eat sh*t and die } LUPEI

[Rhonan]

my shadow tilts its head at me,

spirits in the dark are waiting.

He disappears from the Valley when Eight calls to them. Finally. It is the first time Rhonan is truly alive, the darkness sparkling in his eyes. This is what he knows. He knows destruction and death. He knows only darkness. Noah comes with him, just a shadow in the boy’s mind really, but it is enough of a presence to bolster Rhonan’s courage. He misses his friend, but in some ways, they have never really been apart.

He appears somewhat away from the fire, needing the shadows to conserve his power. First, he solidifies the shadows around him, turning his black coat into armor. The Chamber is completely ablaze, but he gathers the shadows he finds and draws on their energy until he can blanket himself in the darkness, wearing it like an impossibly large cape (though not so solid, capes are bad, you know).

Beams of electric and light catch his attention. He takes off into the battle to see a stallion with dragon wings fling himself against the girl radiation beams of light. He sends a piece of the shadows to cover the stallion, wrapping him in a protective embrace. It’s too long to stop all the damage, but it should help. When Killdare, finally disentangles himself, the shadows surge into the wounds on the stallion’s, healing what they can, as best then can. Fixing a cut is easy. Burns from the light will only get slightly better. The shadows cannot heal those wounds so completely.

Next a scream catch his attention, and he spins to find his one real friend (Noah was not so real, not in this life, after all). Demian, trying to protect Cress. He has no idea that the girl can heal, but he knows that he can.  He sends a shadow to Demian and it blankets the King’s skin where it’s been singed. His powers are far weaker against light attacks, and he cannot heal the wound completely, but the darkness should take away the pain and give Demian some use of that hind end again.

When he’s done his best to heal Demian, he weaves two wolves out of the shadows on his back. Their teeth gleam, as sharp as any real teeth, as they launch themselves through Demian’s fire and at the Amazonian with the light beams. She can blast through the shadows, he’s sure, but certainly not with one single blast. The wolves would slow her down, and hopefully give Demian enough time to complete his circle of fire around her.

A cold wind greet him then, and he finds a stallion with a tortoise. Okay then. Stranger things have happened, right? Yes, in the middle of an insane battle, this is what Rhonan finds weird. In the corner of his eye, Noah rolls his eyes at Rhonan’s thoughts. Rhonan’s not entirely sure what this particular stallion is up to, but he doesn’t care actually. Instead, he pulls another piece of his shadow cloak away, forming it into a coyote and sends it after the tortoise. That should keep them distracted for a while.

rhonan.

cliff notes:
- Sends a darkness blanket to cover Killdare when he attacked Joscelin, and then heals his wounds (light inflicted wounds can only be semi-healed, not completely)
- Semi-heals Demian's wounds
- Sends two shadow wolves after Joscelin
- Sends a shadow coyote after Weir/really after Darwin

[Ramiel]

War

He hears of its commencement in his head, not by way of the deep rumbling drums he’d expected, but as a clear and steady voice. It startles him because he can’t place the voice. He can’t discern anything about the telepathic caller: gender, age, side – and it disturbs him deeply. Is it a frightened child lingering on the fringes of the battlefield? Is it a mare downed by the first strike of one side or the other? Is it an enemy, drawing them to their doom?

War, and it’s first victim, Ramiel thinks bitterly to himself, even as he prepares to head into it. Because no matter who is responsible for the call (be it a Chamber stallion or a Gates mare), they will not be unaffected by what they’ve done, by the violence and chaos they are calling to their sides. Any and all who respond will be casualties, their lives forever changed by the madness of this fight. War is a behemoth, a titan that pulls apart the land and maims its people. Everyone will be a victim by its end.

The ghost-king’s meeting with the khaleesi is still fresh in his mind as he seeks out the others. The Dale is on their side – for better or for worse – and he knows exactly what and who compromises their side. By the numbers, it should be a decisive victory (which had been a large part in determining the Dale’s involvement in the war at all). But of course, plans and expectations are like the wind, always changing and unreliable. The fact that they are a force of four kingdoms against two means less than it should in this age of unimaginable powers and wily magicians. They should win. They might not win.

And though he prepares to head for the Chamber almost immediately, there are a few issues he needs to address before he goes. But almost as soon as he thinks it, ice begins to rise along their borders in a glistening wall. It extends as far as Ramiel can see into the treeline, and even if he can see no further, he is sure Weir hasn’t left one square foot unprotected. All of the non-essentials (the few children and residents that remain in the quiet kingdom) have been tucked away into the center of the Dale, leaving the rest to head out as soon as the call was made. Now that it has been, the fighters are meant to meet just outside of the Chamber.

