A few hours earlier, back when Lune and Cecily had jumped off the airbike...

"Dammit, you idiots!" I tightly grabbed hold of the handlebars as I tried steering this thing away from crashing, "I'm not gonna make it! Ohhh, if I die now...!"

Just as I was about to give in, though, a voice seemingly from the Heavens themselves reached out to keep me going. It was a wonderful lady whom I knew very well that shouted, "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!"...

"Anna, even now, at a time like this, I hear your lovely voice..." I looked down with a warm smile before realizing, "Hey, hold on, this voice isn't coming from my head!"

Hastily going through each and every compartment I could rummage through as the flaming airbike's engine stalled, I eventually opened this one door near the side of the airbike, and inside was a very terrified woman.

"Ed!" She looked at me with tears in her Eyes, a total mess of emotions as she begged, "Sorry, don't get mad, but...!"

"For Gods sakes, Anna!" I shouted, "What the hell are you doing in there!? HOW the hell are you in there!?"

"That's why I told you not to get mad, geez!" She kept her Eyes closed as the smoke started building up around us, "I snuck in right as you guys were leaving, okay!? But never mind that, let's first land this thing safely!"

Right, but that's the problem—I never planned on landing it in the first place. Hell, I actually think Cecily and Grim had the right idea with jumping off to increase their odds, but now that I know that Anna's here, boy am I glad that I wimped out when I did!

"Tch, alright, this one's on you, so don't blame me if one of us doesn't make it out!" I still took the time to lecture her for this little stunt.

"We're gonna make it, we have to!" She was fighting back tears at this point, "That's because...!"

"Hold that thought!" I let go of the handlebars and climbed to the side where she was to pull her out of the compartment, "Alright, you ready?"

"Ready!? For what, exactl-?"

"Start praying for our lives while you still can!" I said, yanking her off the airbike with me mere moments before it hit the tree, "Aves!"

Had I initiated the freefall a few minutes earlier, I would have had plenty of time to whistle and call upon the nearby flock of birds to my aid. Hell, I think we could've had a mighty long and pleasant chat by the time I even made it halfway. But thanks to a certain idiotic stunt woman, we now only have a fraction of that before we hit the tree below us. It's a giant tree, but we have no guarantee that we won't break anything once we hit the branches.

"Aves!" I hollered for the birds to come once more, "Adjuva nos!"

"Quid nos facere vis? Exspectas nos ut te deferam?"

The birds of an unfamiliar type than what I had ever seen before, ones that donned an incredibly vast range of colored feathers, laughed in unison at my pleas for help. Mind you, I never met or spoke to any of them before, so it's pretty reasonable to not want to help a stranger out, but dude—This is literally a life or death situation!

"What did they say?" Anna tightly held onto me as the tree's crown grew ever more beneath us.

"Shit... shit, shit, shit!" I fell back on swearing when all else failed, "Anna, hold on tight and don't let go!"

Though I said that, it was more like I was the one that refused to let go. We had no time left, and the birds weren't useful for anything but spectating and mocking our deaths. Thus, I figured, I at least wanted to protect her. I hugged her tightly to my chest, making sure not to loosen my embrace even as she punched and begged for me not to go through with this. Damn, this is so gonna hurt, but... I tossed myself over so that my back would hit the ground first. I closed my Eyes, and silently waited for the pain to come.

"Ow! Fuck!" I felt a thousand branches whip my back repeatedly.

"Let me go! Ed!" Anna whimpered, "Ed, sorry for messing everything up, but don't do this!"

"I'm... not doing it to spite you, dammit!" I creaked one Eye open to take one more look at her, "Just promise-!"

Splat.

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***

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Ed had finally hit the top of the Founder's Tree after what felt like years of falling to his demise. Nevertheless, the branches did cushion the blow by quite a large margin, but most if not all of his bones were already way too disfigured for him to continue on. Oddly enough, even though he was on the verge of death, like a spider nearing its end, he refused to open his arms and legs to release Anna. Truly, he held her close and refused to let go even now. This was the true display of the love he held for his wife.

"Ed! Dammit, Ed!" She somehow freed herself eventually, "You're not supposed to die this easily, come on! Get up!"

Nudging, shoving and even slapping him repeatedly did nothing to awaken the fatally wounded man. Her gaze immediately darted around her surroundings to find SOMETHING she could use to bring him back to her, but alas, nothing was of use. Just leaves, branches and... skeletons?

"Edward, I'm sorry! It was my fault this piece of junk got set on fire!" Anna shouted, hoping he would hear her and wake up to scold her, "I didn't know, I seriously didn't, okay!? It was so cramped and I, and I wanted to make more room for myself, so I...!"

