[center][h3][color=plum]Dwyn[/color][/h3][/center]

"Dwyn!"

That voice... they were alive? Those footsteps were--

[color=plum][i]No[/i].[/color] Dwyn's eyes widened in horror. Because if those approaching were her companions, then their trials weren't over. If she were better, stronger, faster, perhaps she could have protected them for once. If she had the fortitude, the willpower... but she didn't, and she couldn't. All she could do was lie there, exhausted, and fail them yet again.

[i][color=plum]I'm sorry.[/color][/i] How cruel was it, that they'd survived that onslaught, made it out for another day, only to die at the hands of a madman? For her benefit, no less, as he'd chosen to keep her alive through his misguided defence. [i][color=plum]Oh, gods, I'm sorry.[/color][/i]

Lying, hopeless, eyes staring towards her insane saviour. Her words would not deter him, surely. She doubted it would be possible to shake his conviction. But he was human, more human than those priests, than that monster had been before. And her companions had surely brought this misfortune upon themselves with their foolish insistence on fighting, their arrogant posturing, the marks of a group with no idea what they were doing.

They didn't deserve to be struck down before they ever had the chance to learn.

But she couldn't save them. Her reply to Ihosha was weak, choked out between shuddering gasps.

[color=plum]"It's a trap--"[/color] And in that moment, watching the stranger launch his attack, she knew the warning would have come too late. Pain in her throat, fear in her mind, Dwyn didn't even try and look towards the others. She didn't want to listen to them die, to know that she could so easily have helped them. But she would, because there was no fairness, no justice. That had all been lost to the dark. There was nothing, absolutely [i]nothing[/i] she could do for them in this moment.

[i][color=plum]Forgive me.[/color][/i] She had no right to ask that of them, after leaving them to this.

As she lay awaiting her fate, Dwyn's tears flowed freely at last.