Ch. 51: Rosy's First Trek

As soon as Adrian reached the top of the cliffside, he collapsed on the ground, sending Rosy whatever energy he could spare in order to buff her endurance a little bit. 'Rosy, I made it.' He informed her. He could feel her grateful emotions through their bond, as well as a little sadness. 

Due to her vampire side, Rosy enjoyed fighting, after all. A fight that never ended where her vampire side could be satisfied, with the only requirement being that she couldn't kill her enemies, it was perfect. She regretted the fact that her stamina was limited.

It wasn't difficult for Rosy to find her own way up. With her insane climbing speed, it wasn't hard for her to run away from all of the griffins before their attacks managed to hit her. 

"That wasn't fun." Adrian told Rosy once he found her on the top of the mountain. 

"Haah... Haah." After sprinting up the wall as fast as she had, Rosy didn't have any breath left to answer him verbally, so she sent annoyance his way via their bond instead.

They took a bit of time to recover a bit of their energy before they set off again. As much as they'd wanted to simply stay there for a little while longer, it wasn't possible, since they were so close to the area with the 'snake-panther' nest.

In fact, the last time Rosy had been bitten, she'd been near the lip of the cliff, same as they were right now. It was only luck that they hadn't been attacked while they were recovering... but luck wouldn't hold forever. Only a fool would rely on it.

"Their nest is a few hours that way. We're going that way." Rosy pointed in two separate directions. They were still capable of speaking through their bond, but it didn't just share thoughts, but a lot more as well. Allowing their thoughts to be read was the same thing as opening their minds to each other. It was too intimate an act to be done casually.

"You sound so certain of the location of their nest, you know." Adrian prodded curiously. 

"I should be. I've been there, after all." Rosy admitted.

...

Rosy's mind wandered back to the last time she'd made this expedition.

"You failed me at Nighthaven, child." Her father was standing in front of her, sword in hand. After a two-month imprisonment following her failure at the battle of Nighthaven, Rosy had been called back to the castle at Noctus, where her father berated her for the failure. The imprisonment had apparently only delayed the conversation.

"I'm sorry, father." She apologized emptily, tears filling her vision. She didn't mean any of it, but she knew what was going to happen next. Some part of her knew that she deserved it. She'd led her men into the trap back then... on purpose, to satisfy her own weakness. In front of her father, it was inexcusable.

"You failed." He repeated. Then... the torture started. Down in the dungeons under the Royal Noctus Castle, the king tortured her for hours. The pain was so much worse than anything she'd experienced under the Resistance's blade. 

"What is your mission?"

"To follow your orders!" 

"What is your mission?"

"To follow your orders!" She screamed again. He continued to repeat that one line over and over again, causing her some sort of pain every single time. It continued for hours.

"Repair my trust in you." After her torture session was done, the king left Rosy with that remark. It was entirely up to her what she did with it. 

It took young Rosy only a week under the castle's healers in order for her body to fully heal from the torture session, though it honestly said a lot about how thorough the king's torture was to make it take even that long, since a full-body third-degree burn would only have taken a day or two under the same level of healing magic. 

After that, she immediately attempted to go back to her father's throne room and beg for forgiveness. Beg for him to ignore how weak she had been... Even thinking of how scared she'd been of losing his trust back then made the current Rosy almost want to vomit. 

She'd been barred from the throne room, though.

As she left the castle to look for something... some feat that she could accomplish in order to please him, Rosy ran into one of her father's messengers. An enslaved gryphon. That was when she'd gotten the idea to enter Gryvus. If she killed even one gryphon inside the legendary city of gryphons, she knew that her father would forgive her. He'd never punish her again... she just knew it.

So, she'd left for Griffin Mountain that very same day, gloating to Charles Crescent on the way out about how she'd become her father's favorite by accomplishing something incredible. Something that nobody had ever accomplished before...

The trip to Griffinkiller City hadn't been very long. Alone, Rosy could cover quite a bit of ground in a day, and pushed on by her fear of being punished again, she didn't sleep much. Whatever sleep she was able to get was small and fitful, anyways. Filled with memories of pain and suffering. Worse than death, she believed.

She'd stayed in Griffinkiller City for several days, sleepless nights spent scouting out the mountain before she decided on an area to enter at. Based on the map, it seemed to be the closest spot to her goal of Gryvus. The closest to her goal of avoiding any more punishment. It was all for her father... Her mission was to follow his orders, after all. Sleepless nights... pain and suffering... it was all secondary to the terror that she felt when the thought of disappointing her father again. She envied Charles... He didn't need to do anything but be his normal, ruthless self to be accepted. Her mother was the same way. It was all unfair... but she didn't need to care. So long as she didn't disappoint her father again.