Marth faded into existence in his main office, on the third floor of the Tower of Redemption and Destruction. The room covered the entire third floor of the buildings - a perfectly round library sporting tall bookshelves and archives, a large table for planning and conferences, as well as a desk near the window pointing away from the courtyard, opposite of which was the staircase, and an other window offering a splendid view over the Grey Square, and the front facade of the courthouse. He awaited Dalanesca's arrival, and smiled at her. "Let's visit Malum, shall we?"

Due to the tower's location, it didn't take long for the two to get to Malum. There, Marth found a suitable spot, and put the shard down. Marth's darker thoughts didn't manifest at this time - with an effort of will, he'd twisted Malum to instead replicate a phenomenon he'd dreader in his younger days - a ley-field gale. A torrent of magickal power which could severely destabilize a spell if you wern't trained enough, it also had a secondary property - washing away enchantment and host entities. These gales couldn't be forseen on Revaliir - and were also very rarely observed - but here, in Malum, Marth could summon his own fears. He looked at Dalanesca and nodded, and threw the shard into the torrent.

With a shriek, a shadow escaped the shard, causing it to dissolve. The shadow had red, glowing eyes, and the only part of it which seemed physical was the inside of the abomination's mouth. Reaver, as represented by a dark version of Marth, stepped out from behind a house, chuckling. "Oh, look, people! It's ME!" The shadow-creature spun towards the apparition, hissing. "So other aspects of me survived." The Marauder sarcastically applauded the shadow-Reaver on its observation. "Well, woop-de-fuckin' do, dipshit. We knew what happened when we were destroyed. it's not like violence has only one face. Which reminds me, which of the sissy-versions of me are you?" The shadow-creature appeared a bit dumbfounded by the Marauder's commentary, but answerec - briefly. "I am the Silent Slayer, Reaver the Assassin." The Marauder perked an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed. "Oh, right, sneaky-stabby me. Always in silence. Gah, you took all the fun out of the killing. But hey, that reminds me, wern't you an assassin once, o mighty she-god?" Marth - that is, Marth Coralax, the mage - looked at Dalanesca, and barely managed to stifle a laugh. However, he quickly recovered his wits and looked at Reaver the Assassin.

"Well, Reaver the Assassin. I've hunted the shards for a long time, and the time has come to strike a shard from the list. Are you ready to be destroyed?" The shadow-creature turned to look at marth, its red eyes narrowing. "I cannot die in the ethereal realms." Marth assumed an expression of brief shock, before he began to chuckle. "That's very true. it might even be possible that the Justiciar herself would be incapable of a greater feat than confining you to Malum. Luckily, she doesn't have to." "What are you implying, mortal?" marth took a step closer, grinning. "I'm saying, you cannot die here… But you cannot survive in the physical world of Revaliir." The demon looked puzzled, as if not quite understanding what marth was saying. Then a moment of terrible realisation came upon it, but before it could speak, Marth destroyed it with a few simple words. "Reaver the Assassin… You are banished from the Blinded Scales." And in an anticlimactic pop, Reaver the Assassin was cast back into the physical world, where its energies scattered to all the arcane winds forever.

Dalanesca immediately joined Marth in his office, taking in the sight for the first time.  The two had not spent much time in the Blinded Scales since her ascension, and it made sense that an area would have manifested itself to suit her head priest’s needs.  She took a moment to walk around before responding to Marth, walking about the area.  As she walked back to him, she returned his smile, warmly.  “I am impressed, Marth,” she said, gesturing a hand to her surroundings.  She stepped towards him.  “We shall,” she said, and exited the tower with Marth.

Upon their arrival to Malum, she watched as the realm materialized Marth’s vision of what he wanted the place to look like, she scarcely recognized the scene before her, her divine instinct telling her what it was.  When Marth nodded at her, she followed suit and returned the nod, awaiting to see what his plan was.  Within moments it became apparent - he meant to use the gate to destroy the shard.

