An Eiskalt Morning After

[Roht Mirage]

Closed to Doge, Philomel, and Enigmatic Immortal

Almost 24 hours after the battle in/on the church...

As the fallieni woman crunched her way to the crest of the tallest hill, a wave of Eiskalt morning chill struck her full in the face. Her hair waved in unclean, smokey-brown tendrils, and her breath halted, turned, then splashed back across her face. Humid arctic mist painted her cheeks before diving down the collar of her soot-stained and recently 'borrowed' coat. At winter's cold touch, splotches of skin piqued painfully, reminders that desire alone was insufficient to turn away fire.

Surely, the city in the distance and its cowering people had desire in spades when the war began; desire to return to their peaceful lives. Today, there was only smoldering ruins and the ashen dreams of those who still lived. Against the rising sun, Astarelle scanned the city's hobbled silhouette from its once-colorful market district to the church that had loomed over the neighboring pastures. The pastures were now gone, twisted with sickness if not already burning, and the church still smoked from multiple holes in its roof, one of which had been home to a steeple and a bell, now silent. Even from this distance -pungent if only in memory- she could smell that smoke's flavor: oak pews, melting glass, candle wax, and wild wild lust.

Astarelle looked away with a heavy, directionless glower. The color in her golden cheeks sharpened beyond a simple reaction to the cold. “Bury me,” she puffed to herself (and onto herself) as she adjusted her two-handed load of branches. The sand under her coat shifted, mostly by her conscious direction, to seal her collar against the chill. Then, breathing softly into the wind, she tromped down the opposite side of the hill. A snow-draped treeline receded behind her as she descended into the lowlands outside the city. There, in a small nest of earth and snow, a little cottage puffed happily in the way that buildings were supposed to smoke - from the chimney.

Her steps felt heavy as she approached the door, then fumbled the one-knuckle-too-short fingers of her left hand against the weathered latch. “I'm home!” she tried to say cheerily as she stepped, snow-blind, into the darker interior.

Slowly, the single room resolved before her squinting eyes. A pitiful fire popped and spit in the unadorned hearth as it digested the last board of its previous meal. That board marked the only remains of the furniture that could be turned into kindling. All that remained was a metal bed frame, curiously bare of both blankets and mattress. “Good,” came a strained, sleepless voice. Astarelle heard the creak of Nety setting down her devilishly large crossbow next to where she sat, and it was only in that moment that she realized it had been pointed at her.

“Is that necessary?” she asked, doing a poor job of masking the strain in her own voice.

The local woman, raven of hair and ivory of skin, looked away with what might have been a sneer on her thin lips. “Looters are around,” she said simply.

Astarelle squelched to the hearth as she cast a useless glance toward the curtained windows. The door slammed shut behind her. “Did they-”

“No,” Nety said dourly, “Not yet. Rats always come back for seconds, though.”

Astarelle looked to the strangely absent mattress, wondering what reason the previous tenant of the cabin, or whoever came after, might have to drag it away. She could only shake her head and muse sadly on the whims of human desperation. It was a topic she was coming to know far too well. “They're your countrymen,” she offered sternly as one might offer a hand to an oft-fallen friend.

Nety snorted. “Really, Astarelle? We have no country left, and no countrymen.”

The pointed 'we' was not meant to include Astarelle. It was for the small blonde girl who sat, apparently oblivious to the conversation, at Nety's side. Leila was engrossed in playing with her raggedy doll; if it could be called playing. She was repeatedly turning it over, feeling its seams, touching its hair, as if she couldn't get over the miracle of it not only surviving the war but finding its way back to her. Losing her mother, becoming lost in the ruins, captured by the enemy; the poor girl had been through so much. She still wore the coat that her faun-whore captor had given her. Or perhaps it was from the angel of death herself, laying thick her favors.

Astarelle looked away, swallowing hard, and fed the fire with gusto. "Where did the dog go?" she asked, if only to make conversation. She knew that her canine friend could take care of himself.

[Doge]

Things were good. I had, and to a lesser extent, Astarelle, saved the little girl. Things had been a bit touch and go for a while, leaping off the roof with girl in tow. My canine wits had saved the day and though I was somewhat sore for the encounter, I was also wiser. The girl I had come to learn was called Leila. At least I was pretty sure she was. Being a dog can often mean that people don't actually introduce themselves to your. Either girl, or the doll she carried was called Leila. I surmised the former to be true.

Good deeds had to wait, and we buckled down for time being and I did my duty and guarded the three temporary charges. This was a task I took VERY seriously. For some reason we lacked any particularly good bedding, and while I was used to 'roughing it' as they say, the girl was a different matter.

That brings me to the current predicament. I felt my shoulders slide between the two boards of wood, but I couldn’t move any further. I turned my head left, then right. The road was deserted. The early air, crisp and refreshing, even it was tinged with that damned charcoal smell the seemed to hug the land and everything in it. These people needed to stop burning things so much. It was only with no one present that I pulled myself back into the house. The room was sparse, with wooden boards nailed to the door frame. A person would have a tough time getting in, but not a wily dog like myself.

I twisted around and slowly backed my way through the wood. This time the blanket that was wrapped around my middle didn't catch, and I managed to squeeze myself back into the road. Not having hands was just one of the challenges that faced me on my heroic forays, but I had learned to get by. Laying down on a blanket and rolling over so it wrapped around my middle was just one such trick. One just needed to make sure the blanket was not so wide that it covered your legs.

With treasure secured, I scampered across the road and cut through the snow that covered the field. It didn't take me long to make it around the side of the hill and up to our safe house. I nuzzled at the door and found the latch still up. I pushed and entered in behind Astarelle, pausing a moment to push the door closed with my nose. I paused to sniff Astarelle before passing. She always smelt of sun and sand, not matter what. I gave her a slight lick on the leg as a formal greeting before wandering over to Leila. I lay next to her and then rolled over her lap, the girl pausing from her inspection of the doll and let out a soft laugh. I would have taken comfort from the noise but it sounded oddly hollow. A few tugs and it covered the girl well enough.

