That voice...

Fio could practically guess who it was, even with the fact her body was almost burning up. Her lungs were on fire. Her limbs felt weighted down, like they were coated in lead.

Everything was dying. Crumbling, Melting. A yawning abyss of curses opening behind her with every struggling step she took.

The enormous eye beholding her, staring down at her, fixing her in its gaze.

The light seemed no closer. Everything seemed like it should be hopeless. Despair was indeed licking at the edges of Fio's spirit, like a fire slowly consuming a library. It threatened to consume her. To leap up and devour her.

The faces of the people she knew were growing ever more distant. The other knights, the Queen... her family...

It would all burn away and melt into the muck, just like she would.

Just like...

Just like...

Perhaps being a particularly confident person was the reason why.

But the more those voices screamed at her, the angrier the Sword Witch grew. How dare they. How [i]dare[/i] they think she had any right to keep her here. She had a life to live. Promises to fulfill. Knowledge to grasp ahold of. And she wouldn't let any damned curses interfere.

"Like [i]hell[/i] I'm sticking around, you bastards!" Fio snarled, not even bothering to look over her shoulder as she dragged her petite body through the mire of corrupted mud, "The Sword Witch doesn't sit around in muddy swamps full of curses, and she doesn't waste her time indulging nothing but a [i]bad dream[/i]!"

[@Rune_Alchemist]