She assumed she would stand back unless Marth needed her, more there for observance than anything.  The shard let out an odd sound as it was tossed into the current, a sound which made her narrow her eyes.  When the first shadow appeared shortly followed by the second shadow of Reaver, she felt a subconscious twinge of pain in the remnants of the wound on her chest that Reaver had caused.  It was mostly healed, only a small red welt remaining.  

She listened to the conversation, between the two parts of Reaver, and she could not help but smirk at the silliness of the way the Marauder spoke, though her smirk faded quite rapidly when Reaver addressed her.  She nearly opened her mouth to say something, but thought the better of it, narrowing her eyes at Marth when he laughed.  She gave him a look as if to say, you’ll pay for that laughter later, but kept silent.  

Dalanesca almost found herself amused at the scene unfolding before her - Marth seemed completely reversed in terms of stability than he had back in the ruins where they had found the shard.  As she listened, she understood what Marth was getting at, and a smile crossed her face, and before long Reaver the Assassin was gone from their presence.  

“Told you, you would be able to do it,” she said to Marth, a knowing tone to her voice.  She smiled at her companion, hoping that, although many other shards remained, he would feel a brief respite from the destruction of this particular piece.  

As Reaver the Assassin faded from existence, Marth finally felt the weight of the quest. From the moment he had woken up after his exorcism, through terrible months plagued by fear, anger, and nightmares, until what marth now realised was a mere fortnight ago when he met Dalanesca, he had been on the hunt. Now, the first item on a long list was finally crossed out, and the fatigue of half a year of campaigning and recovering washed over him like a massive tidal wave of exhaustion and stress. Under the sheer weight of it all, he buckled.

"While I'm typically the nastiest piece of shit around, casually raping, cannibalizing and slaughtering my way across the world, Coralax - and this hunt - has been a great deal of fun. She-god, I think this might be a good time to take a short vacation. I'll play in Malum in the meantime." While his words were uncharacteristically kind, Reaver's words were selivered with a sneer and a snigger, and as he skipped away from view, he let forth a howling laughter. Marth, on his end, found himself unable even to stand for the time being, and slumped to the pitch black ground. "Uuugh… As much as I hate to admit it… A rest would be good…" He looked several years older now, and even a few strands of white were now visible in his hair and beard.

She eyed the manifestation of Reaver reproachfully as it spoke to her, still mildly unsettled by the fact that he perfectly resembled Marth, only darker.  “Malum is a good place for something like you,” she said under her breath.  When Reaver had finally disappeared from view, she looked to Marth, who had taken to the ground once more.  She stepped over towards him and looked at him for a few moments.

The stress of their mission - of his mission that he had been on long before the two had even known one another - was visible on his face.  She proceeded to sit down on the ground next to him, remaining silent for a while.  Though the mission itself had not been very stressful for her (other than worrying about Marth’s safety), a lot of changes had come about for her in the past few weeks and her identity as a result was something she still struggled with.  As she looked around, the scene that Marth had imagined dissipated around them, leaving them sitting on the cold stone ground of the true form of Malum.

After a few minute had passed, she reached over and patted Marth’s knee a few times, before standing up.  “Come on, then,” she said.  “Goddess or not, I feel like I could sleep for a solid week,” she said, with a weak laugh.  “I would, however, like to explore your tower that you thought up a bit more at some point,” she added.  “The office was lovely - perfect view of it all… and the external architecture… You really captured the spirit of the realm,” she added.  Assuming he stood to follow her back to the Grey Square, she walked back, feeling a bit more relaxed than she could remember feeling in the past few weeks.

When they reached the Grey Square, she glanced up at where Marth’s quarters would presumably be, and then back at him.  “Get some rest, Marth,” she said, with a smile.  She could see the need for sleep on her companion’s face. “Perhaps you can join me for breakfast in the morning?”  She gave him a warm smile and turned to walk back towards the main courthouse, to her quarters. She paused after a few steps and turned back to Marth. “Unless you would like to share my quarters tonight?” she asked, looking back to him, awaiting his response. 