Proud, I flopped on her lap, a small hand resting on my head the best reward I could have wished for.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle stared after the dog. His gift surprised her, but more so his sheer cleverness. Sometimes she wondered if the dog was really just a dog. To Leila, he was her dog, even though they had just met during the war. She drank from him the comfort, warmth, and security that canine love entailed. The purity of it was enough to put a spark back into her crystal blue eyes, though Astarelle suspected it wasn't the same as before the war.

Back when she had a home, a bed... parents.

The fire crackled pathetically. Astarelle returned to feeding it as she bit softly on her bottom lip and thought about the girl. There was no way to explain to Leila the how and why of everything that had happened to her. War was too complicated for a child. Blast it, war was too complicated for adults! Astarelle would have to figure the whole mess out herself before she could explain it to anyone. All she knew for certain was that the girl was in a safe place with a woman who could fill the maternal void. Though, explaining the clandestine relationship between Nety and Leila's deceased mother would be... a struggle in itself. That was Nety's fight, though, when -or if- she chose to share it.

Astarelle sat back from the fire and crossed her legs, turning slightly to look at the scene without intruding. Leila seemed content, even if her eyes still had that haunted look. Nety grinned also as she joined the girl in stroking the golden dog's head. Astarelle smiled faintly, trying to pretend that the world could be so small. A girl, her savior dog, and her favorite neighbor, the lady with the red boots. It was a nice moment. But, sadly, only one moment in a long, dark story.

The wind rattled the door quietly on its frame like a beast lying in wait; patient and hungry. Across the room, Astarelle's pack twitched in the corner. It took her a second to realized that she had jostled it, pulled at the sand hidden inside, without even thinking. Deep down, she knew it wasn't safe here.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” she asked with an awkwardness that was unusual and glaringly obvious.

Nety's smile melted like snow under the Fallien sun. “Like the castle? It would be warm while we run out of food,” she said irritably. It could have just been irritation at their situation, not present company. Astarelle pretended that was the case. “Hold still,” Nety said in a softer tone. Leila was fidgeting under the blanket, fighting with the buttons of her coat.

Astarelle tried to keep the smugness from her face. It was the blanket that had conquered that demon-wrought coat, not her pubescent, sputtering fire. Another victory for the dog, but a victory nonetheless.

“You three will come with me back to Corone,” she said; not an ounce of questioning. They all -even the dog- looked at her. “That is,” she conceded, “If you want. It's a strange place and the locals are almost all insane in a way-”

“Astarelle,” Nety interrupted, “I'm sure they're fine, compared to... I mean, yes. Corone.” She sounded relieved, as if the question had been circling her mind for a long time, but she didn't know how to say it. She did smile, though. Aside from innocent Leila, it was a smile more real than any Astarelle had seen in weeks. Her own face mirrored it.

“I need to make contact with the Knights,” she said mostly to herself as she jumped to her feet. “They'll have ships ready to leave for home. We'll be safe with them until we get to Corone.”

Leila finally spoke, though her words were muffled as the coat with its stubborn buttons was unceremoniously lifted over her head. “With you?”

Astarelle nodded. “Yes, I'll be with you the whole way.” The girl emerged from under the ash-stained hem, wearing a smile that was almost bright enough to undo the dark circles under her eyes. Astarelle smiled and let the simple happiness of a child wash over her.

“I can trust the Ixian Knights that far, I suppose,” Nety said wryly as she lay the coat over the metal bed frame to dry.

Happy moments: always too short. Astarelle caught herself looking at the coat. Her hand twitched as she imagined herself throwing it into the fire, the softness burning away to reveal the barbed wire that Catherine Remi had secreted within. There would be poison on those barbs, and the accumulated blood of all her victims. Any gift from the angel of death bore that stain.

Astarelle bit her lip. “Wait here,” she said as crisply as the morning chill. Then, she threw open the door and was away like one of the million arrows that had -might even still- cut through the frigid Eiskalt air.

[Doge]

Astarelle left the little room. I watched her quietly, there was something about these people that was so fragile. I'd seen her move sand and save a dozen people, but she carried herself like a failure. This, I guess, was not so different in the dog world. Some mutts simply didn't know their own worth. Unlike me of course; I knew I was a hero. It was one of the less flashy, but just as heroic duties that called me now.

I pushed up from Leila and the girls hand slid off me. I paused for a second, turning around and nuzzling at her hand. I was breaking on of my rules, never should you break away from the embrace of a child, you don't know how much they needed it. This was one of those rare occasions though where I had two children to attend to, at least figuratively.

I walked slowly to the door, a little apprehensive at going back into the cold outside. Each foot fall sped up until I bounded out the door and after Astarelle. She was walking aimlessly, her eyes carrying the look of someone that was a hundred miles away. I bound up to her side and matched her pace. She glanced down and for a second and our eyes met, but she didn't say anything. We reached a fallen log, one of those things that happen upon rather than aim for. She sat down and looked back to the house.

This was one of those moments that I mentioned. I jumped up onto the log beside her. My head was barely up to her chest even sitting together. I turned in the same direction and sat down next to her. For a moment there was just the whistling of the wind.

“Oh Dog.”

It was sad, and with it her arm draped around my shoulder and pulled me into her side. I let her guide me, my front paw on her lap as she held me tight. This was a don't let go first moment.

[Roht Mirage]

Frigid air sighed against her cheeks, and leaves shivered quietly, but she didn't feel as cold as before. The dog was like a little furnace against her hip, doing his best to stretch his body onto her lap. One of her hands played absently through the fur between his ears. His fur was so silky – his custard fur. Why custard? Blast it all if she knew. That was just one of the more ridiculous mysteries of this whole misguided campaign. At the very least, it made her feel less insane carrying on a one-sided conversation with a dog.

“You would make a good Knight, Dog. Not that I would force that on you,” she said wistfully as she stroked him from his ears to the middle of his back. “Always saving people. Always there when you're needed. Bury me, you even drool less than Jensen when he gets excited. They might even make you an adviser.”