There is nothing left to do but rendezvous with the others.

With a final, desperate look back into his beloved home (wondering if he’ll see it again, wondering if he’ll survive to see his mother or father or Ea or anyone he cares about) he disappears beyond the ice wall. Snow blows fiercely just outside of the protected kingdom. The wind shakes the pines and deciduous trees violently. Some have already fallen, their broken silhouettes visible for one second before the snow swallows them up again. It doesn’t affect Ramiel, however. The snow passes through his invisible, intangible form as he makes his way through the blizzard.

The distance between the Dale and Chamber is not long, and the closer he gets to the dark kingdom, the warmer it gets. Snow is quickly replaced by smoke, and the acrid smell fills his nostrils. He stifles the snorts that threaten to give away his hidden location. If he can remain invisible, perhaps he can aid the others without them even realizing it (without the enemies even realizing it). Flames billow up into the heavens as he reaches the edge of the Chamber. There is a narrow gap in the trees not engulfed by fire – the only way into the kingdom – and it is here that he imagines the others will be. But no other Dalean waits at the rendezvous spot. None that he can see, anyway. Intuition rather than knowledge (the man had quite the presence, after all) and an odd coldness in the midst of the heat alerts him to the fact that there is, in fact, a comrade nearby.

“Weir?” His usually smooth voice is scratched by the smoke, but it is exceedingly quiet. There isn’t much to say - the time for planning and training is long behind them – but he can’t let the other charge into battle without some sort of exchange. Some sort of parting words, just in case. “Be safe, my friend.” And then he enters the fray.
It’s like stepping into the world’s largest boiler. If he’d thought the heat was uncomfortable before, it is now nearly unbearable. Some of the fires have been put out already, the stallion notices, but some still eat away at the pine forest. Branches crackle and snap all around him. Ravens take to the air in mass, blotting out what little light remains from above. Ramiel realizes with a start that birds aren’t the only blockage against the sun. A writhing, snaking shape flies above. A dragon? The fear of the prey clenches in his gut for a moment before he sees the shooting flames are meant for the trees – the dragon is on their side.

Trading in his relief for readiness, the invisible man walks further into the chaos. Here, the battle rages on the ground, with the bodies of horses clashing throughout the clearing. Ramiel side-steps a small shoot of a cactus before eyeing the fighting, looking for a place to enter into it himself. A burst of blindingly bright light arcs through the Chamber. He recognizes it immediately. Joscelin.

And then he can see her against a backdrop of dripping flames and smoke. Her skin is alive with the lit, pulsating cracks; his broken-bodied sister stands in the middle of the carnage and she looks like she belongs there. It brings a grim sort-of smile to the ghost-king’s face. But it just as soon slides from his face as he sees what is happening. Joscelin’s blast of light hits a stallion who moves in front of her intended target. His haunch bubbles grotesquely and Ramiel remembers the trees and rocks of the Dale suffering from the same light. The fiery-stallion stares at her after the attack, and he can sense the retaliation to come. He won’t reach his sister in time; he has to try anyway.

Ramiel moves towards Demian at a fast canter, even as the other’s wings burst into flame. He ignores his instincts telling him to flee, to avoid the harsh scent of charred flesh that will soon be his own smell. He moves between Demian and Joscelin, cutting off the attacker from his target. And when he is close enough (when he knows Demian will not be able to see him quickly enough to react in time) he sheds his invisibility and barrels into the stallion’s side. He will not fight a man who can’t see him.

“Don’t even think about it,” he practically growls, his breath leaving with exertion just after. Pain blossoms on his shoulder as the fiery wings connect with his skin, but he pays it no mind. All that matters is that he’s distracted the other long enough to keep him away from Josc.

R A M I E L

this is a man pulling on his iron chains

Notes: Ram meets Weir outside of the Chamber.  He walks into the Chamber, sees Joscelin attack Cress/Demian and moves between Demian/Joscelin.  He then rams into Demian, revealing himself from being invisible.  Feel free to fight/maim him, just no death.  <3

[kahzie]

Her head aches.

A moment ago she had been sleeping, drifting in the dark, and suddenly her world is full of smoke and screams.