As Dalanesca sat down next to him, Marth waited for her to say something, but she didn't. For that, Marth felt relieved - what he needed now was not words, but rest, and her presence alone was soothing. He enjoyed the minutes of silence, just letting the bond the two had formed do all the talking. As a cereer soldier, such pursuits were something he had ignored - duty came first - but now, tired and partially broken that he was, he felt like it was a pursuit worth taking.

When he felt her touch on his knee, Marth started, woken from his thoughts. As she spoke, Marth smiled and stood up. "Indeed, I could sleep for a good while as well," he began. "And thank you, I tried to figure ot how to make my quarters fit in." He followed her to the Grey Square, as courtesy dictated, silently hoping all along she wouldn't dismiss him. For all his exhaustion, Marth didn't feel like being for himself - Dalanesca had been of greater help during the hunt than she may have realised, and there was more than one reason he wanted to share the moment of triumph with her. And so, his heart sunk when she told him to go get sleep and meet her in the morning, and he was about to turn and leave when she offered her quarters.

On this offer, Marth went up to her, smiling. He didn't say anything, but cupped Dalanesca's cheek in his right hand and leaned over, giving her a kiss. This one, he held for a bit longer than before, and with more meaning. As he broke it, he smiled down at his goddess. "If after that you have not changed your mind, I'd love the extra warmth," he said, his leg armour clanking softly as he took a tentative step to close the gap between them.

As Marth walked towards her and took her face in his hands, pressing his lips against her own, Dalanesca felt a brief moment of peace, as though all was right in the world.  The two hadn’t shared more than a few similar moments, but she could sense something a bit different behind this action.  When he pulled away, she could not help but to return his smile, her own broadening as he accepted her invitation.  Without saying anything when he moved closer to her, she stood up on tiptoe and briefly pressed her lips into his once more.  Stepping back, she took his hand into her own.  “Come on,” she said, and the two of them took off for the main Court House for her quarters, Dalanesca keeping her fingers laced with Marth’s the full length of the walk.

-

It did not take long for the two to arrive at the entrance to her room, at which point several magistrates flocked to the pair, a flurry of voices accompanying them.  She glanced up at Marth, her hand still grasping his, and looked back to the staff that so eagerly wanted to tend to her.  “I need nothing,” she said, waving them away.  They knew better than to argue with her and immediately set off down the hall, leaving the two to enter her room alone.  After the two stepped in, she pressed the door shut behind them and let go of his hand, turning to face him with her back against the door.  A small smile crept over her lips as she looked at Marth.  “Finally, I’ve got you alone in my room,” she quipped, quirking an eyebrow.  

With a bit of a laugh she walked across the room, over to the desk that stood not far from her bed.  She began removing her armor, laying it piece by piece rather carefully.  As she undressed, she continued to speak to her companion.  “Though the possibilities are endless, I must admit nothing sounds better right now than curling up next to you in that bed,” she said, her eyes darting to the obsidian four poster covered in black silk.  She knew full well that Marth would understand it was not due to a lack of interest in him, but more from sheer exhaustion.  

She had managed to remove all of her armor and clothing save the tunic that she had worn under it, and walked towards the bed.  She pulled back the silk and sat down, reaching up to undo the braid in her hair. Her hair, now loose from its tie, fell in waves around her shoulders, and she lazily pulled at the leather cords holding the neck of the tunic together. Feeling no necessity for modesty around Marth, she pulled the linen over her head, now completely free of clothing.   “Join me?” she asked, with a bit of a smile, and pulled her legs up onto the bed, sliding them under the silk covers.  She turned towards Marth, lying on her side, her head propped up with one hand as she waited on him to join her in bed - under completely different pretenses than the first time they had shared such an intimate space.

Marth followed happily to the courthouse, enjoying the peace and quiet that the realm now offered. Marth didn't even find the milling magistrates disturbing - as they approached him and Dalanesca outside her room, he actually found their dilligence rather adorable. However, he was visibly relieved when they were alone in the room. He smiled at Dalanesca's comment, beginning to undo his armour. "And all the time we need to make use of it," he replied, as he arranged his plates against a drawer in a corner of the room.

