Snippet #1599206

Fae was lost in a sensory haze. It was as though there was a thin veil over everything in her direct experience, or rather over her ability to do anything with the information except act and react. Disturbed air, a sidestep. Swivel, call the magic to hand. Fire, heat licking at her fingertips. Release, connect. The smell of charred flesh, a scream, move on to the next. A sharp sting at her shoulder; grab the shaft of a spear and set it alight too. Wait for it- heat and ash. More screaming, blood; she registered with little more awareness than this. Pain wasn’t even on her radar anymore.

Instead, her mental space repeated but a single mantra- you will not have them. The stark simplicity of it sapped more complex intimations from her existence for the time being- she stopped considering what she was really doing, and in so letting go, found at last the resolve to properly do it. To attack with nothing less than utter killer intent. The protests of her better nature were smothered beneath the weight of sheer necessity- she had not the luxury of moral dilemma, much less mercy. Right now, the best she could muster in terms of mercy was killing them as quickly as she was able.

The small world-space into which she had retreated, the thick glass bubble encasing her awareness, was shattered upon a very specific sound- Beelzes voice, to be exact, and more specifically the sharp change in altitude that this tonality suffered. She had no time to be elated at the general’s arrival, no chance to entertain fanciful notions of his appearance heralding reinforcement or somehow saving them all, because Beelzes had been struck.

“No!” Fae dashed to her friend’s side, finding that the problem was an arrow lodged in her abdomen. Not even a dragon- a Child! A damnable Child, and who had she been throwing herself at for the better part of ten minutes? “Beelzes, come on Beelzes! Say something! Tell me a joke, please? Tell me this is a joke, won’t you? Oh gods…” but her friend was unresponsive, and Fae wasn’t even sure what this meant. Was she dead, or just unconscious? It was so hard to tell over the din of the battle, but that didn’t stop Fae from assuming she was still alive.

“Come on, Beelzes, you can’t go to sleep! You have to stay awake! Wake up!” Fae debated whether or not to pull the arrow out and try to heal the damage, but she didn’t even know what the extent of that damage was, or if it was something she’d still be able to fix, depleted as she was becoming. “Please? Please wake up? Come on…” The dark elf swiped furiously at the watery trails running down her face. Crying wasn’t going to help Beelzes any. It wasn’t going to help anyone.

Dammit! I say I’m going to do one thing, and I can’t even do that! It was not as though her healing would do much good for the warlock anyway, since it apparently came from some semidivine ancestor. Well, precious lot of good that was doing her right now.

Though… she’d never actually tried that, had she? She’d always been aware of it, surely, that elephant in the room every time she stopped to consider the shape of the her internal system. It always sat there, radiant and chill, imperiously dominating those places in her mind where she dared not venture. She could feel the power there, but something had always bid her remain clear of it. Instinct, visceral and strong. If Beelzes had been right back then, that was the divine aspect of her existence, ill-contained within a mortal body perhaps, but…

How much was she willing to give to save them? It was a question she’d never thought to answer, but now, on the cusp of plunging straight into that foreign part of herself, sitting beside the unmoving form of her closest friend and her teacher, feeling her tears mix with the blood staining her face and knowing she was so utterly unimportant, so completely ineffectual in doing the one thing she had resolved to do even after her uselessness became apparent, the question gained a significance it had never taken on before.

So, how much was she willing to give? More importantly, how much would it take?

---

Neira, in the midst of an attempt to gut Xeron, was abruptly thrown backwards, spinning end-over-end in the air and not seeming to be particularly bothered by this. Righting herself, she stopped her movement by an act of will and raised an eyebrow in the general direction of the Silenced, who had stopped moving and was now essentially just floating there.

What came next over their mental connection wrung a dark laugh out of the nightmarian. I’d say yes, but then I can’t say I’m surprised, she sniped with a grin. He was right about one thing; this was a great deal of fun. Partially in contact with his mind as she was, she heard the dragon, and her smile dropped off abruptly. Scaly bitch. she muttered to herself, though frankly she could care less about whether or not she was heard. Here she was, thoroughly enjoying herself, and of course keeping Xeron from wrecking absolute havoc on the already-chaotic battlefield below, and now there was interference and well… put-out wasn’t really the best way to describe it, but irritated didn’t quite do enough.

Of course, his apparent compliance was about to make her really angry, before she caught just a glimpse of his intent. What followed was most certainly nothing she had expected, and she shook her head, wry smirk twisting her features. “Does the freedom hurt yet?” she asked rhetorically, and nodded in answer to his question.

“I think I will.” Neira was mercenary enough to seize an opportunity when she saw one, and though she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him- though that was a bad idiom, she could throw someone his size very far indeed- this constituted an opportunity. It also promised to be most entertaining, and required no more consideration than that. She was about to apply her psychic speed and join Xeron in the fray, but she stopped short, staring at the horizon. More… and those are reds, it seems. Narrowing her almandine eyes, the nightmarian glanced at the battlefield below. With a deep breath, she projected her thoughts to the remaining members of the Black guard.

The reds approach. It was all she said, but it was perhaps all that needed to be said. Without sparing it another thought, she burst forward, traveling in Xeron's wake and then branching off in the opposite direction, lancing psionic blows from her arms, slicing red-tinged arcs through the intervening space.