Crystalline Undeath [Closed to Rehtul and Crystal]

[Flamebird]

Cold.

Everything was so cold.

She felt cold.

Felicity shivered, goosebumps coating her body as her heart pounded violently and swiftly. Cold sweat drenched her as she hazily looked up from the fetal position to see a very concerned little faun trying to figure out what was going on. Beyond her immediate vision of that, she saw nothing.

You innocent, sweet girl. You've just starting your adventure... Don't become me.

She shuddered, hugging herself as she writhed on the floor. How long was this terror going to grip her like this? She left her home, left her lover, for a short time to truly conquer this fear. Yet, here she was, lying on the floor like she was defeated.

As Rehtul's shouts echoed in her ears, she winced her eyes shut. Oh no, no she could not do that...

"Are you weak or strong?"

Felicity's eyes shot open, remembering the words she and Leoric shared when he saw how fear controlled her life.

"I'm strong!"

"That's my girl! And what do the strong do when they're afraid!"

Felicity cried, remembering the answer bright as day, "They face it! Fight it and endure!"

Felicity's hand twitched.

The girl reached out and slapped a hand against the floor. Struggling to maintain balance and coordination in her condition, Felicity's shaking did not relent as she stood... only to collapse to her knees again.

Felicity blinked the fright from her eyes. She needed to see that fight. She looked up to the faun with a smile aged and worn far beyond her true age.

"Celandine," Felicity breathed uneven, shaky breaths, "Can you take me out there?"

[Sugarp1e1]

Crystal had just finished cleaning her thumb as the blue-hair finally stopped laughing. The laughter didn't bother her too much, although it got two of the souls begging for Crystal to just bury her claws into his ribs already.

Fortunately, they quieted down for the blue-hair's answer. Mortals were never ones to understand the minds of the Fae, so his denial of equivalent exchange was nothing to be shocked at. Such a perspective was a product of Crystal's individual mind, after all; unique even by faerie standards.

But there was something else the blue-hair said.

"We take what we can get, take care of who we can..."

Ah, yes. Crystal remembered such a feeling quite fondly, in fact.

"We just make due with what we can and ease each other's suffering along the way."

It's been years since she's really thought about those pleasant days. The days she so desperately wanted back.

Meeting with the others. Singing with them. Training with them. Teasing each other. All of them working towards a shared dream.

Those days...

"After all, it's all we mere mortals can do."

...

What?

"What?!"

"WHAT?!?!"

Before Crystal could truly process what was just said to her, three of the blue-hair's spears came speeding towards her. A crazed wide-eyed grin appeared on Crystal's face as the spears exploded into shards. Instinctively, she became one with the wind again, as the shards whizzed by where her solid form once stood.

"You know nothing, mortal! You hear?! Nothing!"

The souls within Crystal all hollered and screeched as one. The maddening chorus of voices resonated in her skull.

"How dare you! How DARE you!"

The betrayal, the loss, her own sins, every horrible memory she had attempted to bury resurfaced once more. Did this mortal really have the audacity to suggest that only mortals know true strife?! True companionship?!

In the wake of this fury, Crystal had realized something. In spite of her rage, the ground below her had not frozen. Not only that, but the souls seemed to have gone silent again.

No. Even more than that.

They seemed to not even be a presence separate from Crystal herself at all anymore. A twisted sense of calm overcame her.

Unity. True unity.

For the first time in millennia, Crystal and her friends had come to an agreement:

"This mortal must be punished."

Crystal began to materialize once more as they spoke to the blue-hair, their voice a cold monotone.

"Your words touch our heart. Really, they do."

Her skin had changed from a cool pale to a warm tan.

"They remind us of a simpler time. A time before our fight for survival."

Six arms now lined her torso, each one ending in pointed black claws.

"But we advise that you don't speak as if you know the rules of this world more than we do."

Her white hair had been muddied brown.

"Because we guarantee that our life has continued, and will continue, far longer than yours."

Her purple eyes were now blue with an orange center as three more eyes, green with a red center and purple with a yellow center, appeared on her forehead.

"We will gain more days, with the loss of your life."

Her translucent moth-like wings were now membraned, with veins flowing with more of her thick black blood within the cyan and black, and black and white down adorning the edges.

"All we want is to live."

With the flick of her wrists, an ice dagger appeared in each of her six hands.

"Doesn't everyone?"

They had dropped Crystal's Glamour, for there was no more any need to hide. She was a monster, and that was her debt to pay.

Their broken yet radiant smile was painted onto their six souls. Crystal's eyes were wide and bloodshot as they felt a lump forming in her throat.

They couldn’t tell what it was anymore. They only knew they wanted one thing: the mortal's blood on their hands.

[Celandine]

Can you take me out there?

It was an invitation. An extension of a hand to greet and hold and establish a new era of acquaintanceship.