A heavy chuckle rose in her throat but failed to spill over as, behind her tired eyelids, she fashioned a scene of Kyla standing over a war map. Small figures dotted the false terrain, including one blood-drenched angel at the rear of the enemy formation. There was also a figure of a faun standing askew from both Ixian and Cult forces; unnoticed. Doge bounded onto a chair, then half onto the table. A small officer's coat covered half of his golden fur. He barked. Kyla nodded. He nosed a miniature man-o-war forward, and the Ixian leader smiled sternly. Her eyes, though, flashed with surprise and admiration. Then, both the Mystic and her canine adviser turned toward the back of the room, where a faint buzzing emanated. A certain fallieni woman had fallen asleep during the briefing. Again.

“You're a better Knight than me.” Astarelle took a short breath, realizing that her voice was filled with bitterness and venom so thick that her exhaled cloud might turn green. The dog's tail had been wagging; she only really noticed now in its stillness. Apparently unsure, the little furnace fidgeted.

Astarelle's arms shot around the golden neck, squeezing her friend so tightly that his weight made the blisters down the side of her chest twinge painfully. “I'm sorry.” Her nose was atop his head, her mouth against his ear, so she only whispered. But it was a desperate whisper. “I'm sorry that I need so much help. I just... want to thank you. If not for you, I might have been killed weeks ago, and Leila wouldn't have gotten off that roof yesterday. I'm sorry that I was in the church with Philomel-” Her voice cut off. That name was like a hot lancet of shame. What in the depths had she been thinking?! That she could out-whore the faun? That she just... wanted it? The latter pained her just enough to be true.

That heavy chuckle finally burbled from her throat. Her face colored as if gold could rust. “I didn't even know I liked women that way,” she muttered as she released some pressure on the dog. He didn't run, bless him. “To be accurate, she was half woman, half anim-.”

With her back as straight as the sturdiest trees behind her, Astarelle stood just slowly enough for the poor thing to not take flight. “Well, that was nice,” she said as pleasantly as if she was choking on briar thorns. “Let's get into town and track down a ship, shall we?” She tromped quickly through the snow, kicking up a froth about her. After a few paces, she slowed and turned to make sure the dog was following. His golden fur bobbed in her bootprints, a much brighter shade than the faun's rump.

Bury me, Philomel! Get out of my head!

Astarelle spun forward and kept on at a modest pace. The huffing and crunching of her friend became louder against her heels. “Thank you, Dog,” she said again as she felt some of the ruby drain from her face.

A short walk brought them to the edge of the city that breathed its own dark clouds into the sky. The outermost buildings, at least, seemed to have escaped the worst. Though their walls bore the same charred color, it had clearly been carried over on the wind. A covered porch crouched directly ahead of them and beside the slushy street. Miraculously, it was free of both snow and grit, though the windows had fallen victim to looters or worse.

Astarelle stopped and scanned the buildings one more time, then closed her eyes. There was no sound but the puff of their own breathing and no smell aside from that of old ash. Any blood on the streets was hidden under the fresh sheet of white. “Is it over?” she asked quietly.

[Doge]

I trotted passed Astarelle and onto the porch. It was small but it was dry, and importantly I was no longer standing in snow. I twisted on the spot and looked back at my new found companion. She was off in thought again, I swear that woman acted like a kicked puppy.

"Grrriiirrrl." The half growl, half whine brought Astarelle back to the present and she turned her face towards me. I was starting to get a little frustrated by the difficulty I was having communicating non-verbally with someone who kept having what was in their head covering what was in front of their eyes.

A hug didn't work, a loving gaze didn't work, there was only one thing left in my arsenal to break through the dark wall that she was slowly building. This was my trump card, the metaphorical spirit bomb...whatever that was.

Asterelle moved towards one of the windows and peered inside as my feet started to tap against the wooden porch. The woman turned to look at me and her eyes grew wide as my four paws tapped and slid across the wood. A shimmy to the side, tapping on the right, then tapping on the left. It looked awesome, but the sound wasn't great with my bare paws.

As if responding to my own thoughts and desire for shoes, a trail of sand lifted out of Astarelle's collar, moving through the air towards my feet. I paused my paws as the sand wrapped around each one, mimicking the shoes that I had lost a long time ago.

I sniffed at them for a second, had this woman just given me... tap shoes? I felt a rush of joy as memories of old filled my mind. There was a time before I was a hero to all, when served just one princess. Then I had danced for the joy of us both, now I was going to dance to make another happy. I lifted my face up to Asterelle and barked with joy. I timidly started moving my front right paw, maybe I was afraid that this was just an illusion.

*click* *click* *click*

Then the black left paw joined in.

*click click* *click click* *click click*

My paws turned into a blur, a rhythmic thunderstorm of clicks and drags. Although my companion was starting to smile, she needed more, she needed perspective. I jumped up onto my back paws and held out my front towards her. She took them in her hands and her feet started to move and mirror mine. We released one hand-paw and stood side by side with our feet moving in unison.

[Roht Mirage]

This was it. This was the end.

Astarelle was face down in a snow drift, slowly losing her sanity to hypothermia. The bundle of sticks was strewn about her. Leila's dog might not ever return with that blanket, and the conversation about getting her whole refugee crew off this blasted island was only a wishful thought. It had all been a final hallucination. Had to be. Unless... she really was dancing on the edge of a war-purged city with a custard dog in tap shoes; it had just seemed right to make them.

This can't be happening, she told herself even as she held his little paw and tried to move her clunky boots to match his quicksilver footwork. Her own bubbling laughter made a strong counterpoint to her rational mind, catalysing into a single thought that pushed aside all the fear and shame on a wave of wonderment. Says the woman who fought an angel of death and bedded a faun... and is now just having a nice dance with a magical dog.

On the scale of Eiskalt madness, this was Tuesday.

“You win, Dog,” Astarelle sang, flashing him a wide -almost teary- smile. She laughed delightedly over their combined cacophony of tapa-tapa-clunk-clunk and wished that she could kick her boots out into the snow. Her feet, even bare, probably wouldn't have been able to keep up with his anyway. She'd have to show him some of her own moves. With a small twitch of her wrist to warn him, she let go of his paw. He tap-tapped to all fours as the clumping of her boots was joined by the whistling snap of her coat.