The chaos is a balm on her weary bones, and the grey mare picks herself up from the ground, shaking of years of debris as she stands. The sweet scent of her pines is marred by fire, and she can hear the sap of the trees pop and sizzle as the trees ignite. Then, even as she raises her golden eyes to the treetops, the fire is gone and the trees grow closer, and the shimmer of magic lays over it all. She growls in distaste, for now she must find a new way down the mountains from the copse where she had lain.

In the wide sweep of the kingdom below her, the war rages.

Starlace smiles.

Some of the warriors – probably those faring better in their battles – are fighting for the Chamber, and those she ignores. They will be fine without her, and she has never been the type to lend a hand. She wants something harder, something that the rest of them won’t face.

She sees the flash of magic, smells wounds helaing to quickly, watches wolves and lions betray their base instinct, and she knows. They are cheats, the lot of them, using gifts rather than brawn and wit and courage.

Starlace will fight with her teeth and her hooves.

There is a black stallion that smells of sand, and it is toward him that Starlace barrels. Her small, pony-sized body is lithe and agile despite her long rest, and her black mane and tail stream behind her. While the dragon-winged horse guards the snake, Starlace comes up from behind, rearing up and lashing out at his leathery wings with her hooves as she tries to get a hold of the leathery skin with her teeth and tear it away.

[Lagertha]

I am iron and I forge myself

Her women are here, and her heart sings its battle song. Prague tells her that the Jungle is safe, and to come to the Chamber, so she trusts her, blindly, and perhaps that will be her downfall. There is no time to dwell on that. Lagertha and Mast were on Vanquish’s heels, flying as fast as they could by foot to join the chaos that was brewing in the Chamber. At some point she loses Mast, though whether she pulls away from him, or he from her, she doesn’t know. Only that the air is thick with smoke, and her lungs are pumping to make her body work. She shed her armor for the run here, but as soon as she can make out the flames, she dons it again, plating herself in half an inch thick metal that links together in some sort of ancient battle armor. It clinks a little with every movement of her body, as she dashes forward.

For now, the Iron Queen keeps the spikes hidden and her poison contained, following a recently doused path through the fire that raises her hackles. It would be the perfect place for a trap. And yet none come. Perhaps the fire is enough of an equalizing agent that the Chamberlings plans (whatever they were) could not be realized. A familiar electricity is in the air - ohhhh she knows that feeling, and she cannot help the grin that spreads across her face. Lyris is here! And oh fuck - Lagertha catches sight of Rhy’s adopted daughter, Draconis, and the grin quickly turns into a frown. She breathes a bit of flame here and there, but otherwise seems lost. Ugh, this is what she was trying to avoid, and why she had wanted Anguisette to prove herself before going into battle. Not that it matters any more…

“Draconis!” She calls out to the girl, drawing up alongside her. “Stay with me. But be careful of my spikes. They’ll be poisonous soon. Fire at anyone who isn't on our side.” That’s all the time she has for a warning, because she first spots a pony barreling at full speed towards Vanquish. Well, first come, first serve. She weaves in and out of the smoldering landscape, dodging trees that seem to sprout up out of nowhere. It might be to her advantage to fight in a close-knit area, given that her own home is like this. It might not. You never know.
Either way, Lagertha sprouts spikes from all outer areas of her armor and activates her poison secretion - it wouldn’t take too much to cause severe illness and death - and launches herself towards the smaller mare, attempting to physically bowl her over before she can sink her teeth into Van's wings.

Lagertha

warrior queen of the amazons

Lagertha tells Draconis to stick by her and sprouts her spiky (tree frog poison, very deadly!) poisonous armor, and attacks Starlace.

[Larken]

It’s just not FAIR.

Why does Lexa get to help out with the war? Lexa’s not that much older, and it’s not like she even knows how to fight! It’s SO not fair.

Larken grumbles to herself for several minutes after her sister leaves, taking her anger out on the occasional shrub and bush. She’s almost two now after all! Her mother should let her join in the fight!!

Then an idea occurs to her.

She could still join in. She doesn't have to listen to her mother. She could just pretend to … and if Lyris never sees her there, she’ll never know. She’ll just have to be careful.

Larken slips away when none of the remaining sisters are watching, and makes a beeline straight for the Chamber. It’s pretty easy to tell that’s where they’re heading - the scent trails lead right to the enemy kingdom. She crosses the border without pause, and soon comes across the scene of the battle. She forcefully knocks against something as she bursts out of the trees, but she’s too occupied by the sight in front of her to pay attention.