She wanted her to take her there. She was trusting her, asking her.

Celandine's heart fluttered. A breath escaped from her lips, and not one that was just willing, but one that was excited. Here I go, mother, she said to herself and the spectre of Philomel she always felt was peering over her shoulder. Here I go. Building a world of friends and trust as you did. But one born of kindness and never vengeance. My kingdom will be more benevolent than yours.

Softly, the young half-faun, so small and drowning in her homemade jumper, nodded and took Felicity's hand. They could both hear the shouting and fighting, somewhere outside on cobblestones and away from the books. But the chill even of that strange battle could be felt here, the ice mages testing one another's abilities. It was strange that Felicity wanted to go out there - indeed, Celandine would rather have thought that Felicity wanted to leave altogether - but the young faun had had a closeted, privalged life until now. There were few trials and threats that she had faced, brought up in the safety of a fortress for the last few years.

Raising herself to her full short height she looked Felicity directly in the eyes. "If that is what you need, then yes. Come. We should go cautiously though, as it sounds like they are ... Violent."

She squeezed the flame-haired lady's hand tightly and began to turn to walk the way the ice mages had gone, determined to be a pillar of sanity in this chaos.

[Rehtul Orlouge]

The shards of ice went through the fairy as though she wasn't even standing there. It could have been an illusion, but Rehtul didn't sense her using any magic to conceal herself in another area.

So she can go incorporeal, he mused as he raised a hand. The ice that had passed through her gathered back to float on either side of his body. It seemed like this fight could go on for awhile, and he was quite glad that they were doing this at one of the magic academies in Raiaera. There were safeguards in place for this sort of thing, and the location he had picked was designed to trap any magic within a fairly large square area from damaging the surrounding area.

As the sun passed slowly to the west, the creature spoke again, talking about its very many years lived and experienced in the world. The mage couldn't help but roll his eyes at the statement, particularly the part about taking his life. Slowly, the facade of her appearance faded into what she must have really been, some kind of mutated Fae creature from the looks of it.

"Oh, far be it from me to lecture someone so long lived on the way this world acts," he said, sarcasm dripping from every word like icy venom.

"I'm sure someone who probably spent the majority of their life in a forest in Dheathain ignoring the various mortal races of Althanas, knows all too much about the realities of the mortal world and how it operates."

He was sure the condescension in his voice was quite easily apparent to anyone who heard him, but at the moment he didn't care. He'd had enough of being attacked for simply giving his name to someone, then lectured like he was a student fresh off the boat. This... thing didn't know the first thing about mortal affairs.

The spears around his body spun around his body as his indignation slowly bubbled up into absolute rage. With a decisive sweep of his palm toward the ground, the ice buried itself beneath the earth. This thing might be able to avoid an attack she saw coming, but could she escape his magic if it erupted forth from the ground beneath her with no warning at all?

"Come at me, then, if you truly intend to take my life to extend your own," he said, eyes sharp and cold as steel as they held her gaze unflinchingly.

[Flamebird]

Felicity was lead by the young faun towards the fight. All the while, the half-neanderthal was bombarded with harsh memories. Ice. Terrible ice. Aylet had used ice to create vile saw blades to butcher foes. She has frozen people's blood and stopped their hearts with the snap of a finger. She had chained people, including Felicity herself, to a single point using brutally heavy ice. Bound to that location with frigid binds, Ayleth could do whatever she pleased. She could torture prisoners of her war against criminals. She could keep Felicity bound so she would stay out of the way, watching the next massacre. She could... hold Felicity down while beating her for daring to disagree with her tactics.

Felicity shivered, feeling the phantoms of being held down while Celandine gently took her to where two ice mages were fighting.

Watching the fight, Felicity was unable to process their words or even precise actions. - Yet. At the steps of the library, she stopped with a sluggish movement. She whispered simply, "Stop."

She then silently sat to the ground and blinked slowly, looking up to the stage play of ice magic before her. She stared wide eyed, and with a thundering pounding heart. Good, Rehtul was okay. And so was the ice fae. Question was, Felicity could barely look at the magic she was terrified of and wanted to learn all at once. She squinted, strained, and forced herself to watch. All the while, with Celandine still beside her, she squeezed her hand for desperate support. Poor faun, Felicity's strength was weakened due to her shaking, but it was still powerful. How would Felicity react if someone got hurt with this magic? If Rehtul got hurt with ice magic? She winced and forced her eyes onto the battle before her.

Now, she was going to face her fear. One small step at a time.

[Sugarp1e1]

The brain. The neck. The heart. The lung. The entrails. The leg. They decided to plunge one of Crystal's daggers into each of these parts of the blue-hair's body.

During his annoyingly scornful tangent, they furled Crystal's wings tightly against her back. If push came to shove, they would really be in trouble if her wings were damaged.

