It was so noisy. Kona preferred having his ear tufts filled with naught but the sound of the wind as he soared proudly above the pristine glittering landscape of the Frostfell mountains and glaciers. His wings could keep him in the air for a day and a night without rest, nothing to block his sight but the very horizon itself. But down here, under the hard, cold earth, the northern gryphon felt cramped, his senses battered by chaos. He had seized a gold-sashed skeleton and quickly bore it aloft, ripping at it with his clawed forepaws and slicing at it with his razor-beak. His wingtips brushed the frigid roof above as he looked for a cruel stone to dash his victim against, the muscles in his back straining against the dead air, but the ancient rotted corpse seemed oblvious to what should have been debilitating pain, and a blow to Kona's beaked face forced him to drop his victim. He shook his head as he flew, the head wound bleeding freely, and landed clumsily to rub his face against an icy wall. The blood clotted quickly, smearing brilliant red across the pale white feathers, giving him a gruesome appearance as he hissed against the pain.

Having dispatched her first skeleton, the angered balauradon sought out another, charging after the monsters facing the homunculous to come up on them from behind. 

Rilana felt overwhelmed. The sounds of fighting and magic beckoned at her attention, and she had to force herself to focus on the stone, on Juloya, keeping a wary eye on Moira nearby. Svarak's roars, Kona's hiss of pain, Ortha's ferocious snarling, all threatened to divide her attention. 

[color=00aeef]"Stop his change? How could she hope to do that?"[/color] She wasn't a match for Svarak, and doubted she could force the charr to do anything he didn't want to do. But his roars took on a new and more terrifying meaning for the Moon Fey as the risk of losing him to his own feral state became a real possibility. At the very least, she decided then that she couldn't assume an animal form now, even though taking refuge behind the hulking shape of a mammoth would have been very comforting right then. Svarak needed to see her, not one of her animal shapes.

The null shard shivered beside her in the air and she looked at his, her expression strangely thoughtful and placid considering everything going on around her. Indeed, she recalled many strong and powerful beings. Some she had met personally on this long, terrible journey, some were vague memories of monsters and gods in stories she had learned as a child. She didn't feel a strong pull towards any of them, until the silver-white silhoutte of the raven flashed across her thoughts, her laughing voice a faint echo. Rilana reached for it, even as she turned away from the stone and stared into Moira's eyes, listening to the harsh voice that slipped past her lips.

She reached for the raven, talking to it as gently as she had spoken to Kona when she had found him as a fledgling in the snow. [i][color=00aeef]"You aren't one of mine, as much as I tried. I don't know what you are, but please, help me now."[/color][/i]

Moira wasn't Moira anymore. Rilana didn't know if her oldest friend was still alive behind those strange crimson eyes, but already felt pain in her chest as she considered the other Moon Fey another casualty of this strange, terrible battle that had been going on for lifetimes.

[color=00aeef]"I'm already married,"[/color] Rilana answered icily, meeting the fiery gaze with her own sapphire stare. It wasn't strictly true, there'd been no ceremony, but it was true in all the ways that mattered. With that, she turned and ran, leaving the floating piece of the shard to do whatever it was going to do. In her mind, she coddled whatever essence she carried of Juloya, accepting it as she had done with Kona, with Ortha. 

[color=00aeef]"Svarak!"[/color] She wanted him to see her, before it was too late. Before he couldn't remember, couldn't care, who she was or what she meant to him. Heedless of the danger, her pale boots carried her swiftly across the chamber to the almost-feral Charr. He was magnificent, as usual, and terrible, which she'd seen before. Her eyes flicked to the grievous wound on his belly and she knew that if time hadn't already been against them, it was now, swiftly, running out. [color=00aeef]"Svarak, look at me."[/color] Authoritative, in spite of her diminutive size

Not giving him much choice, she reached for his furry cheeks and forced his head up, meeting his golden cat's eyes. [color=00aeef]"Focus, my love. Don't forget who you are and why you're here. You have to finish this! You're the only one who can, and then when you're done we'll have all the time in the world."[/color] She was crying now, her heart in her throat, betraying her fear and her hopelessness. But her fingertips stroked through the charr's fur up to his ears and she leaned close, softly kissing his gory nose.