“Wooahh …” Larken’s eyes widen at the sight. Blood and bodies are flying everywhere crashing into each other with wild abandon. Animals are interspersed throughout the battle, fire is everywhere, light keeps shooting out from a bay mare (that she vaguely recognizes as an Amazon sister), and freaking DRAGONS are flying over head. “So cool!”

Someone should probably get her head checked.

She realizes abruptly that she’s not alone in watching the battle. The thing that she’d bumped into was well, not exactly a thing. A tiger in fact. Crap. “Er …” Larken takes a few tentative steps back, while lowering her head into a defensive position. She might’ve bitten off a little more than she can chew.






(TLDR: Larken is dumb kid, goes to watch battle, runs into Ribcage. Whoops!)

[Ribcage]

Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.
He is hunched, his big body rocked back on his strong hind, his great, round paws worrying the mire at his feet. He scratches his agitation out in the soft, giving footing – blood, ash, mud; his mouth is filled with these things: blood, ash, mud. He is ready. But around him things are happening that he never imagined possible. He has known simply this: her red side (and the other’s red ribs – he knows them in more ways than one, now), sister (now brother), the pinewood that fluxes around them (first fire and black smoke; now closed in with extra ironwood soldiers, coming together in tight formation, only relenting a small clearing… a single bloody pit). He knew first the minimalism of darkness, where sound and scent became so a part of him, that he could sometimes imagine in his mind the world around him, in the way a bat creates a image with his cries.
He made it out of strange colours he could not understand and angular shapes.

He is shivering. He is surely afraid, somewhere deep down where the eyeless boy has been relegated. Somewhere in the heart of a damp and dark cave, where his brother and sister are hiding. Somewhere… somewhere, wherever mother is. 

He is excited. More than anything. The animal has wrested the body from the boy.
Blood stings his palette. The lioness’ offering had been decidedly sour. She had not been real. She was a conjuration and when he bit into her, her fur and meat were like dirt in his mouth. It hadn’t been satisfying. (They say once they have the taste for blood.) His mouth is stained with her red, but it is a queer, unnatural thing that congeals and dries on his chin and ruff now. He aches to replace it, to fill his mouth with the hot and sticky delight that had sampled only once before. He had left her alive, as per mother’s request.

He sees her before she bumps into him.
She is not much different from him and sister. The same season had brought them to quicken and when he looks at her, a part of him sees sister and is repulsed.

—repulsed by the part of him that springs from his hole in the mud and lands, lightly, nearer to her. He pulls back his lips and growls, swiping at her and he circles around so they are face to face. This was foolish, but she must know that. (The boy retreats further, pulling the covers over his hollowed out eyes.) The tiger spits and hisses, and then rears up at her, sinking claws into her neck, his hinds paws still grounded.

He wraps his mouth around her neck, just below her throatlatch and squeezes. He applies pressure, that taste flooding his mouth and pooling around his lips. He holds, for a moment – long enough to cleave any possibility of recovery – and then turns, maneuvers his body awkwardly to try and drag her somewhere safe in the woods…

The tiger lets her go, dead weight thudding softly to the ground. He looks down, her tongue falls from the corner of her mouth, slightly swollen looking… blue. He tilts his head, moves to circle around her, placing a big, bloody paw on her shoulder and pushing roughly. He leans closer, smelling her skin (and the blood), watching her ribs for motion. But they are still and airless. Dead. He lets out a low, melancholy rumble. Hello? He jerks back, the desire to scour flesh from her bones colliding with the way he sees sister in the deadness on her eyes. He backs up, chirping soft, sorry sounds and shaking his great, patterned head.


RIBCAGE
- tiger-son of Atrox & Crone -

original art © raph04art

Ribcage has killed Larken, does not feel great about it.

[Lupei]

I'm so glad that he let me try it again
'Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin

If (hypothetically speaking) Lupei wasn’t sprawled out upon the earth like some unrecognizable pile of torn flesh, if he wasn’t blinded by his own bodily fluids, if he wasn’t having trouble breathing, and if he wasn’t close to wheezing out his final breath, Lupei would be the first to say he was proud of what he’d gotten started here in the Chamber. But, as it would seem, while the roar of battle is happening behind him, he can only taste the acrid burn of bile and his own warm blood. He wants to shout his encouragement, but finds that it’s rather hard to shout without a throat. He’s done - out for the count right now while the war behind him grows steadily in numbers. If the wolf could have his way, he’d wish to be back in the middle of it.