He found himself, as he was ridding himself of his robes, watching as Dalanesca undressed. He no longer felt the need to be 'proper' about it - and so, he allowed himself to truly drink in the image of her body for the first time - noticing the flow of her hair, the shape of her nose, the curve of her waist, the toned belly, and eventually, the fullness of her breasts. "Well, I could use some good rest," he replied as Dalanesca explained how she'd prefer to cuddle up. "And who knows, we might both be well rested in the morning," he said with a smirk, as the last bit of clothing fell off him.

He walked over to the bed and crawled in, snuggling up against Dalanesca, a hand finding her waist - before sliding behind it and pulling her closer. He slid his arm under her head, waning to feel the weight of her head against his chest. He then gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead, looked her in the eyes, and smiled. "You were attractive before, you know. Now that you're a goddess, you're more gorgeous than ever. And I mean that." He wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer. His voice dropped to a whisper, as he felt his body grow heavy with fatigue. "I'm glad of this. The big, private room. Knowing my godess is close. The sound of your breathing, the look of your hair, the feel of your breasts against my skin… All of it." As he was about to drift off into sleep, he gave her cheek a gentle stroke. "And if I may be so bold… I'd like to experience some more of you in the morning," he said, his eyes closed, his breath slowing, until it became the softest of snores.

Dalanesca’s gaze never left Marth as he finished undressing, walking towards the bed to join her.  She once again saw the marred flesh across his chest, but immediately diverted her attention from such, instead dragging her eyes up and down his entire form.  When he slipped into the bed with her and held her close, she closed her eyes, listening to the soft words he spoke.  She tilted her head up slightly to meet his lips with her own, briefly, before snuggling her face back against his chest.  She could feel sleep beginning to creep up on her, Marth’s voice echoing in her mind.  She subconsciously pressed her body against his own when he mentioned the feel of her skin against his own, smiling to herself as sleep inevitably took over, with the promise of more in the morning.

-

The next morning, Dalanesca awoke slowly.  She blinked a few times as she took in her surroundings, and found herself smiling once again.  It seemed as though neither of them had shifted even once throughout the course of the night, as Marth’s arms were still wrapped around her and her head still lay on his chest.  She lay still for a moment, drinking in the absolute perfection of the moment.  After a few moments, she shifted her body slightly, testing the weight of his arms.  When she realized that she could easily slip out from beneath them, she did so, and quietly padded away.  

She returned after a few moments, glancing at Marth who appeared to still be asleep.  She carried a large pail of water, which she carried to the fireplace at the far side of the room.  Some time in the night a magistrate had clearly been in to light the fire, and a large stone basin hung over it.  She dumped the water as quietly as she could, intending on heating it up for a bath.  

While her companion slept and the water heated, Dalanesca walked over to a window on the far side of the room.  She drew back the curtains that covered the panes, sunlight pouring in but in such a manner that it did not directly shine onto Marth.  She stood, naked, in the sunlight, looking out over her realm.  After a while when she was sure that the water would have been warmed to a sufficient point, she moved to the basin and slipped on protective gloves, grabbing the cauldron to pour the water into the large stone bathtub that sat off to one side.  She put the cauldron back in its place and stepped toward the tub once more, testing the water with a hand.  When she was certain it would be the perfect temperature, she walked back to her bed, where Marth still lay sleeping.

With an impish smile, she slid herself back into the bed, as close to him as possible - though this time, she was not worried if she woke him up; in fact, waking him up was her intention.  “Marth,” she said, quietly, so close to him that her lips brushed his earlobe.  “Come, join me,” she said, gently, in an effort to wake him.  Her hand slowly traced down his chest, circling his navel and coming to a stop near his hip.  “I’ve drawn us a bath,” she whispered at the first signs of him waking.  Not waiting for him to respond, she trailed her hand further down still, her fingertips brushing against him in the most intimate of ways.  Drawing his earlobe into her mouth, she darted her tongue across the soft flesh, nibbling slightly, in a further attempt to get him out of bed.  Having been able to rest, her feelings toward him felt renewed, and she wanted nothing more than to act on them. 

