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Kellen Fraldarius didn’t need to wait for long for the many imagined threats that plagued his mind to be replaced by tangible, real ones. If a gust of wind was enough to cause him to yelp – and it was – the veritable onslaught of arrows and magic that pinged off of the barrier Kaira threw up was enough to put Kellen into stunned silence that only broke when a stronger gust of wind nearly took him off his feet. That dreadful weight returned quickly as the wind revealed their opponents on the roofs.

In that singular moment of clarity, Kellen knew what an experienced archer would do. Draw, knock, aim, and shoot at any of the clear targets who had revealed their position. As he attempted the first step of this process, he found his fingers shaking more than normal, and by the time he had managed to knock an arrow, the fog had set back in. 

It was in the context of this showcase of inability that Kellen heard Professor Malathice’s next instruction. His face blanched, and when he turned to Veronica to attempt to seek any sense of solace, he was dismayed to hear her put one of his many concerns into words. 

As he saw a blade strike out from the fog towards Professor Simeon, the arrow Kellen had painstakingly succeeded in nocking slipped from his index and middle fingers. It clattered to the ground softly, but the sound of it was enough to keep him grounded in the reality of the unfolding situation. Hurriedly moving to scoop it up, he looked to his fellow students.

[color=63a2e4]“I’m, er- I’m going to do my best to keep looking at the sky. Please don’t let one of them, uh...”[/color] Kellen wisely stopped himself before he put to words one of the many fears that occupied him. Turning his eyes towards the sky, it wasn’t clear whether the next words were for him or his classmates. [color=63a2e4]“And, um, be careful.”[/color] 

Kellen’s neck was firmly craned upwards, looking in the fog for any sign of movement. It would have been possible for him to keep an eye on his immediate surroundings as well, but he knew instinctually that if he were to look at the ground troops pushing in towards the reserve of students on the backline, any small hope of him drawing and loosing an arrow would disappear. So instead, he did what he could to ignore the din of combat and stare at the sky.

It was difficult to see much of anything through the fog. Hesitantly, Kellen pulled the bowstring to half-draw, gently raising it while doing his best to count his breaths and remain calm. It was sometime after the number seven that he first noticed a disturbance in the fog 30 meters above his head. It was nigh imperceptible, but an ever-active sense of anxiety had honed Kellen’s sense of danger. His bow was already ready to fire, all it took was a quick adjustment of his aim and a final yank of his right arm. And he did so. 

As the arrow flew through the sky, Kellen thought, for half a second, that perhaps his instincts has led him astray. It was just as he looked down to grab another arrow that he heard the loud whinny of a pegasus and looked to see the tip of a wing gliding along the fog, its course clearly disrupted by the unexpected projectile. Had he fired a bit higher, he was almost certain it would have connected. Kellen drew another arrow and did his best to track the set of wings that were now hovering a bit too close to the group, but the rider was simply moving too quickly. 

[color=63a2e4]“Veronica!”[/color] His eyes didn’t leave the sky, both for the sake of keeping track of the Pegasus’s position and avoiding the inevitable shakes that would follow seeing enemy warriors so close to them. [color=63a2e4]“One’s there!”[/color] Kellen’s arrow remained trained on what little of the pegasus he could see in the fog, but his eyes focused more on the periphery to see if he could note any other attempt to dive in. He thought better of wasting a shot trying to hit a flying target that was trying to evade his shot.

Another opportunity quickly presented itself. From the fog, a small glow of magic could be spotted. Kellen remembered the mages he had seen on the rooftops, and this one, from as far as he could tell, had hardly moved. The glow wasn’t much, but it was enough for Kellen to fire one more arrow into its general direction, just as a sharp beam of magical wind flew in his direction. Kellen hurled himself out of the way, hissing as his elbows and knees collided roughly with the ground before him. He could feel his chest constrict as his brain started to imagine what the spell may have done had it collided with him, but he was thankfully dislodged when he heard a pained cry from the roof above him where his arrow had found its purchase. [color=63a2e4]“Got one!”[/color] He yelped, hastily rising. Judging by the sound of it, Kellen was sure the man was still alive, but he doubted he would be firing off another spell in the immediate future. 

[hr][@Hero]