Luckily for him, sometimes even trouble makers get their wishes granted. In an instant Lupei feels whole. Someone has healed him, graciously, and he springs back up from the earth, shaking loose the debris but feeling somehow lighter. He doesn’t realize it immediately, but the touchy Jungle magician has used his own gift against him and completely burnt off what was once a very attractive matching mane and tail. Lupei is bald, and the skin where the hair once was is still raw despite the healers efforts. “That bitch” He mumbles, eyes narrowing as he whips his head around to target Prague.

The witch is busy.

A snarl rips from his throat and Lupei shifts uncontrollably, claws digging into the ruined earth as he bounds forward and leaps upon a bystander - a mare, grey flecked with white and mind concentration on the fray. His teeth snap together on her withers, his attack coming from her side, and he shakes his head so that his teeth will hopefully shred her own skin. His hind claws dig for purchase against her ribs, blue eyes wide with the adrenaline from the hunt. He’s got no idea what he’s up against, but then again Lupei never claimed to be the most thoughtful of the group - especially when there’s nothing but utter madness going on around them.

lupei

ooc: Lupei is messed up, he gets healed, attacks the closest horse to him (Lyris) He's also permanently mane free/tail free now.

[Phaedrus]

PHAEDRUS

His enormous black wings hail a banner of blue when he hears the cry for war. Watching as his brothers enter the fray he keeps to the air looking at the dragons as they circle in the sky setting ablaze a great many trees. Well at least they were on his side… or he thinks so. Most likely after all they didn’t seem to be attacking any of the Dalian’s.
Then it hits him. Searching through the specks of blood and gore as they battle below him he looks for the healers. Healers that were not on his side. A few shadow wolves alert him to one that is standing alone. Scrutinizing this fact he looks around to see if any are attacking him. When he sees that there are none. The stag turns his wings to plummet him directly to the other. His body stretching and yawning out in length every second he is in the air his body becomes longer and more pliable.

Finally what he hopes will be a surprise he snakes out his neck wrapping it around the others neck as he begins to tangle his body with the other stallions. A deep growl escapes his almost collapsed throat. That was not a smart move. He knew who Joscelin is. And he knows that even if this is the only thing he can do, maybe it is enough that the stallions magic would flicker and Weir would have an opening to attack the Valley king. Just as he is feeling proud of himself his eyes snap to alert, the adrenaline running through his body.  

i'll carry this flag, to the grave if i must

OOC: This attack is against Rhonan as rhonan is trying to protect Demian.

[Weir]

oh the weather outside is frightful

Spirit’s are fascinating creatures, ask Weir, he’ll tell you. In fact he would LOVE to tell you, so he will, the truth- the whole truth and nothing but it.

Now, Darwin is a Galapagos tortoise, a beautiful and majestic creature (ask anyone). He also just so happens to be a Spirit of a wondrous creature named Weir, now don’t ask how, no one quite knows the reason. Darwin is here and he is there and he is also no where at all at times. He does not thirst, nor does he hunger, he doesn’t tire or know what it is to be exhausted. He exists and he does not, maybe that is like a shadow in a way.

A shadow, darkness, the absence of light- well, I guess you’d say a Spirit is the opposite of that. For all purposes suppose it was the presence of all light. Darwin is curious if anything at the dogs that are sent to accost him (the nerious brutes). He is even taken by surprise when one bites him on his rough green leg but Darwin is quite to maneuver himself in a way that would make Michael Jackson himself proud.

The great tortoise (and I do mean great, he’s rather large you see) rolls up on his front, sending his thick shell to (hopefully) make a pancake of the shadow’s long snout. ‘Take that you nasty creature!’ he yells before he disappears all together. Darwin’s back in that place that is somewhere and nowhere at once.

Weir on the other hand has made for the creep that sent his dogs on his very special friend in the first place, “You scoundrel!” A war cry emits from his chest as he makes his way for the darkness shaping sorcerer. It’s is with luck that Phaedrus beats him there, wrapping around the stallion long enough to distract him he hopes. To Rhonan’s face (it s handsome one he guesses) Weir sends a ball of amber light, one filled with Christmas cheer.

“You need to get back on the straight and narrow son.” a fatherly chide before he locks his legs in ice. “It’s for your own good.” He snorts, half-sneezing in the other male’s face.

