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Louise watches as Mother Superior Kaia Mori slowly heats the blade over a flame. She hasn't stopped struggling against her restraints and her right shoulder aches terribly. She's probably torn a few muscles and she's sure to tear a few more when Mori looks her way. Her gaze is cold, dead. A stark contrast to the Mother Superior that Louise remembers.
"You remember when she sent you away, don't you?" begins Mori, her voice tinted with malice. "It broke her heart to do it. She loved you so much it was disgusting. I nearly had you but she resisted me. Sending you away broke her. It left cracks all along her soul that allowed me to seep right in. I should be thanking you really, for not putting up a fight. If you had, I would've killed you no matter how hard she tried to stop me."
The blade is glowing yellow-orange and Mori removes it from the fire. "Well anyway, a couple years after you left, we were visiting a local orphanage. Gotta keep up with appearances, right? That's when she saw her. Raïm. Little waif of a girl. Couldn't have been more than 12...13?" The smile stretching across Mori's face threatens to empty Louise's stomach. "How her heart ached when she saw her. She was so much like you, Louise. Full of light, and hope, and love. But she has something that you don't. Something special. She's one of Yon Morlir's Host. She can heal. Real, true, healing. We saw it for ourselves. She touched us and I was forced to shrink away. It was marvelous. A thing of miracles. For if Yon Morlir's Host still exists then so too must she."
Mori is practically salivating. A wild feverish gleam in her eyes. "That's where you come in. We're gonna cut you open, give you a little something extra, then send you off."
Louise begins another attempt at getting her right arm free but her restrains hold fast. "Oh do stop struggling, won't you? The trap was laid days ago and the snare has tightened. You're not getting out of this."
She doesn't feel the cut when it comes. She bares her teeth when it slices across her inner forearm and then, she bleeds. "Besides, it's not you I want. Not truly. I want the girl you travel with. If anyone knows where Yon Morlir has been hiding, it'll be her. Why, you look a little lost about all this. You... you don't know who, what she is, do you?
Kaia Mori signals one of her acolytes, who steps forward bearing a box. They kneel and Mori lifts an object wrapped in cloth. Louise instinctually pulls away when Mori unwraps the Rot Stone. Louise can almost feel the decay emanating from it. Mori holds it over Louise's wound and gives a smile as she pushes it inside. Louise begins to scream and thrash wildly. All she knows is pain and the utter wrongness of the thing that now pulses inside her. Kaia Mori calmly slices a line across her own palm and presses it to Louise's wound. Soon, their blood begins to mix and Louise calms, sweating profusely and moaning.
"Oh. Oh this is perfect." Mori's voice is full of sick, twisted mirth. "She'll never see me coming. Never see you coming, either. Provided you can follow instructions. They say you're a good knight. A proper soldier in the fight against Decay." She softly brushes Louise's hair back from her eyes. "It's time to put that to the test. First Instruction: Bring me the girl."
It's grown dark since Louise left. Dagmar has started a small fire to keep Alice warm in the fall chill. They've got dinner cooking and as Alice moves to rotate the potatoes, Dagmar gives a low growl, looking into the woods. She tells Alice that there's something out there. Alice laughs and says that its probably just Louise. Dag stands, her form shifting with unease. She gives another growl but its cut short when Louise stumbles into the campsite.
She looks confused, dazed, and Dagmar says there's something wrong with her. Alice grabs Louise by the hand and force her to sit in front of the fire. As they begin to eat Alice tries to ask Louise about her meeting with Mother Superior Mori but Louise leans over and retches. She begins to apologize profusely, even crying a little but Alice waves it away and helps Louise to bed.
The next day, as they begin to move, Dagmar insists to Alice that there is definitely something wrong with Louise. She doesn't smell right. Its like she's two people, maybe more.
Its nearing dusk when Louise retches again. Before Dag or Alice can do anything, she's slipping from the saddle, falling gracelessly into the dirt. Alice begins to approach her when Dagmar cuts her off, warning Alice not to go one step closer. Alice brushes her warning aside and helps Louise up. They begin to stumble off the road with Louise's arm around Alice's shoulder. Alice, focusing on helping Louise, doesn't notice the danger until there is a hand around her throat, squeezing painfully tight. Its Louise, and she looks half-asleep. Her eyes are glazed, and barely open. As she brings a second hand up to Alice's throat, fire races across her back and she drops Alice into a heap. Alice is too busy trying to breathe to watch the fight, but she listens to Dagmar when she tells her to get up and run. Take the horses and run!
She doesn't look back.