Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 16: Latenna

A/N: Poor Latenna. Poor Lobo. Damn that all-hearing brute!

-x-X-x-

Latenna the Albinauric was dying. There was no helping that. And quite frankly, she was almost glad for it. After all, her better half had already passed. Slain by that bastard with a poison arrow. Lobo had managed to carry her this far, to the shack on the cliffside, but no further. Her brave, wonderful companion had finally fallen, and with him gone, any hope of survival had left her.

The Albinauric was weary to her very core. Her bones felt like lead. Her soul felt like it was screaming and crying and raging continuously. And yet... she sat there, listless and silent, preferring not to say a word. Maybe... maybe if Lobo were still with her. But no.

How had it come to this? No, that was a foolish, naïve question. Latenna knew how it had come to this. Greed. Greed and envy had been her people's downfall. The Village of the Albinaurics, others had called their settlement. To them though... it was just the Village. The Village was where they'd gone to be safe from the dangers of the Lands Between. The Village was their attempt at banding together against the horrors that awaited them elsewhere.

Despite sharing the same name among the peoples of the Lands Between, first generation and second generation Albinaurics had very little in common. The second generation... they were less intelligent, and much more aggressive. And yet... and yet, there was a kinship there. Or so Latenna liked to imagine. Certainly, twas not the second generation that had done her people in.

No, that was the cursemongers. Monsters one and all, they had come upon the Village in the night. Not that it would have mattered anyways. The Village already existed in the dark undercroft of Liurnia's southern mountain range. They lived in darkness, had adapted to it, had made it their own. The Perfumers and the Omenkiller and the other cursemongers had come with fire and light and blades and axes, eager to burn and spill blood alike.

And yet... they were just the weapon. An arrow, loosed from a bow drawn from afar. Latenna's eyes close shut, as she finds herself remembering that night. If not for old Albus warning her to flee, she knows not what would have happened to her. But then, perhaps it would have been a better fate than this. Wasting away, waiting to die like her Lobo had died... tch.

That night is etched into her memory. The attack had begun, and Latenna had raced to her people's defense. Or she'd tried to, anyways. Old Albus had stopped her, had told her that she, upon Lobo's back, had the best chance of escaping the fighting. He'd begged her to go and Latenna, in her moment of weakness... had acquiesced.

He had been like a father to her, old Albus. Practically raised her, even as she'd grown old enough that her legs gave out on her, as they did for so many of the first generation Albinaurics. Still, her skills as a hunter had not relied upon the use of her legs, so long as she had her beast companion to carry her on her hunts. Her great wolf Lobo was always there, to act as her legs, to bring her where she needed to go.

Twas on his back that she had fled that night. And it was just as old Albus had said. They'd slipped the cursemongers' net, escaping them entirely. For a moment, even with the sounds of screaming and the roaring of flames sounding behind her as they'd fled, it had almost seemed like she and Lobo were going to make it out. Latenna had allowed herself to feel a tinge of hope.

And then an arrow had lanced out of the dark, not from the direction of the Village and the cursemongers attacking it, but from somewhere else. Lobo's sharp yip as the arrow dug into his haunch had torn Latenna's soul in two, even as she'd urged him onward. They'd been forced to veer towards the Crystal Cave, retreating into it to try and shake their pursuit.