The pain is impossible. It would be wrong to call it indescribable: it is her nerves burning like the lightning-stroke that splits the tree, it is the blindness that turns the world white and her auspex's information stream into scrambled nonsense, as it tries to inform her exactly how badly the nerves of her leg have been corrupted, spiked, undone. This is a weapon made to kill humans. This is a weapon intended to draw out and prolong the death, to send the foe to the embrace of Hades piece by piece.

[i]She gets up, her leg collapses underneath her, the next swipe tears out the auspex—[/i] no.
[i]She goes for her sword, the queen breaks the bones of her wrist underneath a cruel heel—[/i] no.
[i]She cries out for help, sobbing, and the queen tears her throat open, makes a red flower—[/i] no.

Redana succumbs to her pain, instead, and falls deeper. The world folds around her, and there is the sharp smell of ozone. There is a sound that is something like a thunderbolt and something like Hades shuffling a deck of cards. Is this yours, the Princess? Watch, I tap it, and it is the Warrior. It is the Nemean. This child of Nero was never locked in a gilded cage; no, she must have been taken by secret arts and delivered into the hands of her father, suckled at the teat of her caprine great-nurse, trained by both centaurs and titans.

The amount of energy that is required to turn a possibility's shadow into a superimposition... it is truly divine. Only by the grace of the gods could such a thing be done.

When the Nemean rises from the grass, she stinks of storm-tossed skies and sweat. It is difficult to tell where her mane of shining gold ends and her lionskin cloak begins. Where Redana has an auspex, the Nemean has empty night and the light of a dying star forever caught in its last gasp. The razorwhip's next stroke wraps harmlessly around the haft of the axe that could have killed Typhon. As the Nemean unfolds, she towers over all, taller even than the statue of Pallas Athena on the green below.

[b]"REJOICE!"[/b] Her voice is a thunderclap. [b]"The gods have sent their response, little wolf! Are you not delighted?"[/b]

The razorwhip lashes out again, and the Nemean moves more nimbly than she has any right to. [i]She[/i] is not yet injured, after all. How could she be? A moment ago she only existed as a might-have-been. Her knee-high boots tear a groove in the wet grass, and she barks a wild laugh, a war-laugh, a berserk-laugh. [b]"Come, let us dance! Did you not wish to spit in my father's eye? I shall do, and do, and do for you!"[/b]

Her backhand swing carves through three Ceronians at once, so cleanly that it takes a moment for them to realize they must fall in pieces to the grass; the thunder that follows knocks down another six, sends the queen skidding back with her bracers held before her face. [b]"Sword-day! Red-day! Hahaha! Come, come, come for the Nemean!"[/b] She opens her guard deliberately, her grin wild, daring the Queen to strike at her, a free blow, provided she can stand its return. [b]"Come for Redana Chrysopelex!"[/b]

***

[Marking damage to Blood and necrotic damage to Grace. That's a [b]7[/b] on Keeping Her Busy, however.]