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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/SecondMovement|Second Movement]]
| + | #REDIRECT ADanceOfAngels |
| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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| − | | |
| − | == Games of Dominance ==
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| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Kiri dies.
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| − | | |
| − | On Fiona's eyes, it happens all over again. A pale beast kills Kiri...
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| − | A dark woman makes Kanti pause. The young girl grits her teeth, running... her duty. Her duty towards them. Think of nothing but her duty.
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| − | <i>"Kanti!"</i> Fiona sprints, covering all the distance, standing in front of the Crimson Dragoness, arms spread to either side.
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| − | | |
| − | So like that day.<bR>
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| − | When she stood against the darkness.<br>
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| − | For her duty.<br>
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| − | For those she loved.<br>
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| − | | |
| − | Against a dark monster so like this one.
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| − | "Kanti! Get up... for the mistress!" She says, looking Selina defiantly even being unarmed and unarmored, her chain making her magnifying her looks, like a child, innocent, harmless... "You... will not hurt Kanti anymore!"
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Eyes wide open with the dancing of void's-flame as she advances toward Kanti, Selina allows a slight grin to take hold on her face. More like a smirk, really, as she whips Dreamshard back up. A stray beam of sunlight catches its edge, then it smothered by the shadows within her eyes. She looks past the weapon, peering down at Kanti, past a divider of life and death.
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| − | | |
| − | She feels...dead inside. For years, Selina had resisted the Malfeans. Never let them get a foothold in her mind, not one like this. And now she had invited her patron, flung the doors wide. Madness.
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| − | Her smirk is alive with it, but fading now. The rapier goes back down, into its sheath, but her eyes do not change. And the scythe comes out -- growing to full size as it does. Chimes of Nothing looks toward his latest victim, small twin points of crimson light on the screaming sheen of soulsteel.
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| − | Her voice doesn't contain nearly the same kind of echo and rumbling unstoppable force it did before, although a trace of it dances through her tones like swirls of wind after a storm. "Mine now. You are mine." She advances with the weapon, stops out of range of her anima, and waits. "Not Charmaine's. Never Charmaine's, never again."
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| − | | |
| − | <i>"Or the reaper receives her due."</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Kanti:</b> Kanti looked up.<br>
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| − | Looked up at Fiona.<br>
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| − | Looked up at the Dark Angel<br>
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| − | Looked up at her death.<br>
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| − | ...And she shook.<br>
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| − | | |
| − | <i>I can't betray Mistress, but ...I can't beat her, can't beat the Dark Angel. She will kill me, and she won't feel anything... Perhaps it's best if she does ... but...but...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <i>She would be quick ... do I deserve to pass away quickly?...why should I?..I failed Her. I should live with my failure. Which means I have to be the Dark Angel's...Not Hers...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <i>But ... She said she would come for me ... do I deserve that? No ... Then I will be the Dark Angel's</i>
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| − | | |
| − | All these thoughts race through her head, as she stares up at the cruel, cold angel. She trembles once more.
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| − | | |
| − | "...I ...am... yours." she says, then bows her head. "Fiona, we ... we can't fight her..."
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Fiona flinches as she hears that. Kanti, so strong, and now... and now...
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| − | | |
| − | She does not dare to look over her shoulder. Else she dies. If she only looks away, if she only looks away, the scythe will come down, and when it comes down, it is all over... all over...
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| − | | |
| − | "Kanti... why... why are you saying this?" She asks, voice trembling, body trembling... not not moving away.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Kanti:</b> Kanti kept her head bowed.
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| − | | |
| − | <i>Fiona....</i>
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| − | <i>I knew you were stronger than me ... when you took away my hurt ... when you filled my life with sunlight ... how you could still shine after all that time with her ... but... don't you see? She is stronger than me ... I don't know if you can fight her but... I cannot...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | "We ... we can't fight her ... she ... she will kill us both ..." she says softly, brokenly.
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Casting her gaze to Fiona, the shadows falling on her now, Selina holds her ground, taking one hand off of her scythe to wipe the blood weeping from her caste mark. "Make your decision, if it pleases you to choose your fate." She blinks, and for a moment, the shadows are lifted. But they reappear when her eyes open once more.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Fiona does not move. She eyes Selina defiantly... afraid, but defiant.
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| − | | |
| − | She fell to the darkness for those she loved before. She will do so again.
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| − | | |
| − | "I... won't.... let you hurt Kanti!"
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Sekhe:</b> Sekhe screams. It dashes towards Moon, a mad charge, tendons of roots forcing themselves, blood of sap boiling. Enranged. Mad. A hundred roots come from the ground, all the forest screams around Moon.