Farohtian dance as not built on footwork. It was built on spins and leaps like the sand devils that whispered through the desert night. Or, in this case, the Eiskalt dawn. Astarelle spun, flexing like a bowed tree under the force of her own momentum. Her hair whipped as if to shake off days of ash, and her coat -surreptitiously unbuttoned- flared from just below her chest. Around the dog, she capered fae-like. Her boots no longer thumped against the wooden porch. They whispered on each sliding step, hissed on each turn, and gave the illusion that she was just a figure of sand brushing across the surface of the world.

The dog's feet kept time, punctuated by short jumps, as he pivoted at the center of her vortex and smiled up at her in his doggy way. She only caught glimpses of him, though, a golden streak between the twin blurs of bright snow and dark wood. Faster and tighter she turned until it was the most natural motion to place a boot on the porch railing, then another. The floor was forgotten. She leaned dangerously over the center of the porch, staying aloft through sheer speed as she skittered from the front railing to the side railing, then the boarded face of the house. One hand was raised in the air, fingertips just barely brushing the roof. The other hand hung below. The dog butted his head against it at the apex of a happy, clicking leap. Her boot found purchase on the jagged window sill, and she vaulted to the other side railing.

Toward it, at least.

She missed, cleared it, like a beetle bursting from the captivity of a jar and squealing wildly all the way. Her feet found snow. So did her rump, and her shoulders and head. Her hair fanned behind, settling into the track of a high-velocity snow angel. The tapping from the porch dropped tempo and got louder as her concerned friend moved to the edge. She answered with laughter; long and shrill and absolute, like she hadn't laughed since she was a child.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen was hiding deep in the ruins of the ashen village, fingers lovingly caressing the pommel of his throwing glaive while stalking the faun-whore. He had been chasing her for quite a while now, running her through the streets of the once burning Eiskalt town with haunting chuckles dogging every cloven hoofed step.

The lady Astarelle, she was reported in that city when the flames rose into the sky. The memories of the reports were what brought the immortal here. His purpose was what he had been told. She was taken by the goat devil, raped in a church! These bastards know nothing of decency or honor. To hear the woman Jensen had spent one hell of a battle with being treated in such a vile manner drove him past a breaking point and he was off before the official reports got in.

It was not easy for Jensen to let Astarelle into his psyche. The desert woman at first glance was a bit prudish, but the two got on well enough after the Cell. They talked and laughed and drank and kept themselves cordial, but nothing more came of their time together. When Jensen was drunk in Corone, angry at the Ixian Knights and the world around him, Astarelle had come to see him home, taking part in his drunken revelry and tricking him back to the castle. There she was given a glimpse of what had plagued the immortal to drink, but still nothing more than a great story to tell came of it.

Yet they fought together recently, mere miles away and shed blood as comrades against the Avatar of Blessed Torture. They had fought, bled, lost, won, gnashed teeth, blasphemed, and above all else admitted their own failures and cried. Jensen was not above such things as crying, but Astarelle had stopped Jensen from killing a little girl in his lowest emotional level. Pushed to a breaking point Jensen had snapped and didn't register the little one in harms way until Astarelle intervened. And in return Jensen had ensured not only that the Fallien native lived through that dangerous encounter, but that despite all her failings as a human being she was still a good person. Carrying her for miles in the freezing cold until she could see medical attention was the last of it for them, but Jensen knew the two had connected somehow.

And because of that he was in this village, prepared to kill the one who harmed his desert friend and took from her something that could not easily be returned.

Looking through the crack in the overturned debris he watched the faun like a wolf in the hunt. His mouth salivated with righteous anger, pulling his weapon up. To this point he had been herding the bitch to this location, making her uneasy and angry. Prior he had found the goat-devil giggling insanely through the carnage, cawing in goat speak that was guttural and crude. He was careful to keep his movements shrouded, avoiding an opportunity for her gaze to cross his path. But that playtime was over now.

She had played his game, only reluctantly, to see who had been harassing her. She was a prodigious warrior of her own right, and the last time Jensen met against a Faun in battle he was gored upon his horns and slammed into a tree. He would be cautious, but merciless in his onslaught.

Like the wind breaking he howled with mirth, eyes wide open full of nihilistic glee. A sadistic grouping of chuckles punctuated his opening moves, building in crescendo in the ashen veil like a deranged psalm of a black mass. Jensen released the throwing glaive with alarming accuracy, pirouetting in a flair releasing two more throwing daggers at the apex of each spin. Bursting with energy he bounded forwards, leaping through the fog of ruin and jumping upon the scattered debris of the once thriving town. He leapt like a gazelle, graceful and sure footed as he howled with deluded madness, bringing weapons to bare and aiming them towards her with great haste to meet her head on.

As he neared her his hand lazily grabbed at his Zodiac Weapon, flicking the weapon switch. The tension rod yawned with an audible click, the blade swapping sword into scythe so it landed just under chin. He wanted to see the fear in his targets eyes, let them know death came for them and it would be every bit as unpleasant as what they did to Astarelle.

Yet it wasn't the eyes of his prey that became shocked; not at first. Intrigued and confused, the immortal's weapon hesitated slowly, lowering just a fraction as the words escaped his lips in a half whisper of wonder,

"Whore-scort...?"

(I can edit as needed phi, removed the church entirely. Feel free to bunny jensen.)

[Philomel]

In the depths of the warm, black, stormy aftermath there was nothing more to do but dance. Her hooves were live wires across the ashes and rubble, cantering to the beat of the rumbles of thunder, the pitter patter of the rain. The comforting feeling of after-sex was still prevliant in her mind andbody, sending her into a void of happiness and cheering. Part of her was still wet, part of her was still awakened in lust, and yet another part was elated to be a goddess in this world of hardly any life. Many of those lives she herself had actually taken, and crushed and sent to the depths of Hadia. Some she may have escorted on the safe way to haunting heaven. Yet she, she was still on the ground, and able to be the matriarch in her realm of blood and stone.