By this point, she was hyperventilating heavily. Her vision was blurry from the flood of tears, and even her head was hazy from the adrenaline filled free dive. It took all her strength just to stay awake herself, but she knew she couldn't fall unconscious just yet. Not until she could make sure Ed is safe.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I pushed a pipe and it ended up breaking off!" She revealed through tears and snot, "Everything started smoking, and before I knew it, I started a fire! It was my fault Lune and Cily had to jump off, it was my fault you had to wait before jumping yourself, and it was my fault you're like this now! I'm a horrible wife, so please wake up and scold me!"

"..."

".......Prylos, please..." She knew of nothing else but to clasp her hands and pray for a miracle.

So here stood a desperate sight. One that depicted a woman watching over the husband for whom she had caused so much trouble, now regretting her decisions and meditating for her Patron God to hear her prayer. She recalled what her grandfather told her in that moment, a lesson from her youth about how exactly to pray to the God that granted every wish.

"Gramps, I want that!" The little Anna, who couldn't have been older than 9 at the time, pointed to the dress that stood proudly on display in a fancy shop.

"Hoho, of course, Annie. Let me just..." Arthur checked the price tag and immediately recoiled, "Err, ehe, on second thought..."

"Mnn! Grandpa! I want it, I want it!" She stomped furiously on the paved road.

"Alright, calm down. Your grandpa can't afford it right now, but maybe if you tried to ask our God?" He suggested.

"God?" Annie tilted her head adorably.

"Clasp your hands, close your Eyes, and visualize him handing you what you want. Nothing else around you exists, just what you want and the God that gives it to you. Heh, or so my dad taught me."

"Visualize Prylos..." The current Anna poured all her Focus into the image in her mind, "The God of Meditation, giving me the miracle I need to save Edward! Visualize, visualize...!"

"Aww, what?" An annoyed orc's voice echoed from behind her, "Just you two? Damn, we left those fart faces down there for nothing."

"W-Who're you!?" Anna immediately pointed a finger at him, positioning herself in between the Red monster and Ed as she did, "What are you!? D-Don't come any closer, I have a weapon!"

"You do realize that only works when you DO actually have a weapon, right?" He saw right through her bluff, unsurprisingly, "Look, I'm not gonna touch ya'..."

"Stand back!" She still adamantly demanded.

"...Need help?" He grumbled, looking past her to take a look at Ed, "No offense, but all that praying certainly isn't doing his sorry ass any favors. Dude's spine is broken at like 6 different places. Trust me, even if he did wake up somehow at this exact moment, he'd be crippled for life."

"What do you know!?" She hissed back before gasping, "Wait, no, I'm sorry! You offered help, right!? Please, I'll do anything, just bring him back to me!"

"Anything?" He donned an impish, perverted looking grin.

"Urk... A-Anything..." She glanced around the room, unsure of what to make of this situation.

"Great, then tell me where Lune and his woman went!" He tossed her a happy little thumbs up.

"...Eh?" She cocked her head back, "How do you know them...!?"

"Yeah, you guys came here together, so what the hell? Where'd they go?" He looked around the room just to make sure he wasn't mistaken, "I'll Heal Ed up for you, but only 'cause he's needed later. Just tell me where those two went and I'll do this one favor for you, Anna."

In that moment, only one thought occupied Anna's mind: "Prylos looks way uglier than what I imagined". But nevertheless, she was certain that the thing standing before her was the exact God whom she had just prayed to, and he's come to answer that prayer! It was one thing to already ascertain Ed's exact wounds and condition, not to mention offer a way to help such an untreatable fracture, but he also knew everyone's names. There was of course a small chance that he knew the other three from before, but Anna was sure she had never met Prylos before.

"Wait, if you know everything, why don't you just check where they are yourself?" Anna tilted her head.

"Oh, so you don't want my help?" He rolled his Eyes, annoyed that she didn't read the room.

"N-No wait, okay, I'll tell you!" She hastily stopped him from leaving, "They jumped off our flying machine earlier and landed at the island across from us, I'm pretty sure!"

"Thank you! Geez, that wasn't so hard." He stormed over to stand in front of Ed, "Step aside."

Anna was worried he might do something to harm Ed, but at this point there really wasn't much more that could be done to ruin the poor guy's health. As the Red orc "Prylos" carefully turned Ed around on his stomach, he put his finger on Ed's back... And pressed hard on it like he was squashing a bug.

"Ack!" Ed immediately woke up from the pain.

"Stop, I take it back!" Anna rushed to try and stop him, "You're hurting him!"

"Eh? I am?" Auros lifted his finger to inspect it sarcastically, "Damn, that's a shame. Well, I did my part. See ya' later! I got a fight to catch!"

Thus, the Red orc left the room and jumped down the Tree trunk, leaving the young couple all alone again. Just as Anna had thought it was over though, the miracle she had sought after so much had finally made its way to her. When she turned around to check on her husband, her legs gave in the moment she saw him sitting up by himself, rubbing his sore back as if all the injuries he had sustained amounted to nothing more than a sore back.

"Edward...!" She smiled warmly, fainting in the very next moment.

"Huh? O-Oi, Anna!" Ha ran to support her head, "Seriously, what the hell happened...?"