[sub]a collab feat [@Meiyuki] the cutie[/sub]
[h1][center][color=00aeef]Lorelai Von'Strauss[/color], [color=f26522]Vespa Ruvina[/color] & [color=#DBFFFB]Elina Ruvina[/color][/center][/h1]

The man continued to crawl, dragging his jingling chainmail and much-bloodied tabard across the muddy ground. His eyes were wide with fear, and yet he enjoyed a certain clarity to his thoughts, which surprised him greatly. His main concern was survival, yet somehow his mind had more than enough space to accommodate a flurry of totally inconsequential or otherwise trivial subjects. Was this what it was like to be bleeding to death? Pyotr did not feel pain, but the approaching fatigue had finally caught up to him. So be it then, he thought. He would just lay slumped against this tree and maybe close his eyes for a few seconds, then he'd continue his retreat. He'd live - he had always been the lucky one.

"Fuck," he said, just after settling himself against an old oak's root. It had to have been at least thirty feet long, the trail of blood that he'd left behind - a slightly curving path that traced all the way to when that raven-haired witch, faster than a swooping hawk, stabbed him right in the gut, over there in the mist-shrouded distance. He coughed then, and thought to rejoin the fight - Pyotr had thought it to be but a mere flesh wound - but somebody had yelled about a werewolf, and there was blood splattering all around the clearing and Darien's screams were reverberating in the air...

He coughed, and to his admitted fear there was an iron tang on his tongue. Ah, no matter, the apothecary would have something for it and he'd be fine within a week. He was no coward, but he wasn't a fool either. They were horribly outmatched, and that was why he ran - to live another day. Pyotr had done so in a stumbling run at first, then a tired jog, before finally going prone and crawling at various speeds. His decision was clearly a wise one as the sounds of battle had gone, replaced by an ominous silence. Among his venerated peerage, there was always cheers after a victory - but witches were particularly quiet in their triumph.

Again, he was the last man standing. Pyotr grinned, revealing reddened teeth. It was getting a little hard to breathe, so he began to breathe through his mouth. There. Much better.

He'd live, he thought to himself. Oh, he would live. Yet he was unceremoniously thrown off of this silent mantra as he closed his eyes, and opened then again half a minute later to behold the silhouette of a woman in the mist.

"Fuck," Pyotr cursed. He had dropped his crossbow when he got stabbed. All he had left was his arming sword. In his retreat, he had dropped his shield. So then, this was it. Dead at thirty-three years of age at the hands of the heretic enemy, with at least four unrecognized children across the brothels of three kingdoms. Not bad, he thought. At least he did not die some poor fucking peasant farmer. He'd burned witches at the stake - perhaps he was not the most famous or the strongest of hunters, but he had done his part!

He raised his sword, and pointed the tip at the approaching witch. It was getting hard to focus, and he found his eyes rolling when he ordered them to be steady. He cursed and cursed again, trying to stand up but only managing a fidget or an awkward bend with his legs. Death was coming to him, and instead of making a respectable corpse, he was going to die helpless and humiliated.

"Don't," he coughed again, "come any closer!"

Yet she was close enough for him to hear her footsteps. Her tread was soft upon the ground, with even, measured steps. Her gait was like that of the residents of castles and mansions, and she looked just like the part. No, this was not the same woman who had ultimately killed him. A skirt that wide would not have allowed the ridiculous moves she'd pulled off with her rapier.

It was a different woman, with a very haunting look. Her tresses were made of silver and her eyes were red like blood. To his horror, they were glowing, too. Was this witch going to take his heart? Strength left his fingers and his sword clattered to the ground. His luck had run out. He could swear there was a sorrowful look on her face, but as his soul was leaving this mortal coil, he decided that he could not make any accurate judgements.

He made an effort not to yawn. Only now did he notice how wet it was around his stomach and thighs. Pyotr wasn't a lucky man this time - whoever killed him simply decided to do it slowly through unstoppable bleeding. A true sadist. "Why," he said, "why did you come here?"

"Why?" he gurgled, before falling asleep, his head lolling towards the side, and dying a few seconds after that.

Before him, Elina Ruvina clasped her hands together, muttered a few quiet words, and did the Sign of the Cross. She took Pyotr's hands and gripped their now lifeless fingers around the handle of his sword, which she laid on his stomach.

