you could break my heart in two, but when it heals, it beats for you
High in the mountains the world shakes. The rock falls are small but concern that they could worsen inspires the Primarch to command her children and the other members of Hyaline down to the central part of the valley, away from the dangers of falling rocks and trees. She cannot see what has become of Loess or she might have hurried there, it is familiar and her firstborn lives there. It is the smoke rising from distant Tephra that captures her attention, and though she has never set foot in that place and knows that she may go astray Kensa touches the clear lake and sends herself.
The gold veined woman has the luck of arriving at her destination but the misfortune of rematerializing in the stream right beside a roaring wall of flame. Kensa shies away from it, avoiding being burned only narrowly as she stumbles up the opposite bank. A black stallion stands on this side, smoke curling up from his muzzle. His gaze lands on her and she is too shocked to read anything in it or recognize the angel boy, but she wheels away before he can decide to turn her into a pillar of flame as well.
When she has put some distance between herself and the flames a heavy rain breaks over head, adding to the din. Tephra is alive with the hum of magic, the ground shaking unexpectedly, and the air full of screams and battlecries. Darkness rolls around her as she paces in place, strafing as swift dark somethings race through the high grass all around her until she rises up on her hind legs to avoid the cold and creeping touch of shadow creatures. She has transported herself into a battleground. It is impossible to get her bearings in the blackness, and she regrets having never set foot here until now. Kensa drops to the earth and heads for the border, though not to flee, but to avoid the dragon fire and magic that she is poorly equipped to counter. If she can find a stream again she may be able to remove others, either in rescue or by force. She’ll decide what suits her when she gets to that point.
As she searches through the darkness and acrid smoke for water the terrifying roar of a bear stops her dead. Dawn. She does not waste a thought on the absence of a council decision in regarding the war so suddenly raging (she is here too) but hurries toward her friend and the fury in her voice. The white bear becomes visible, her bright fur muted. Traitor! she roars and Kensa stumbles as her dearest friend charges Litotes, his shadows winding around him like and orgy of spectral lovers. There is not time even to scream, Kensa throws herself towards the bear whose teeth and claws do their best to tear her husband to ribbons. Small and stocky, Kensa is little match of the massive beast but throws her weight into it all the same, heedless of the sharp weapons it may easily turn on her. “Stop!” It terrifies her on some level, to put herself between Dawn’s bear and her Lion man but she does her best to impede the attack. The taste of betrayal clings to the back of her throat and she snaps viciously at bear, or lion, horse, or shadow that tries to draw near her or keep her away. “I will not permit this!”
Kensa
