[quote=@Tatterdemalion][b]Adila![/b]

You crash down onto the roots, clinging Hornet tightly to your chest. Your ears are ringing, full of destruction and the not-sound of that terrible explosion, and there's for a moment nothing to [i]see[/i] when you turn back and look at the sea, just inky shadows covering up the collapse, blotting out everything. No, wait, you do see something, as your eyes start to cut through even that magical night: the ink-black shells of the Garthim sliding into the water. If anyone else survived... they'll soon be in Oberon's hands. But you haven't been noticed.

Or at least you haven't yet. That'll change if Hornet starts crying, which she is threatening to do, sniffling and gasping with a hoarse throat, tucking her knees up to her chest and slowly rocking back and forth. "I didn't mean to do it," she whimpers.

Oh. [i]Hornet.[/i][/quote]

It's jarring to think that Hornet came to the same conclusion she did. Adila was so used to thinking of Hornet as careless at best, to hear that... [i]self-recrimination[/i] in her voice tilted her. She identified this as a [i]failure[/i]. How many times had she been blamed for failures and accidents? Adila... knew a thing or two about what that was like.

+Shh, shh, it's okay,+ Adila thought, trying to keep the thoughts brief and hurried so they didn't reach out to the oily shapes of the Garthim. +We've got to go, it's okay,+ she wished she could focus. This wasn't the time to be in the open - whatever had shot them out of the sky was still out there, and taking the fight to the Garthim would just make her a target. She needed to back them up and lay and ambush to rescue the others, so she carried Princess Hornet across the roots, heart wrenching with each little sniffle.