“I- terribly sorry.” he apologizes briefly and then wraps himself and Phaedrus in invisibility.

W E I R

Invisble- Magic manipulating - Winter wielder of the Dale

[Cress]

all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash

There are more and more flowing into the battlefield at every moment—some of them seem like they belong, with magicks much stronger than Cress could have anticipated. Others though look as though they have never seen a battle before, or have not in a long time; some of them, much like Cress, look adrenaline-boosted but scared out of their minds at the same time. There have been so few wars in recent memory—some of them are old enough to remember the Great Valley War that wiped out the king Tatter among many loyal members of the Valley and the Chamber and Deserts. Perhaps some of them are even here.

The tides of battle are always changing, and she feels the pull of her healing as minor injuries are sustained. Those she pays no mind to—there will always be something bigger, something bloodier to heal and she can’t afford to waste her time on the minimal damages. Damage and scars are a part of war, something that these warriors will carry the rest of their lives. If she heals all of them and leaves them unblemished, she doesn’t know how many of them will actually thank her when this is done.

So the minor stuff she leaves.

A burst of flame on the horizon, different from the other flames, draws her attention from the battle for just a split second and perhaps that is enough. “Demian,” she breathes, as the horse made of cosmic fire soars overhead—he’s soaring for her. Making sure she’s safe? Of course she’s safe enough, it’s not as if she’s making herself obvious… and then Demian is on the ground and barreling into her, barreling through Flamevein’s protective barrier, shifting back into a stallion long enough to shove her out of Joscelin’s way. Oh.

Then he is screaming in agony, and Cress gasps as she sees the damage that Joscelin’s ability had caused. “Demian!” she shrieks, terrified for his life, forgetting herself for just a moment. Almost as quickly as he had fallen he is on his hooves right now, flaming eyes alighting on the mare who had attacked her. Realizing what he is about to do, she focuses entirely on his injured hip, pouring energy into him as she knits him back together the best that she can without exhausting herself. The wound is extensive, and there is no way that she can heal it completely without sidelining him for precious minutes, but she does a quick enough job to stop the pain and pull the flesh back together so that it is not a gaping, bubbling, bleeding distraction.

“Be careful,” she murmurs as he adopts yet another form, a normal horse form with wings of flame. He is darting away without a backwards glance, back into the thrill of battle with a thirst for revenge. She has to tear her eyes away; she can’t focus on Demian the entire fight. There are others that need her help. Like Killdare. The stallion who had absorbed the first of Joscelin’s light beams. He is a broken, bloody mess and his wings are so riddled with holes that if she doesn’t act fast, he’ll likely never to fly again. She has to stop and concentrate on him. He’s going to take a few minutes, at least.

When she is finally done, his wings are mostly knitted back together, and she has to pull further away from the fight, deep into the Chamber’s pine forests. She needs to recoup; after the fight she will be able to help him more, but now? For now she can’t do much else. He is on his feet, he’ll be able to continue fighting and protecting his home; hopefully he won’t die and ruin her hard work. She had not been the only one to work on him—and on Demian—but she doesn’t know who it was that aided her. Or perhaps she aided him.

Either way, with their combined abilities, the two should be fine.

It is only a few moments later that something else—called it a gut feeling—pulls her back to the fighting. Demian is arcing around Joscelin, setting the ground aflame, when a stallion appears out of thin air. Goddamn it, she’s not going to let Demian get hurt again. “Demian!” she screams not for the first time that day, bursting onto the battlegrounds without another thought. No doubt that the stallion could handle himself, but she’s not going to take that risk and let him hurt himself.

Hopefully her barrier of flames will keep her shielded from the worst of the fighting, if any decide that she would make a decent target. She is by Demian’s side in moment, maw gaping open as the fire in her chest flares to life. The once-invisible stallion is too close to not be a target, but she is aiming for anyone that she has marked an enemy; him, Joscelin, the lioness magician, all of them. The closest just so happen to be Joscelin and the newcomer.

Play with fire? Get burnt and all that jazz. Cress has no business in this fight and yet here she is.

cress

oxytocin x kindling

tl;dr: Cress gets attacked by Joscelin, Dem saves her and gets hurt. Between Cress and Rhonan, they patch up Demian and Killdare reasonably well. Cress retreats from the battle entirely but soon comes back because she senses Demian's in danger. She rushes to help Demian and breathes fire at anyone nearby, namely Ramiel and Josc.