Snippet #1500909

When the shrapnel started raining down, Faera took cover underneath her construct, the shards of metal bouncing more-or-less harmlessly off the golem's carapace as it would not her own. She could hear the shouts of battle all around, but somehow she got the distinct feeling that they were heavily outnumbered and not doing so well. If the metal bits and pieces were anything to go by, the dragon in question was almost directly overhead. There had to be a way to push it to the ground, so that the others might be able to attack it from there.

Moving delicately due to her injured shoulder, Fae concentrated hard on the activity above herself, trying to pinpoint the thing's location. That would be important. She heard it collide with another skybound object and start mauling, and knew that this was as much a chance as she was going to get. Please let this work, she pleaded, though to whom, she could not say. The gods were dead- there was little point imploring them for such a thing. Even so, she released the spell, aiming the strongest gust of wind she could muster for the creature, hoping to hit a wing more than anything else, perhaps knock it off-balance.

Best case scenario, the dragon would fall out of the sky and not hit anyone on the way down. Worst-case... well, she'd probably have missed. The thudding sound of a construct's fist against armor brought her back to the battle immediately in front of her, and Fae lobbed a fireball in the general direction, flinching when she heard the guard she'd hit fall back over the battlements shrieking. Okay... so no more fire then. She could hear her sister and several others fighting another hatchling about ten yards away, but there were so many people there that she couldn't risk the shot.

Something moved behind her, and Fae whipped around, gasping when the movement pulled at her shoulder-wound, and was hit with a wave of vertigo. Staggering to one side, she avoided the swing of an axe only by sheer luck, and Zek dove from his position atop the construct to scrabble at the eyes of the harpy who had dropped in to attack her from behind. Panicked at her proximity, Fae didn't think- she simply acted, and the result was a blast of raw kinetic energy. Unfiltered, not transformed into anything, it simply issued from her hand and knocked away the oncoming attacker. There was a consequent heave in the younger Shanir's stomach, and she was glad she had elected to eat only the lightest of meals that morning, else she may well have lost it.

---

Ugh...that hurt, bitch. Neira's eyes went wide as she felt her mind once more invaded by the cold ooze of a presence that was perhaps once an ordinary being, complete with emotions, a conscience, and all that good shit that she more often than not wished she didn't have. The sensation of pain locked her in place as each nerve ending fired off pain receptors in response to a stimulus that didn't really exist. The pressure was crushing, and she abandoned most of the outer parts of her consciousness almost immediately, retreating into the innermost part of her being, what that old sage had called her center. The edifices that supported everything else; surface thoughts, general disposition, the impressions she gave to others, all of these shattered beneath the weight of his onslaught, and she felt him digging through what it had exposed.

Hehe...you're a fucked up little fly, aren't you? Her inner self couldn't help but smirk at that, for it was so very true. Well except the 'fly' part; she rather detested being compared to them. Surely the answer to that is at your leisure to find, is it not? The nightmarian finally opened her mind's eye to whatever he was choosing to show her, confident for the moment at least that her essential self was out of his reach for the time being. She may not be a psionic specialist, but her grasp of the fundamentals was complete anyway. And one of those basics was to never let someone break you completely. Protect what mattered most, even if it meant sacrificing the rest.

His control of the situation was making it difficult to move, so she decided to endeavor towards no such thing for the moment. She blinked, and at once the space between them was filled with thousands of red points of light. Experimentally, she moved a hand, finding that the sensation was much akin to forcing her limbs through water. It made contact with several of those points, and she hissed as the pain wracked her 'body.'

"Like moving through burning syrup, no?" Despite the agony she was in, Neira assembled her features into something resembling cool indifference and arched a brow. I'm sure I would not know. But really? Physical torture? I thought I made it clear that there are better ways to handle this. Did you know, for example, how thin the line between pain and pleasure can get? The parts of the brain responsible for each are very, very similar. Even more so for someone like me, who is, as you put it, 'fucked up.' Mind over matter, Xeron.

So saying, she passed her hand through the air again, but this time, she only smiled. Hm, it... tickles. It didn't, of course; in fact it still hurt like hell. But he didn't need to know that. And she had been telling the truth on one account: the two sensations most perceived as opposite were indeed closely-linked, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

He seemed to believe her, or at least he did if the frown on his face was any indication. How about we play a different game now? she questioned with mock innocence, easily-discernible as such. She would admit, he was still at an advantage, but because he had not managed to completely crush her, he'd never get the chance again, that much she would make sure of. Now it was all simply a matter of switching the circumstances until she found something she could work with. He had the power, but Neira had the finesse, the subtlety, and she wasn't going to lose.