. She took a deep breath and nodded slowly to herself as she looked up at Aetri.

"I'm sorry, love. I should have asked if you had any lingering injuries which could affect our exercise."

She kept one hand on Aetri's leg, and the other on her shoulder.

"Let's shift gears a little, okay? Instead of sparring, let's get you to work on some physical therapy. You let this injury go for quite some time, didn't you? We need to strengthen the muscles and balance them with your other leg's before we can think about sparring again. Otherwise, we're just risking making this worse."

Aetrius sighed and groaned when she was pushed back down, and watched as Linde touched the part of her leg that had the injury in it. She watched and clenched her teeth when she felt Linde press into her leg. She waited for Linde to say that it was fine and they could continue, but when she saw the look on her face she knew what that meant.

Sighing softly she looked at Linde when she said they'd need to stop and work on getting her leg better. "Honestly, Linde. I'll be fine." she said as she slowly started to stand up, not wanting to be done already as they had only just begun.

Linde frowned, pulling Aetri back down onto her butt and shifting over to sit on her lap.

"As your doctor, I say "no." Your leg is not in balance with the other, and the differences in muscular stability and strength are going to cause further problems if we don't deal with them. So shut up and agree to go through physical therapy." She growled softly.

She leaned in and kissed Aetrius before she could protest, pushing her down to the ground on her back before separating.

"I'll reward you later for your cooperation. I promise." She whispered with a wink.

Aetrius was only able to sit there and be silent as Linde spoke, feeling as though she was being treated like a child. She was about to protest not doing anything until Linde had kissed her, shutting her up rather quickly. She sighed and looked down, nodding as she realized it was best for her, and not to piss Linde off anymore than she already had.

" A-all right, Linde...But when all is said and done, and when I get better, you owe me a rematch. Got it?" she said with a small smile and chuckle, and gently kissed Linde on the cheek.

Linde's eyes softened and she smiled warmly, leaning down slightly to press their foreheads together.

"Don't worry. Once I am confident you're 100%, I'll give you the ass kicking I had to spare you from today."

She leaned back and licked the tip of Aetri's nose, giving her another wink.

"I promise."

Aetrius felt her face turn a light pink at how Linde acted, but couldn't help but smile. "Oh, trust me. When I'm better, I'll be the one to kick your ass. Remember, I don't fight clean. What bounty hunter does?" she gave her a chuckle and another smile.

Linde smirked.

"I certainly don't fight clean either," she whispered as she got off Aetri and helped her to her feet.

"Now let's get you a therapy routine to build that leg muscle back up, shall we?"

Aetrius took her hand and slowly rose to her feet, "You? Fight dirty? I never would have guessed." she said with a joking tone in her voice, and slowly began to hobble towards her things, "S-sure, whatever you say, Linde...." she said as she slowly picked up her things, and eventually and slowly they made their way back to the inn.