Snippet #1532181

Faera had released two icicles, one of which connected solidly with something and the other having nicked an extremity, she'd guess, before she decided that while she still had time to do so, she might as well go larger-scale. To that end, she sat huddled in her tree, gathering rainwater about herself as quickly as possible. She did not have the rate of fire of an archer, and she knew very much that she was one half of what some people termed a "glass cannon," so she might as well live up to the cannon half as well, right?

She could hear the rapid twang of Lily's bowstring somewhere nearby, and beyond that the recoil of Sid's impossibly-large crossbow. Qinn was to her other side, working different magic from the sort Fae herself preferred. This was not to say it was any less effective, however. In fact, it was probably more so. Unbeknownst to anyone but Beelzes, who was gleefully assisting, Faera was currently trying to figure out a way to make her spells discriminate between enemy and ally without being able to aim them herself. It wasn't something she'd figured out yet, but she was confident they'd manage it eventually. The problem was deciding on some kind of criterion that could be worked into an incantation, and then also figuring out how to make that happen.

For now, though, she just had to be careful about her aim. There were far more enemies than allies on this field, which helped her chances, but she wasn't about to risk spearing a friend with a shard of ice. Thunder rolled in the distance, and a stray idea struck Fae before she discarded it temporarily. Maybe, if things got bad enough, she would, but not now. Not when it could just as easily kill her as anyone else.

Eventually, she had a globule of water about the size of a golem. Knowing that this was bound to alert someone to her location eventually, she flash-froze it, then shattered it with kinetic force, providing herself with hundred of small-but sharp shards, which hung eerily still in the air while she caught her breath. That much magic at once was enough to make her feel a bit woozy, but she steadied herself against the trunk of the tree and focused her ears on the camp, trying to pick out someplace where the Legion was not.

None had made it to the center or the north side of camp yet, it seemed, and she could hear the sounds of soldiers moving about, which meant it wouldn't be long before they were joining the fray. She swallowed hard; there was a chance that any one of those people could kill someone she cared about if she let them. She'd never really understood Talae's choice of profession before. Vengeance wasn't really a concept that she liked or grasped well. Death was death. But...

The mage grit her teeth together. Now was not the time to be thinking about this. With a couple of sweeping gestures, the hovering shards were moving, first gaining altitude until they would scarcely be visible from the ground, then plummeting with all the speed Fae and gravity could muster towards the north side of the enemy encampment. Faera's legs gave out, and she slumped against the tree, moving as quietly as possible into a sitting position. She could hear the cries of alarm and then pain as her spell did its work, and she could not, would not ignore them. She'd need a couple minutes before she could even consider doing anything else, anyway.

---

Things really did get easier with practice, and by the time the engagement was in full swing, Neira felt as though she had been integrating psionics and hand-to-hand her entire life. In some sense, she had been at it for a while, but not exactly like this. Even so, it wasn't yet enough to deal with the person it was meant to, and she knew it. Still... progress was good.

And so was the crunching sound that bones made. This whole "unnatural calm" thing still felt a little strange, and she reflected that it was more of a detached thought than the full-on sadistic joy she was accustomed to, but what could you do? Necessary sacrifices, she supposed. It helped that she felt much more acutely aware of her surroundings, and the constant engaging of the power within made predicting what her opponents were going to do rather simple.

Catching the forearm of a nearby deep human soldier, she casually bent the limb at an unnatural angle until it broke, slamming the opposite fist into his solar plexus. He dropped, and she brought her heel down on his windpipe, crushing it. Hmm... the general had said to meet in the middle. Since Alistair was doing her cleanup for her, she was now free to do just that, so she shook the excess rainwater off her diaphanous wings and used them to speed her progress. Idly, she wondered how much longer she'd have them; though losing them was no certain thing, and probably wouldn't happen for another thirty years or so if it did, but she'd grown rather... attached to them, so to speak. Damn metamorphosis.

She abandoned the train of thought as she reached the approximate center of camp. It seemed largely unoccupied, but she wasn't buying it. if there really was a Thane around here somewhere, it would have to be making its appearance soon. Hopefully, there would be more Legionnaries around before that happened. She noticed a commotion to the north and lifted a brow, but did not move towards it. She was waiting for the catch. There was always a dead-gods-be-damned catch.