Marth had slept deeply and soundly, his mind at perfect rest. He had not stirred all night, not with Dalanesca in his arms. His had only half-registered that Dalanesca had slipped out of his grip, as he was still asleep at the time. Then, he felt the weight of the bed shift, and something getting on top of him. Marth made a slight groan, which soon turned into a moan, as Dalanesca's voice filled his ear and her touch brought his body to attention. He chuckled a little as he felt Dalanesca's grip, and her tongue on his earlobe. "A bath, you say?" he said, his voice slightly hoarse from sleep. "I would be happy to join you, my lady," he said finally, with a grin.

Without warning, he laughed, and shot up - scooping up Dalanesca in his arms. As he got out of bed, he leaned to her mouth and gave her a gentle kiss, before lifting her up and kissing her chest, as well. He walked nonchalantly over to the tub, putting Dalanesca into the water gently, before hopping in after her. When they were both in the water, he crawled forward, until he was right on top of her, fully approaciating Dalanesca's body with his hands as he leant in and kissed her. "So… How may I serve my goddess today?"



A few hours later, Marth was lying on the bed, sweating and panting, exhausted from the activities he and Dalanesca had partaken in. His naked frame covered an unsightly portion of the bed, but with Dalanesca resting on top of him, space wasn't an issue. Marth ran his hand through Dalanesca's hair, across her back, before it came to rest caressing her bottom while his other arm held her close. He just laid there for a brief while, catching his breath, before the first scared thought of the entire day crept across his mind. He made sure not to let his fear show in his voice, but the concern did colour his speech. "Hey… I was wondering… Have you met any of the other gods, yet?" He looked at her with an only half-convincing smile. "Like… The Earth Mother? And if yes, are you friendly with them?" He let the implication hang in the air. In the heat of the moment, he had completely forgotten about all the potential risks of his actions.

Dalanesca lay atop Marth, her head against his chest.  Her skin glistened with a thin sheen of sweat brought on by the past few hours she had spent with Marth, and her heart beat just a little faster than usual in her chest.  She could hear Marth’s as well, and it seemed that he had enjoyed things every bit as much as she had.  She smiled, closing her eyes and nestling against him as she felt his hands roaming her back.  A feeling of satisfaction swept over her, her own hands trailing lazily up and down Marth’s chest and abdomen.  

When Marth began to speak, she looked up at him, one eyebrow quirked.  It seemed he was trying not to give anything away, but he was worried - and the rest of his words made it painfully obvious as to what he was referring.  She looked down, stifling a bit of a chuckle, and kissed his chest softly and affectionately.  She sat up, moving to sit next to him on the bed.  “I’ve not met Natsumi or Century yet,” she began, first listing off the Goddess of Keys and Secrets as well as the Lord of Chaos.  “But the Storm Wolf and I have a bit of a history,” she said, her voice distant for a moment.  Her history with Moliira was something different altogether, and it was information that she would share with Marth at another time, when it seemed pertinent for her to give him a bit more of her history.  

“But the Earth Mother… Angela.”  She smiled and gave Marth feigned expression of worry.  “She’s not the biggest fan of mine.”  She arched an eyebrow at Marth, which was followed shortly by a broad smile.  “I jest, of course,” she said, leaning over to him and tilting her head up to meet his lips in a kiss again.  ‘Angela and I are on quite good terms, I should say,” she continued, tracing her hand down his leg.  “In that department, you’ve nothing to worry about,” she added.   The thought had not even occurred to her, but now that Marth had brought it to the front of her mind, she thought on it for a moment.  She would have to pay a visit to Angela and find out exactly how all of that worked when divinity was brought into play - considering her lover was mortal, she assumed it would take a bit of effort to make anything happen.

She moved to lay down again, resting her head  on one of Marth’s legs and looking up at him from a different angle.  “Though, if that’s your worry, you could do that thing with with your hands and your mouth again… I don’t think that could have any negative repercussions,” she said with a bit of a giggle.  Twisting her neck, she planted a soft kiss on his upper thigh, glancing up him with a suggestive look in her eyes.  “Maybe we could test that theory again?” she asked, coyly, resting a hand on his other leg and slowly tracing upwards.