So her hooves clatt-clattered along the cobbles in a rhythym only defined by what she could imagine. Strikes of lightening were her bass, distant cries were her melody, but most of the tune was in her head, carrying her from the church, down the streets and around and round, not going anywhere in particular, but just through the city. Tyranta was not a safe harbour any more, it was not even really a home for anyone but scanvengers and carrion, yet for now she was staying here. Who cares if many of the Crimson Hand and other allied soldiers had gone? Who cared if technically they had perhaps lost by default? Who cared if plants themselves would take years to repopulate this barren burnt landscape? For now it was the Nightingale's paradise and she thrived here, living off other's misery.

And there, in the near-distance. A yap, a call, one she was so familiar with. Philomel's spirit leapt, her heart resounded, and she joined the storm in cheering to the sky. Whipping out her sword she pointed to the sky, allowing the flash of light in that moment to reflect off it, like a beacon of hope. And she yelled, high and glorious. One word, one single word that she had been waiting to speak all day, wandering by herself ...

"VERIDIAN!"

Russet and white, but smeared in soot, the form of her beloved fox sprinted towards her. Lithe feet made no sound but his voice did, and he rose in a barking yowl to join her own gleeful cheer as the two were reunited after that lapse of sex and religion.

Her spare arm caught him in his leap, and then cupped her tight to her chest. The Earth Spirit buried his nuzzle deep into her bosom, mewing like a lost cub. In his mind he connected to her and cried, 'I missed you, I did. I missed you.'

For now, that was perfection. The two of them fell to the ash and embraced, like deep-seated lovers, rolling themselves deeper into the destruction they had helped to create. They rolled around and laughed in maniacal joy until they had no breath anymore and the storm abated. Together, finally, at the end of the death and Eiskalt architecture. So much beauty in the end of a nation.

The storm clouds rolled away. The fires died down. Cries in the distance fell to nothing, leaving only the two survivors to skip and commune together. With yelps and goatish bleats of faunish, the languages of nature.

Dance away in the dirt and brick dust.

Hours passed. Perhaps a day. And all they did was dance and celebrate. Until, really, they grew hungry and needed to find something to nourish their bodies.

Philomel searched around until she found an upturned trunk beneath a fallen pantry wall. In it were grains and a charred hunk of bread, but at least it was edible. Digging in the faun-whore devoured most of it herself as Veridian dug his snout into partially-fetid meat. It was good enough, for now, at least whilst they were partying. Until they found a pub and a way to return to Corone it would most certainly do. Even if the faun-whore suddenly felt a niggle at the corner of her consciousness, as if someone was watching them.

Like a scratch at a vein, like a prickle on the back of her neck. She sniffed, uncertainly, into the air, but only caught the familiar scents of decay.

Still however ... Philomel motioned to Veridian. The fox-form Earth Spirit tilted his head and grumbled. His golden eyes looked around and his black nostrils sniffed, but he could detect nothing. Looking at her he plainly asked, 'What can you see?'

She murmured, staring around at the tumbled houses. "I am not sure ..."

Leaning down she grabbed the meat and her assortment of blades. "Lets go."

Kicking her hooves into the dirt she twisted away and ran further out of the depths of the city. Fields were not far away, and beyond that, perhaps a town. Maybe they should just head straight for the open land, and go for the sea to find a boat ... but her instinct told her that precision was needed here, and besides, there was many more places to hide. So sure had she been that no life was left that she had let her guard down, for a moment. Whatever it was, whether monster or being they needed to be rid of it before trying to get away from these enemy paths and head back home.

Returning to a spirit of caution she buckled on her swords, keeping one hand on the hilt of her sword. She walked, determined and not nervously, with Veridian following. Metres, roads, they gained the village, then she ducked into a new route. As her mind to raced in an attempt to be clever she kept checking back, but still there seemed to be the uneasy feeling of someone followin them. Horrible it was, as ruined as the meat she passed piece by piece back to her fox. An ugly feeling, and she hated ugly feelings.

It still followed her.

Still, deeper into the houses. Some sort of village. Philomel growled, in irritance. It had intelligence, clearly, enough to keep going this far. Soon she was going to get lost and not be able to find their path back to escape. She walked a few paces, then doubled back so as to lay a false path. Then, moving into the depths of a half-collapsed house, she twisted around, pulling out her sword. She threw what remained of the meat into a corner, and Veridian ran after it, yelping with joy.

Philomel kept her back to the doorway, breathing slowly, assessing her area. Few walls left, a couple of windows. There was a gap over by the back wall that could be leapt through. Half-ruined chairs, a knocked-over table was all that remained of furniture, and sure it could be used as the base of a shelter or boat, but really, did she want to drag it a few good miles out into the wilderness and to the shores ... ?

Thwaump.

Like a ghost something landed on the wall opposite her. Something so smooth and silent Philomel barely had time to respond. Her blade went up, and so did her eyes but feet and a torso was already there, through the compelling mist as a shadow from darkness. She yelped, slightly, then slammed a hand over her mouth as a weapon focused and jammed itself against her throat.

Then it relaxed slightly. Strange.

Tottering, she took a step back, arching her head up enough to escape the sharp edge and giving space to raise her own weapon. As she did so her eyes focused in the dirty world, finding who was her follower in this landscape, and what she found gave her great curiousity. She twisted her expression into something of surprise and cheerfulness as the very same happened in the face and voice of her attacker.

"Whore-scort?" Jensen Ambrose, her former client and known Ixian supporter, said, confounded.

Philomel replied in kind, a slight smile rising to her face.

"You," she said, "I remember you, Jensen the drunk. I always imagined you the warrior type, indeed." She flashed her teeth, waved her sword, "I am a whore part-time, just so you know. The other half I am an assassin."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

There was a flashing wave of nostalgia that washed over the immortal as he looked to the Faun whore. Her eyes were just as he remembered them, an enchanting coldness in those orbs that warmed up the heart with hidden desires. But sadly for her, on this occasion, business was different from pleasure and Jensen had no intention of mixing the two. Blood raced through his veins, pounding in his ears as he fought the boiling turmoil of laughter reaching a crescendo within the pit of his stomach.

"I'm a part time assassin myself, but I don't tend to throw rape in there."