Elina looked up, through the branches of the oak tree and at the full moon overhead. This was Vespa's last victim. Elina, for the entire duration of the battle, was not fighting, but rather giving the hopelessly outmatched hunters these rudimentary last rites. She was also there just in case Vespa hurt herself. That was quite fine, as she did not know how to fight, anyway. She never inherited her mother's martial prowess, nor her stomach to fight, unlike her sister. Sometimes, that woman felt quite alien, almost not her sibling but an entirely different person altogether. Elina struggled to comprehend how Vespa found it so easy to kill when she could so tenderly love Lorelai and whisper sweet nothings to her ear by the pillow.

She sighed. Her voice was lost in the midnight breeze. Perhaps she was just too simple for this increasingly complex world?

So it was over, but nothing, save a quiet stillness and her thoughts, came to recognize that fact. It was as if neither the world nor the gods cared about the sudden loss of dozens of lives. A headache began to throb at her temples, her mind overburdened with questions not even the wisest philosophers could give her a satisfying answer to. The pain worsened as she walked back to camp, and arrived only to find a battered Vespa struggling not to weep over an uncharacteristically limp Lorelai. At that point, the pain reached its climax, and it was a struggle not to retch.

Lorelai struggled to calm her lover's worry,  she was struggling with quite a few things these last couple days it seemed.  [color=00aeef]"Vespa,  my sweet,  I'm fine I promise.  You should tend to you own wounds instead of worrying over me."[/color]  She noticed Elina enter the camp again looking quite ill.  [color=00aeef]"Or perhaps see to your sister."[/color]

[color=f26522]"Hush,"[/color] Vespa said, only briefly looking towards Elina, finding her lover's reassurances to be so incredibly empty. [color=f26522]"I'm fine, but you're not. Gods above, Lorelai,"[/color] she leaned back and pulled a dagger from its small sheath at her belt, and slit her own wrist with it. She winced at the pain - a sense that she had thought thoroughly dulled with her earlier rituals - but continued to make an arcane circle around Lorelai anyway with her very life essence.

She appeared to remember something important, and looked towards her sister, who stood entirely undecided at an awkwardly far distance away. [color=f26522]"Elina!"[/color] she yelled. [color=f26522]"Come here and help me!"[/color] A startled Elina did so immediately, as fast as a briskly walking pace could take her.

Vespa leaned in and gave Lorelai a small kiss on the cheek. [color=f26522]"I can't afford to lose you, love. Damn it, do you have a death wish or something?"[/color]

Lorelai cringed at the sight of Vespa's blood,  especially in such a quantity.  She hardly accepted the fact that her love had been touched in the earlier conflict.  Lorelai's cheeks burned with shame at the continual worry she seemed to be foisting on the dark haired Ruvina lately,  but now her love would bleed for it.

[color=00aeef]"I've nothing of the sort my sweet."[/color]  Lorelai's cheek tingled from the kiss.  She drowsily wondered what Vespa was planning when she called Elina over,  but she was in no condition to protest whatever it was.  As much as she was trying to keep a brave face,  the truth was that her wounds were deep.  She'd expended too much of herself in the binding of Charon,  and now she could feel pieces of herself hemmoraging into the abyss as pieces of that twisted plane flowed in to replace them.  Her hand wandered to Vespa's hair,  her finger listlessly twirling an errant lock.  [color=00aeef]"You're so pretty Vespa,  do I tell you I love you enough?"[/color]  Her eye-lids became heavy.

[color=f26522]"Lorelai? Lorelai? Oh Gods." Lorelai appeared to be drifting away, and Vespa shook her head in fierce denial. She looked towards Elina, who looked back with a worried expression. [color=f26522]"I've made the symbol with my own blood,"[/color] she said, [color=f26522]"now do something! You're better at this than I am. You always have been!"[/color]

Elina looked completely bewildered. [color=#DBFFFB]"W-who, me? But you-"[/color]

[color=f26522]"I can kill,"[/color] Vespa interjected. [color=f26522]"But that is all that my blood can do. You saved this woman from the Devil's clutches, whereas I could barely ease Genoveve's pain! Please, Elina."[/color]

[color=#DBFFFB]"I, I-"[/color] Elina's mind threw around half-thoughts of panic and excuses, but the pleading look from Vespa shook them into order. She closed her fearful eyes for a moment, and opened them full of determination on top of the usual nervousness. The headache, too, was gone. [color=#DBFFFB]"I- I'll do it. But I don't know how to- ah-"[/color]

Vespa sighed. [color=f26522]"If you must kiss her again, then please do so - because I'd honestly rather have her cheating than dead!"[/color]  Lorelai weakly muttered a protest at the notion,  but quickly fell silent. Elina, meanwhile, nodded, and quickly crouched beside her prone form. She placed a hand over her chest in vain to quell her pounding heartbeat, before giving up and placing two fingers to her lips.