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| − | | |
| − | Screams the death of the rose lady, as her wooden steed rushes towatrds Moon... and towards revenge! A hundred roots coming from the ground, holding him, trying to pin him down, hold him down... and failing, swathed aside by the Lunar’s fangs.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> The hound and the Wyld Beast stood over the body of it's fallen mistress, monstrous statues of silver and oak. The dear was untamed and unleashed; no fear in it's eyes or even understanding. Empty. Lost like a kid after Cleaning Season, whose friends were sent to dangle from the gallows. Wary of everything, but waiting for another hand to reach out to it.
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| − | | |
| − | Steam drifted from his nostrils into air that was suddenly bitterly chilled. Impassable, irresistible, the weight of his will swirled in eyes as he stalked forward slowly, stepping over the crumpled body of it's former master. Cold, his eyes turned from blue to white. Cold, his open jaws steamed and dripped frost to the forest floor. As cold and merciless as the moon above. Low to the ground, he was as ready to leap forward and tear it's throat out as he was to take the last few steps and touch it in gentle ritual of domination. It had hurt him and he hated it for that. He hated it, but he wanted it. He wanted it, but he would not hesitate to kill it. It could submit or it could die, but no matter what, it could not escape and it could not resist.
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| − | <b>"You're mine, asshole."</b> his open mouth looked almost like a mocking grin as he took another step towards it. <b>"Either way. You're <i>mine.</i>"</b>
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| − | His long neck stretched out and his open maw closed gently over it's neck. Biting, but not deep, coursing his dominance over it into web of winter frost that creped through the channels in it's wooden skin. A circle of frost that mirrored the harshly glowing rune on Moon's brow etched itself slowly into the Wyld Beasts brow, branding the creature with his Essence.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Sekhe:</b> The deer looks up on Moon's eyes. Losing itself in them. Its master gone, a stray.
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| − | | |
| − | The stray looks on Seventh Moon's eyes... and finds a new Alpha Male. A new Pack Leader.
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Defiance. The pupils in her turquoise eyes <b>flare</b> for a moment, bathing Fiona in pitch black...then subside. "Then submit." Comes the simple reply, Chimes of Nothing looking to Fiona now. "As she is doing. She has not earned a lingering death."
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> "Wh... what will you do?!? Tell me!" She says. A step back. Biting her lip.
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| − | | |
| − | But she would not abandon Kanti. As she had not abandoned Alex.
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> "What I must." Comes the reply, shadows in her pupils diminishing, more and more. Anima beginning to die down, the dragon disappearing. "If you go back to the Vestal, you die in front of her. You die with her. Or go into servitude with her." Selina grins now, devilishly. "Ever been slave to a Deathlord?"
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> "And you... would let me go... just like this?"
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| − | | |
| − | "And take Kanti with me? You would?"
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| − | <i>Mistress will forgive us, right?</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <i>Because she loves us... then... she has to forgive us...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> "You go with me until the Vestal is dealt with." She guesses that they may try to go back -- who knows what Charmaine did to them. "After that...we shall see."
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| − | | |
| − | As the last wisp of her patron leaves her, she gets a good idea. The same thing that would be done to her if she fell to the bitch.
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| − | | |
| − | She had to make it clear. "There is nothing to go back to -- I will deal with your Mistress soon enough. Nor is there any reason to return."
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Kanti:</b> <i>She...she will kill the Mistress??</i><br>
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| − | <i>How..can..I..let..her...</i><br>
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| − | <i>Because I am not Hers any more...</i><br>
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| − | <i>She is a cruel woman though...maybe...maybe I could...No...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | "...Fiona...don't get hurt for me...please. I don't want you to get hurt for me."
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| − | | |
| − | <i>You don't deserve any pain.</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Fiona grits her teeth, words of power shining on her hand...
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| − | | |
| − | "For you... for mistress... I won't let her harm you. I won't let her harm mistress. I won't!" She says, a step foward, tears trailing on her cheek as she begins to cast the spell...
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| − | <b>Kanti:</b> <i>Fiona.?!...what are you...NOO!!!</i>
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| − | Kanti lept to her feet, "NO!..Fiona!!" struggling against the pain of the wyld-burns in her flesh, wrapping her arms round Fiona, yanking her back, away from Selina, away from the magic she starts to work ... feeling the raw essence arcing around her ... in her....falling back.
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Narrowing her now-quiet eyes, Selina focuses on the spell...swings her scythe to rend it asunder, putting all her frustration as of late into the blow, willing Chimes of Nothing to dissolve the spell to nothing.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Fiona:</b> She stops then. Her magic broken, her anima strenghtening to prevent her from getting hurt. Her slender fingers coming around Kanti's...
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| − | | |
| − | Her head drops, her eyes close, tears running from them.
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| − | | |
| − | A promise.
