A red glow ignited in the storm-night, barely luminous. It was enough. The tip of Whisper's arm hooked into the ring at the base of the weapon, and as she swung it around her, its unmistakable rune imprinted itself on her mind: [i][color=ed1c24]Wit's End.[/color][/i]

The sword carved into Tsunami's flesh and this time the wounds did not close.

Subtle crimson trails followed Wit's End as it moved, searing Whisper, searing the water. Whisper kicked out at Tsunami, kicked herself out of the water, made a long tail of herself and flicked the sword at his next wave like the tip of a whip; And though the wave still broke, and Whisper still had to blast through it, [i]the Sealord weakened.[/i]

The omnipresence that had been Tsunami's strength had now become his weakness. Whisper wrapped herself around the sword as it corroded away layers of her flesh, held it as one drowning who reaches even for a bar of hot iron. 

She used it like a sting. Every wall of ocean that Tsunami could conjure she slammed into first with her blade and then with the strength of her body, and she could feel herself slowly clawing back over the edge as her stain healed her. Soon the agony of holding Wit's End surpassed that of Tsunami's bone-shattering pressure, and even then she did not let go.

And she did not let go.

And she did not let go...

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Sunlight glittered over the surface of the Fractal Sea. The last stormcloud was gone. Tsunami was gone. A great cloud of white rose from around Whisper, and a milky ocean bubbled beneath her. She didn't know if the Sealord had survived or not, but she had boiled him alive.

She didn't know where she was any more, or how long it had been. All she knew was the pain of holding on to Wit's End, this curved, spoked shape at the end of a many-thorned ring. Whisper gazed at the bizarre sword, this gift of survival bought at the cost of all she had traveled for, and groaned.

She could not let it go. She had been through too much to even try. But she had to ease the pain. Wit's End was taking from her because she had not chosen anything to give.

But she had given. She'd given a thousand songs and a thousand poems, now lost to plans that could not come to fruition.

[color=613c3c]"May the one who takes up this sword,"[/color] swore Diaphane Whisper, [color=613c3c]"forsake its use, and all other arts of combat, [i]until words fail them.[/i]"[/color]

The burning ceased. Whisper cried out. Wit's End silently folded, revealing its strange rib-like spokes and subtly luminous scarlet cords to be a mechanism. Its hollows closed, its thorns retracted, its light disappeared, and the blade smoothly fell into shape. It was small, now, even and pale, its gaps sealed like chinks in a hain's armour. It might fit a human hand, albeit a large one. And it was still a sword. A ceramic shadow of its true self, but a weapon nonetheless.

It had a rune on each side: One the name of the device, one the oath now required to take it. Not to use it, for that was easy enough, but simply to heft its weight.

Whisper tried to breathe. She barely could.

In the distance, over the calm sea, she could just make out the shape of Jvan rising beneath the waves. She was within reach.

But now, at the end of her journey, Whisper realised she had nothing more to say.

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