"What do you mean?" Philomel asked, her head tilting like a confused animal. When she saw Jensen's eyes bore into her she began to piece things together. "Oh, you think what I do is rape? I'm a whore, Jensen, I don't go forcing myself for Jollies when I can get a few coins for it," her smile returned, as her grip tightened just in case the immortal had different ideas of how to settle this matter. "Besides, I have no clue what you mean. If you want to get into specifics then perhaps I can-"

"Astarelle," Jensen said in a dead pan tone, his voice carefully keeping the venom away from the intensity of his tone. He was showing extreme patience now, and the whore could tell it was getting thinner.

His blade turned the edge of the scythe to her sword, tapping her weapon aside and down gently as the two assessed the other. Jensen looked at his quarry, eyes narrowing as he began to see past the beastly beauty of the woman before him. Her eyes told him the story; the spark of excitement to see him was from a night where instead of getting stuck like a pig by a pig they went on a drunken adventure. The tinge of jealously that twinkled in her eye when Astarelle came into the picture to ruin the night. The fires of anger that burned when Astarelle led Jensen away when the faun wasn’t looking, leaving the tab to her. The smug look of satisfaction on her face however finished the vital piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, I fucked your girl, what are you going to do about it?

Jensen mulled the thought over as his blade scraped against hers, the shrill sound grating making the tiny fox thing hiss and back away. Philomel kept her grip tight; the two weapons caressing each other as she never let her gaze drop from his. It was not unlike two lovers hands intertwining, but the difference was the tempered metals did all the frolicking. The tension between them was thicker than the spine of a dragon, weapons scraping the other. Truly, in this one moment, the two had no clue how to proceed. Jensen had, up to this point, no particular grudge towards the Faun. And Jensen’s only flaw up to now was he had a reputation with the Ixian Knights. Yet things had changed between the two; now Jensen knew who had raped Astarelle, and the Faun knew Jensen wasn’t just a casual Ixian Knight.

“You did do it, didn't you?” Jensen finally said in reply to her. It had felt like an eternity of the two starring the other down. It had only been in reality scant seconds. Slowly, the Faun's head nodded, but not fully as if she held something back. “Why?”

“Oh don’t be so melo-dramatic,” Philomel joked, a smile on her face. She was half way into a giggle when the glare from her immortal opposite silenced her. The mood shifted with the passing wind, what little levity there was replaced by grim determination. The two weapons stopped caressing each other, gripped in a tug of war lock as their intentions started to build. As assassin’s, they knew how to read body language very clearly. And they both said the same thing, I’ll kill you where you stand.

A leaf blew in on the wind between them, dancing in a swirl just in front of their face. Neither made a move. Then, as the leaf pirouetted and twirled up, falling gracefully as the wind died, they moved. It was faster than either expected. Sword and Scythe broke away with a ringing shout, a half turn and return strike to cut the other down. Sparks illuminated between them as each weapon clashed into the other, grinding blade into blade as they notched heavily. The leaf betwixt their sharpened edges fell into two equal pieces, and with the surprise attacks over they moved into a deadly dance.

Philomel’s cloven hoof came up into Jensen’s shin, eliciting a wheezing hiss from his lips as a gurgle of giggles escaped his lungs. He blocked her blade strike with a parry, pulling her in with the scythe as his fist came up and cocked her in the chin. She stumbled from the blow, turning away and stomping back as Jensen wiggled his leg to remove the stabbing pain in his bones. They turned again on each other, blades high. Jensen brought his scythe back into sword mode with an audible ‘shwing’ that echoed, his laughter overwhelming the senses as he blocked her blade. She pushed his weapon down checking him with her shoulder. He collapsed backwards losing his footing as the fox spirit darted between his feet, tripping him into a stumble.

He guffawed with mirth, fingers tapping the ground to keep him upright, his ears picking up the bleat of noise that came from the Faun. She was on him, fast, and managed to tag him dead in the chest with a fierce headbutt. Her ram like horns impacted his pectoral muscles, deadening them for a moment as he slammed into the ground onto his back gasping with shock and wheezing laughter. She was already moving towards him again. Thinking fast the immortal lifted his boot out kicked her hard in the stomach. She managed to grab his boot, snarled a hiss of satisfaction and prepared to give him a smarmy quip. Instead his other leg flew up in a dead blow, cracking into her jaw and rolling her eyes as she dropped his foot and fell to the ground like a sack of bricks.

He scrambled to stand, his blade stabbed into the ground to support his weight as he groaned and chuckled to his feet. The fox had once again changed the game, jumping on his back and nipping his ear and neck and hair – whatever he could snag a hold of. Jensen howled in half pain, half joy as he managed to wring his fingers into the scruff of the fox’s neck. He rolled with the throw he did, launching the fox a few feet away from him and swearing as he felt blood drip from a score of locations.

Philomel was already standing when Jensen pulled out Lawbreaker swapping the dart mode of his gunblade into sword mode, holding both weapons at the ready. “Why?” Jensen shouted again, moving on her to keep the pressure on the Faun.

((Phi, get with me if that's too much bunnying! Feel free to bunny Jensen!))

[Philomel]

Thwump.

With pain she felt the effects of Veridian being thrown aside like an unwanted rag doll. As the Earth Spirit was cast away he opened up his link to her, and so the agony flashed from one to the other. Mentally and phsyically she winced from the feel of crashing to the dusty ground, then rolling over once, twice because of the enertia.

Her eyes fixed on her beloved's assailant. As she watched his eyes shimmered with the depths of emotion, a wave of despair combined with insane hysteria. An ounce of confusion was mixed with deep-set sorrow and perhaps a pinch of irritation, all held together in an ugly fetid mortar of endless maniacal laughter. Strangely the twisted corners of his lips seemed to not be able to fall as he questioned her with a vivacity comparable to the demon queen.

"Why?" he asked her, "Why did you do it?"

Internally she felt her heart leap wildly, cascading into beats of panic. Outwardly she tried to keep her calm, despite her obvious predicament. Artfully he had pinioned her into a corner of the dilapidated house, with his two blades held either side like devilish pincers. Already she was reduced to shaking, her muscles tired from their intrepid unfair dance. Her furry legs quaked, energy from them drained and tires, crying out for release in voices of dire exhaustion.