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| − | | |
| − | "I won't let you get hurt...I won't let you get hurt either, Kanti. Wherever you go..."
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| − | | |
| − | She stays there, letting Kanti hold her, feeling safe from the black-feathered monster in front of her... waiting.
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> Acceptance. Submission. Better. Much better.
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| − | | |
| − | Moon releases the Wyld Beasts throat and steps away, regarding it a bit more calmly now. It was his now and he could feel it's life pulsing with his. The hound felt a thrill run up it's back, but the hound was already growing apart from the man. Senses coming back to him full, his attention was caught finally by the voices near by and he looked back to Selina and the two girls at her feat. She had taken them down? All by her lonesome? He was impressed. Confused, but impressed. What was she planning on doing with them? He listened to the snatches of their conversation and felt something cold pass through him. Yeah, they needed to talk.
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| − | Seventh Moon rose onto his hind legs and begin to take the shape of a man again. The silver-skin of Konshu unwrapped from his body and slid back into place within the amulet as his clothing blossomed out from under them. He looked at the wood dear for a moment, scratching his head. "Uh stay."
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| − | Feeling almost sea sick to be walking on two legs again, Moon swaggered swiftly over to the trio of women, mopping sweat from his brow. Stopping a few steps away, he pursed his lips and looked them over slowly. Lotta fuckin' feminine shit going on here he couldn't even begin to guess at. Moon clears throat a little at the young girl finishes talking and speaks softly, watching the Windian woman intently. "Everything a'ite, Selina?"
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| − | <b>Kanti:</b> Kanti tensed as the ycthe rose up, ready to pull Fiona aside, ready to take the scythe herself ... then ... nothing ... the spell faded ... the essence faded ... And Fiona...
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| − | | |
| − | <i>Fiona ... Fiona would protect her ... with her shining sunlight ... maybe it would be ok...</i>
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| − | | |
| − | She relaxes just for an instant, before looking round at the new comer, the ..wolf..beast who must have killed Kiri...
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| − | | |
| − | <i>Kiri...poor Kiri...At least she died fighting. That was how she wanted to go...</i>
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Selina looks over to Moon, and shrugs. "Yes." Putting the weapon into the ground by its handle, the Windian looks back to the two of them. Trying to figure out the odds on them running back to Charmaine as soon as they get a chance. She wasn't going to do anything else to them.
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| − | She wasn't that kind of person, damn it! Not like the ones who'd wrecked her life, so long ago. When the Dark Angel ruined lives, she got blood on her hands. Not like some coward, hiding behind another.
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| − | | |
| − | "Guess we'd better get going. I bet something like this would be easy to home in on."
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> One of the girls was looking at him. Catching her in the corner of his eye, he looks away from Selina, at the scarred girl and gives her what he hopes passes as a reassuring smile. But his eyes drowning in a mire. Fuck, she looked so small. And helpless. Both of them, huddled together like a couple of well-whipped strays bellow a porch. What the hell did Selina do to these chits to get them this wound up? Sure, these girls had been trying to kill them a few moments ago, but
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| − | The motion of Selina's weapon makes him shift, a half step forward that stops as soon as the butt of the scythe touches the ground. A blush runs through his cheeks as he shifts back, feeling a little silly. "What what about them?" he jerks a thumb at the two girls. "I mean, just gonna leave 'um here? What if they come after us again?"
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> "Nope." The Windian replies rather sullenly, looking at the both of them, then back to Moon. "They're coming with us. I don't need them helping someone else track us."
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> Moon nods slightly, looking back over at them with her, but keeping his gaze there when she looks away. "How d'ya figure they found us in the first place? Ain't exactly walking around screaming ta let people know where we are..."
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| − | Trailing off, Moon glanced up at the trio of lights radiating from their bodies and stretching into the air. "... a'ite, well, we weren't before."
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| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Fiona holds Kanti's hands, not letting go of her... seeing Kiri, trembling, thinking of what the man can do to her... but not letting go. The fire burned her, but her anima kept her protected... alive... the symbol of Twilight, the golden twin of Selina's, burning on her forehead now. She gulps, and waits...
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> "Uh huh." Selina agrees, then looks at Kanti, wondering how she's not roasting Fiona to death. She does, afterall, know all about Terrestrial animas, having been around plenty.
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| − | | |
| − | And then she sees the symbol on Fiona's forehead.
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| − | | |
| − | So...this is how it is then?
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| − | She wonders...if she should dislike Fiona. Selina was like that once. Once. No longer.
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| − | | |
| − | "We'd better leave." She says to all three of them. "Other deathknights want us dead, not just the Vestal. They'll be coming soon."