The sybillant whispers of a dead language were powerful, in presence if not in sound, as they rolled off of her tongue. As words of power were uttered and the spell slowly took form, the air buzzed with energy and took upon an almost oppressive aura around Elina, as she was the nexus of all this magic. Eyes closed, she furrowed her brow, deep in concentration and unable to hear her sister's urging to hurry. When it was done, and the atmosphere settled, and as she could feel Lorelai's very own mortality, she saw that it was slowly drifting off, flaking into scattering ash and glowing dimly compared to the brighter auras all around her. Vespa's circle of blood, meanwhile, had all but mystically evaporated at this point.

Then, with a lot less embarrassment than she thought it would take, and under the witness of so many eyes, she leaned in then, and pressed her lips against Lorelai's own.

The powerful magic that she had been gathering to her lips suddenly flowed into Lorelai. Such was the torrent of sheer energy that the aetherial cascade seeped into her mind and bombarded her with images of blooming flowers, plants growing at incredible speed, the rising tide, and the snowmelt of coming spring. As Elina slipped her tongue into Lorelai's mouth, images of Vespa - with a particular fixation on her body - sprung up with such vividness that the bewildered demon binder thought of them as real life. Elina could feel it then - Lorelai's aura becoming normal once more. The pieces that had been torn off from her very essence could never be taken back, but what she had lost had mostly been replaced. Energy of all forms ebbed and flowed within her, looking for anything to mend or fill - enough for her to wake up to a blushing silver-haired girl who was wiping her drool-covered mouth with the sleeve of her dress.

And a suddenly closer Vespa, who hovered over her with an expression somehow combining both worry and relief. [color=f26522]"Love? Love! Are you okay?"[/color]

Lorelai's face was red,  but this time it wasn't embarassment.  [color=00aeef]"I'll live my dear."[/color]  Her body trembled with anger.  [color=00aeef]"How many times must I,  must we be subjected to these idignities love?  When did it become so common place for me to sell myself for the strength required?"[/color]

Lorelai found herself sitting up, trapped in an embrace from a happy Vespa. [color=f26522]"I don't know! I don't really care! I'm just happy you're alive. I couldn't feel your pulse just before Elina performed the spell."[/color] She leaned back, looking into her lover's eyes and caressing her cheek with a gentle hand. 

[color=00aeef]"I find myself further in her debt then."[/color]  Lorelai gave Elina an apologetic smile.  [color=00aeef]"Your healing talents are truly prodigious."[/color]

[color=f26522]"Just what kind of monstrosity did you bind for you to end up like this? Please don't do it again,"[/color] Vespa turned solemn then. [color=f26522]"I thought... I had lost you, you know?"[/color] She chuckled, but it was a mirthless one, just to reassure herself. A tear threatened to fall and she immediately got rid of it with a finger. Yet her voice trembled. [color=f26522]"Don't... do it again, whatever you just did, okay?"[/color]

[color=00aeef]"As much as I'd like to promise that,  I get the feeling darker things are coming.  I'll be better prepared before I conjure Death again however."[/color]  Lorelai pulled Vespa into an embrace,  showing no signs of releasing her love anytime soon.  [color=00aeef]"I'm not even sure what I sold him this time...Sometimes I fear that alive or not,  there just won't be enough of me left to love."[/color] 

Vespa tightened the embrace. Elina, still blushing, quietly excused herself without anyone hearing and impolitely began towards her carriage where she had leashed Luna so the cat wouldn't hurt itself. Her sister whispered into Lorelai's ear. [color=f26522]"It is a dangerous path of magic that you tread. But I'll always be here with you as you walk along it. Lorelai. I love you."[/color]

[color=00aeef]"I love you too Vespa,  and always will."[/color]  Lorelai surreptitiously looked around the camp,  and once she had determined that there was no one close enough to hear she drew her lips close to her lover's ear.  [color=00aeef]"Medusa's going to die for this."[/color]