They watched as his spears spun around him faster and faster before he buried them underground. Dodging or guarding from this next attack will definitely be harder, but if a mortal can anticipate and block a similar attack from a faerie as if it were nothing, they were confidant they could do the same.

The blue-hair was no-less confidant. "Come at me, then, if you truly intend to take my life to extend your own," he said.

With the lump still in Crystal's throat, they stifled a laugh. The puff of breath that expelled from Crystal's mouth and nose was visible from the chill of her own body.

"You claim us to be the one who knows nothing yet you would take us for one of our Eastern cousins? How...imperceptive of you."

No longer seeing a reason to continue this conversation, they transformed Crystal's body into a snowy wind once more and swirled themselves towards the blue-hair. He was able to defend an attack coming from the front, but what about behind?

They blew Crystal's windy form past the blue-hair, brought themselves up to his eye level and became solid again. In an instant, Crystal's six daggers were being stabbed towards their planned targets.

[Celandine]

They seemed determined to kill each other. All forms of mortality, of sanity, seemed to have been discarded amongst these fighters who had barely even met one another.

Rehtul - the ice mage with the vivid blue hair - knew Felicity. That Celandine could tell from the first sight. And of course Celandine herself had met Felicity away back in Salvar, during that strange night at the Winter Festival when the lord of the manor had been murdered without well-known conclusion to the culprit. Yet, Celandine was sure that this faerie kind of girl was a stranger to them all. By the way she had looked at them all, the way she had reacted, the way her body language had suggested immediate, reactionary defence. Unless they did lnownone another and this wasn't a terrible misunderstanding but instead some old futile vendetta ...

Glancing from the Flamebird to the two ice sorcerers Celandine ground her jaw. Quickly, she squeezed her new friend's hand tighter, huffing out a breath as she drew herself up to her full height. Her wild chestnut hair was caught up in the breeze as she struck out, leaving Felicity and running right into the middle of this war.

The arena was frigid and strewn with damage and half-melted ice shards. Celandine's mother would scream and curse her for putting herself in such reckless danger. But the little half-faun with her human ears was no lover of violence. She was a wordsmith, a warrior of books and knowledge, a bard by any other name. Grinding herself, dressed in an oversized jumper the young girl determined to play diplomat stepped directly between them.

They were like two lovers, meeting for a most dangerous embrace. Celandine saw icey blades, maybe half a dozen of them, being stabbed with excellent skill towards targets, but she spread out her hands, waving them hectically.

Hoping that her outlandish and foolish actions would make them pause the girl yelled as loud as she could.

"Stop! Please! Stop! What is this for?! Do you even know each other?!"

[Rehtul Orlouge]

Talking was getting the two of them nowhere, Rehtul realized. He'd just have to stop when the Fae was finally unconscious. The sun was starting to fall behind the roof of the library. Soon the enchanted lamps of the campus would light the entire field. The shadows grew longer as the fairy before him turned once again into that translucent mist and rushed toward him. As he felt the chill of her incorporeal body slide past him, he didn't even hesitate. He jumped forward and bounded off a single hand into the air.

As his body remained airborne, he twisted with a violent wrench of his waist and flipped onto his knees. It was at that moment that he heard the young faun, daughter of Philomel, call out to the two of them to stop.

He stood up to his full height as the knives in the small creature's hands barely grazed the small girl. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as his frown became stony and immovable.

"Do you think this is some kind of game, girl?! You could have died if one of those daggers had hit you wrong!" he said, voice nearly rising to a nasally scream.

"I chose this spot because there's no way for our magic to escape the barrier at the edges of the white rectangles drawn in the earth here! I did this specifically so bystanders couldn't get hurt!"

He then looked to the fairy and held up a single hand. Beneath the woman, the ice that he had spread throughout the ground erupted forth, not as the spears they had one been, but instead as magical chains made entirely of his steel-like ice. They flew up over the fairy in arcs and then dived back into the ground with a speed far outpacing the spears he had thrown at her earlier.

"Now I've no choice, if you're to remain safe. I must subdue her," he said as he curled his hand into a fist, drawing the chains into a tighter pattern around the body of the Fae, hoping that this once he had caught her off guard enough that she wouldn't be able to use that mist form to dodge hima gain. There had to be a limit on how much she could use that ability, after all. Though, he admitted to himself, there was a substantial likelihood that he had not exhausted that ability entirely.

I was only just beginning to see the extent of her power, as well... meddling girl. Now my research and more importantly the lessons I sought to drill into Felicity will have to wait, he thought. It was irritating, having someone interrupt the battle that he had intended to use as a practical lesson, but the way it looked to an outsider, as well as his visible anger at having been attacked earlier, would not make that particular part of his plan all that clear.

Still, though, it did mean he'd just wasted a decent chunk of time only barely tasting the primordial powers of the fairy. Sooner or later they'd face each other again, and he'd get to study her abilities in earnest. Until then...