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| − | <b>Kanti:</b> <i>He was looking at her...</i><br>
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| − | <i>Moon...Sarah's moon...</i><br>
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| − | <i>He ..smiled..?</i>
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| − | She gripped Fiona a little tighter by instinct as he does, shivering a little ..but...he didn't seem to be angry...maybe...maybe he would be okay...
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| − | | |
| − | And now they had to move.
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| − | "Um ... Dark Angel ... may I heal myself?" she asks softly, not quite daring to meet her eyes.
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Looking at Kanti, not wavering, Selina mutters "And she can do that?" to herself...then answering. "If you think you can heal what Dreamshard does, quickly, then fine."
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> "Yeah..." he murmurs, growing distant, staring at the girls through a fog.
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| − | | |
| − | <i>Vestal... the red haired bitch. The one who had Sarah...</i>
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| − | He can still remember that moment up on the overgrown bug, even if he didn't like to think about it. The distance in her eyes, the helplessness in her voice. Sweet Sarah, half-empty and half-mad.
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| − | | |
| − | Did they know her? Had they seen her? The realization that these two might know what that whore had done to Sarah? He almost wants to grab them both and shake them until they tell him, but something stops him.
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| − | | |
| − | <i>... what if she did it to them, too?</i>
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| − | | |
| − | "Eh, heal on the way..." Moon looks back over his shoulder at the near by wood dear and whistles through his teeth. "Hey... ah... you. Get over here."
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| − | | |
| − | Trying to keep his look friendly and calm, Moon smiles at the girls again and waves towards the wood dear as it comes trotting up beside him. "Hop on. Pretty sure he can't hold both of ya."
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| − | <b>Kanti:</b> "...It..it will cost me a lot but..." she bows her head apologetically, then after a pause, steps back from Fiona to stop from burning her, then concentrates on her wounds, placing her hands over them, pushing essence into them, the wyld-glow on the fringes fading ... then the wounds themselves becoming naught more than bruises on the glowing, scar-crossed skin.
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| − | Above her, there burns a great garda bird, with feathers of glowing ruby, it's claws outstretched glowing with white heat, as is it's beak, which opens to let out a mournful cry in the night air.
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| − | Then there are the chains, black as the void, and just as cold, pinning it's wings, stopping it from taking flight.
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| − | As the bird fades away, leaving Kanti with merely the bonfire around her, she looks drained ... spent ... the battle then the Dark Angel then the healing having taken so much from her ...
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| − | <b>Fiona:</b> Fiona steps away from Kanti as she burns, the golden chains keeping her warm even on her minimalist outfit... like a white version of Selina, only a lingerie-like instead of leather, full of veils... golden chains hanging on her arms. She stays close to Kanti, trying to protect her from the two others... at least, in some way... in some way, she could.
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| − | She nods to Moon mechanically, her eyes not moving away from Kanti's display.
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| − | <i>You... too....</i>
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| − | She thinks, waiting for Kanti's anima to fade to get closer to her... to try to help her up Kiri's deer. So move away...
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> <i>Well, I bet she won't be healing me.</i>
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| − | Selina wasn't unaffected by Dreamshard. Like the last time, it hurt her in order to power its attack. The ache was dull, but strong enough to hinder her in some ways. She tried to look above that.
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| − | | |
| − | "Mmm, well, let's go, gonna have to weave plenty to keep away now."
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| − | | |
| − | "Just make sure you keep an eye out." Selina says to Moon, shrinking and putting away her scythe. She was going to have to take him into the bushes. Sometime.
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| − | | |
| − | <i>And not on their arses. And mine. All the time.</i>
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Kanti:</b> Kanti is too drained to protest when Fiona tries to help her onto the deer, too drained to fight at all really, climbing up onto the fey beast that now seemed to serve Moon and drapping herself over it's neck, holding on weakly.
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| − | | |
| − | "Thank you," she mumbles.
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| − | | |
| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> Moon circles the deer slowly as soon as both girls are on, making sure neither are in any danger of falling right off again. Some other time, it might have been a strangely pleasant sight. One of them was dressed like she had just come down stairs in the House of a Thousand Heavenly Delights and the other well, she looked more like she stumbled out of Madam Nin's House Shadowed House of Ephemeral Exsistances. He didn't want to think about that one too hard, and he was too tired to think much at all anyway.
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| − | "A'ite, they're mounted and we're as ready as we're gonna be" he flashed Selina a smile and grandly gestured her ahaed. "Take the lead, darlin'. You're the one who knows where the fuck we're going."
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Finishing with her coat, Selina nods and paces ahead, then takes off, wings spreading at her back as she begins to move.
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| − | <i>The next time we meet, Vestal, you will regret ever,<b>ever</b> trying to capture me.</i>
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| − | She would see to that. And woe betide the woman when the time came.
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| − | ----
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/SecondMovement|Second Movement]]
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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