"She wanted it," Philomel hissed, glaring at Jensen Ambrose like he was a demon to be slaughtered. Her lips curles into a mocking copy of his own mad smile. "She begged me to do it."

Mistake. Or maybe not. Philomel had an idea in her soul that she was deliberately jibbing him, encouraging him to slaughter her. She had already had her chance at him after all, and overtly within two strokes of her sword she knew she was going to lose. This man, this drunken fool she remembered from the dirty streets of backyard Radasanth, was skilled beyond words in the art of warfare. Where she was an amateur, he was a professional; fighting was his life, whereas hers was seducing, killing in the shadows, lying. His hands were too fast, his feet too lithe, all to the extent where she sneered, sending him into a rage of insanity.

"You lie!" he yelled, "You are nothing but a whore!"

And he slickly flicked forwards with the Lawbreaker, his switchblade sword, slicing at her gut. The lower curve of the bottommost branch of her ash tree tattoo on her belly was just visible under her leather chest protection. Philomel desperately swung up with her sword, at the same time clutching for her keris dagger, but Jensen was already there. As she blocked another attack from her left side the Lawbreaker slashed across her skin, lining the tattoo. Flesh ripped open, blood spilled. The wound was shallow, but by gods so painful.

Crying out in a scream so loud that the carrion crows devouring the after-battle corpses took wing, the faun-whore threw back her head, gasping for breath. She grew wild, stabbing forwards and as fast as could with both weapons, just stabbing and parrying what she could.

But the blood still fell. She feinted, but the Ixian immortal was far faster. He caught her dive, easily, and slammed his fist into her upper arm. Staggering, she fell back, kicking out with hooves and horns, but the trap was already set and she was slammed into the corner.

"She begged me to!" Philomel kept screaming, "She begged!"

And Jensen continued on, slashing as the desperate woman, fueled by euphoric rage.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

"You're a liar!" Jensen shouted with such ferocity his spine quaked to match his trembling rage. Blades came up in brutal, elegant arcs, savage with each breath as he pushed the faun into the corner with a stiff kick to her exposed stomach. Blood and spit hit the hem of his pants and she slid in the gravel looking back up at him, her sword coming upwards in a flourish that he caught with his weapon. He angrily shunted her blade down, open fist coming up to grab at her dreadlocks where he tossed her to the side.

"She loved it! She begged me to go on!" Jensen's haunted laughter reached a pitch of equal measures wrath and hysterics, cartwheeling forwards with the edge of his heel catching her wrist making her drop her weapon to the ground. Not without natural instincts, the whore-beast dipped her head and down and brayed obnoxiously, her horns coming back up in an attack that caught the immortal by surprise. Her body shifted to put all the force she could, clipping him in the shoulder knocking him for a loop as he collapsed to the ground, fox fangs ferociously gnawing at his wrists.

He battled back to a knee, punching the creature square in the nose that it yelped, his own giggles of delusional madness gently grasping away at his sanity. He swapped blade to dart mode, the chamber for the gun opening as the wind within his control pushed out two shots that echoed against the walls of their rubble arena. Philomel jumped down on the ground, her limbs extending to give her the leap she needed to avoid becoming a pincushion. Instantly Jensen was on her, blade placed back in its holster and dragging the switchblade scythe to his grip.

He pulled the tension rod back and forth, the twang audible in the air as he moved slowly towards his prey. He kicked out against the side of her, stomping so he caught the heel of his foot on her horn dragging her to look sideways. He dipped the scythe just under her chin and he could see the reflection in her eyes through the sheen of his blade.

"Why did you do it?" Jensen was on the attack again, his words controlling his tense shoulders from acting out of spite.

"She..." Philomel stopped speaking as a trickle of blood dripped down the edge of the blade, his whimpers of dry humor silencing her for a moment.

"Tell me more lies, and I'll cut deeper," Jensen's voice held the edge of insanity within its tone, the high and low pitched torment clear as day. He fell into another fit of laughter, grabbing the tips of his hair and pulling it with a loud sigh that erupted into more chuckling of demented joy.

"You better keep your ears open then," she spat, wincing as Jensen cut her more. The pain was excruciating as the enchantment on his zodiac blade made even the merest cut feel like an eternity of pain. She cried out tears of agony, but with venom in her lips she spat her words out like a curse, snarling as she fought against her own suffering. "She wanted it...and she...loved it"

Jensen screamed again, a roar of loss and frustration lifting his boot and kicking her square in the face. He knelt down, dropping his weapons and grabbing her horn and pushing her face up to look at him. "STOP LYING!" Jensen let spit her face with the intensity of his words.

In return Philomel spit back, right in his eye. Jensen hollered as he shoved her head down, hard into the stone floor, retreating to clear his eye. The mucus wad dripped off his fingers in thick wet spiderweb like strands, dragging from forefingers and eye. He snapped his hand to clear himself of the mess, glaring back as the faun-whore made to move. He took out the metal plated gloves he kept in his back pocket. He let the leather creak as he walked up to her hunched over frame, slowly, deliberately. She knew full well he was taking his sweet as time, making each sound loud and clear. When his fingers writhed to life in the gloves, he coughed loudly, clearing his throat.

"Tell...me...why..." Jensen said with controlled stoicism. He was cold in each word, measured in his confidence. When Philomel stayed quiet, he turned and kicked her, hard, in the side of her stomach. She doubled over, catching her breath as Jensen looked over her with indifference. "Tell me, why..." Jensen said again. No words from the faun, and in return he made her scream, kicking her again and standing over her.

"Fuck you," she managed to speak in blood flecked lips. "just like I fucked your-"

Jensen knelt down quickly, both fists going at her hand over hand, fist over fist in a rhythm. Her hooves jolted and twitched, her fists un-clenched and trembling with shock with every hit. Left, right, left, right, left, right.

"LIAR, LIAR, LIAR, LIAR, LIAR, LIAR!" Jensen was in a mantra of emotion, and he stopped, letting her roll back into awareness. She glared to him through one puffy eye, and he glared back, nearly unmarked in comparison. She was not on the level of the immortal, not used like he was to fighting stronger, faster, scarier creatures. Philomel van der Aart was outclassed and at the end of a road so long and full of stress that she was now just a stomping ground for releasing that tension.