[Flamebird]

Kneeling with tears in her eyes, Felicity gazed out at all that was happening. Tears slipping down her face, she felt frozen in place as she watched, helpless. Why could she not move? Celandine had stood in between, provoked anger in Rehtul Felicity had not seen before. Chains of ice warped the land around them. Why? Why this? Why all this madness? Why all this frost? Shivering as if she was physically surrounded by the winter elements, Felicity looked down to her barely movable hands. Holding them in front of her, she was trembling. Why was she so weak when faced with this? She closed her eyes as Rehtul and Celandine shouted. She could see eyes of solid ice glaring down at her, and victim surrounding in the darkness with a bloodbath of solid red. She cried, screamed, begged.

"Don't do this! Please don't do this!"

Instead, icy chains emerged from the ground and coiled around her frame, holding her down. As she struggled to stay kneeling instead of falling to her face, she grimaced up at the cold eyes of ice. "How dare you defy me?" A female voice spat.

Felicity pulled hard on the chains, trying desperately to break free. She panted, hoarsely spatting, "I dare, because..." She yanked upwards, shaking as she tried to stand, "... Because, I'm not going to be your pet anymore!"

Unfortunately, the chains pulled her down. "You fool! You can never escape me! Escape what I have done to you!"

The redhead snarled, pulling up again as she trembled in the energy exerted, "I may not be able to escape you, but I can face you! And with a smile!"

She she stood, she opened her eyes. Once again, Rehtul's chains, Celandine's intervention, and the frost fae stood in front of her. Staggering, she placed one foot in front of the other. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, except face her fear at last.

[Sugarp1e1]

It was all so sudden. The blue-hair dodging and the faun getting in the way. Luckily, Crystal's daggers barely missed the faun. Still keeping Crystal's wings tightly furled, they instinctively leaped away from her.

"Is this mortal insane?!"

Maybe "insane" wasn't the right word. Perhaps "brave" or even "stupid" was more appropriate.

Just like the blue-hair, Crystal wanted this faun alive, but for one thing only; to be the sole survivor. The one for Crystal to break down into a empty shell and leave as a warning to those who wish to pursue her. It's a good thing the daggers missed for once. No way Crystal would want to waste a perfectly good survivor; helpless and weak.

As if reading their mind once again, the blue-hair spoke to the faun.

"Now I've no choice, if you're to remain safe. I must subdue her."

"Here it comes..."

They readied Crystal's ice daggers again.

"There were about eleven or so spears. We'll deflect the first half and dodge the rest."

Ideally, they would dissipate again to avoid the spears, but they didn't want to expend more energy than necessary. Crystal's body had already transformed thrice in a short period of time.

The cobblestone began to crack beneath their feet. When the spears exploded from the ground, they wasted no time and charged at it, but instead of a spear, they found themselves hacking away at a chain.

"What?!"

Not even a second later, another chain emerged from the earth, nicking Crystal's left cheek. They screeched in pain and placed a hand over the wound, staggering backwards from the impact.

The sudden jolt of pain caused Crystal's wings to unfurl once again as they continued to stumble. More pain shot through Crystal's body as even more chains continued to jet into the air, leaving a large gash up the center of her left wing and boring a large hole into the right.

They could feel more of Crystal's blood spilling out from the stinging wounds, the veins in the membrane either cut or completely severed. Their chance for escape had vanished into thin air.

"Bastard!"

Delirious with agony and rage, they continued to charge and hack at the emerging chains that completely surrounded them. Before long, the chains had completed their ascent and arched over the enraged faerie, seemingly having a mind of their own as they wrapped themselves around Crystal's torso and wrists before running into the ground once again.

They struggled and writhed against the chains but they only seemed to tighten their grip. They couldn't tell if it was the chains' own work or Crystal's body finally giving out, but they found themselves on their knees with their six arms spread out wide by the shoulders, forming a kind of fan shape.

This awkward position forced Crystal to lean forward, but they were still able to lift her head. They bared their fangs like a rabid animal ready to strike.

"You filthy disgusting mortals!", they spat.

They continued to fight the chains, but to no avail. The lump in Crystal's throat seemed to grow.

"Our wings!" they cried, "Let us go, you sick fucks! You broke our goddamn wings!"

They were slobbering now. Crystal's ice breath expelled from her mouth and nose as they growled, hollered and shrieked.

Finally, the futility of their struggle had set in and Crystal's head began to hang. There was only one thing they could possibly do now, as much as it pained all of them, but could they really bring themselves to do it?

"You...will all...be punished..." they growled. "We...will punish...you all..."

Crystal's face contorted and scowled. The lump inside Crystal's throat finally dissolved as her frozen tears hit the cobblestone with tiny clinks. The sound of tinkling bells.