"I...did it..." Philomel said weakly. She grinned, broken teeth crooked as she spit up blood and glared to him. "Because she asked!"

Jensen's eyes narrowed and his right fist came back, prepared to end her life with this next volley, but as it descended the fox jumped at him again, snarling and biting at him again. He fell backwards, alarmed as he fought to be free. His face received new scratches as paws clawed at him, ripping his shirt apart as he shouted in pain. Mouth bit neck, drawing blood and flesh, Jensen punching away as he fought to grab at one of his daggers. When he did he lifted it up, cutting the cheek of the fox and shoving it off him. It rolled away, feet pawing the ground to get back to a standing stance. It snarled and bared fangs, eyes intensly boring into him.

Jensen stood again, wiping the blood from his face as he looked to the beast, and with a dark, malevolent laugh he moved on the fox, building in slow momentum. Sadistic glee poured out from his mouth in the form of nearly silent chuckles, his boots kicking up the switchblade scythe. He let it click into sword mode and angled it defensively, looking back to the faun as she slowly stood back up, moving towards her companion. The two of them together were an annoyance, but nothing he couldn't handle. A part of him enjoyed relentlessly, mercilessly, beating the stuffing out of them.

He let the laughter reach a crescendo of noise, moving forwards at a run, weapon over head ready to switch modes at the last moment and reap their lives in one, clean, blow.

[Philomel]

She let the bitter thoughts escape from her mind into the air as a broken, stacatto laugh. As she stood there, on wounded legs with a wounded body, grasping for a defeated blade with her shaking hands, her mind reverted to something of sheer insanity as she copied the wretched man's hysteria. Veridian barked out a warning, quaking himself on his own battered and bruised paws, and she grabbed the first thing that seemed like a weapon before turning back around. The Nightingale watched, with the bent piece of metal barely hanging between her fingers, as the villain of this, her personal drama, ran towards her, his metal weapon contraption held over his head.

Sucking in her breath, Philomel realised there was no way to get through this. The laughter died from her throat and she yelped, bleated in fact, high and fearful in the air and took a hoofstep back. Behind her was the remains of the house, walls and bases of windows. No roof was to be seen, for it had all exploded off and she had helped to bring that about. Barely able to keep herself upright as it was, she lost to her fear, as all the strength of personality in her told her not to, and took those hoofsteps back to retreat far far away and never return.

"Fuck!"

Her leg buckled underneath her. Harshly, crudely, it toppled her, causing her to be thrown back, then down, clicking her spine as it did. With the backbone arching so her head snapped back, and she gasped for a moment before being slammed down to the ground by the sheer force of gravity. Loudly, she shrieked, and with that shriek blood spilled from her mouth, spitting all over the place. Her hands tried, desperately, to stop it, but nothing could stop her actual skull from banging off the floor, precisely at the point of injury at the back, where the horns offered no protection. It walloped, hard and horried, a cocophany of brutality and massive agony ripped through her nervous system, into her brain, then screamed as loud as it could.

Unwillingly, though unavoidably, her eyes moved to see where the assailant was. She was sprawled there, mercilessly on the ground, with blood pouring from almost every conceiveable place and nothing more than cuts and bruises to be proud of. As her gaze lifted up the fires from around the burning houses rose into the heavens, filling the dark black sky with a glow of crimson. Gold was scattered around the edges, and here and there under the grey smoke one could see the twinkling of a star. The moon - the moon had all but gone somewhere to the great beyond, hiding from the toils of war, and he now granted silence to the sky as the lights highlighted the graceful being flying on wings of nothingness, his reaping kit all ready to take her life.

Her ears were dumb to the existence of sound. Her body was numb to the existence of cold and hot and pain. Her heart was forgetful of what a broken body was and felt like for only her eyes could see and they dominated every quarter of her brain, watching that silent-winged madman come down before her, fury in his face and eyes, and a great scythe cleaving through the air and channeling a way to her breast ...

Whumph.

Stop. It stopped, halfway between life and death. Something - something light but powerful caught the thick blade head-on and it was not Philomel's hand holding the shard of metal. That she had completely forgotten about since she had picked it up.

No, the scythe was lodged in the dirt right by her head, and the devil-bastard was standing over her, a leg on either side, heaving on its hilt to pull it out. It had been hit to the side, and infuriatingly he was hissing, cursing under his breath. Philomel narrowed her aching eyes, trying to hear him and try to bring herself back to reality as her brain - tick, tick - attempted to remember what else there was apart from seeing.

One breath. One single breath. And a second. In, in, in ...

And -

Nothing. Blankness. An end and no where near a beginning. A complete and utter loss. It was ... it was dire. It was the feeling of being lost and lonely and at the edge of the world and about to fall off, and pergatory between death and life, and hell, but only on the edge before you fell into the flames but were also trying to think a way out of it, and insanity and sanity, that fine line between the actual brain disease that caused people to commit murder then blame it on their imaginery friend, and ugliness, and destitution and horror and shock and pain and release and utter, utter sorrow and -

It was ... Empty. Her mind, her soul, her brain, her entire feelings. Something had been ripped right out and it was her heart.

No. No ...

Jensen Ambrose pulled the switchblade weapon from the ground with a grunt. He grinned, putting on his mask of euphoria back on again as he took a step back to ready himself before making the blow. Beneath him, the faun-whore just lay there, still, staring into space, utterly lost. The look in her eyes was one of pure despair, of a tragedy struck. A hand limply flopped over by her side, palm going flat to the ground. Nothing about her moved for a moment, not even her eyes or her fur as the breeze traced fresh air across the dying city. Nothing ... and then she gasped. In horror. The dead form of the fox-creature somewhere behind her head, lying in the dirt - that small beast whose remains were already turning to dust.

The enigmatic brute laughed, high into the air, cheering his victory. As the spirit of nature returned to his element, his body steadily and easily turning to earth by the second, Ambrose took a moment of melodrama before he prepared to crush the now silent faun. She was there, already defeated by him, in agony and now in depression, and her heart had already let him win.