[i]You won't have me![/i]

She felt something gripping her leg. Her heart hammering, her eyes burning, she pulled away, no matter how strong its grip was she would fight back.

[i]You won't have me![/i]

The earth was melting away around her, collapsing even as the grip on her ankle didn't falter, pulling harder, to drag her further down. The world itself was trying to devour her.

[i]You won't have me! You won't have me! You won't have me you won't have me you won't have me [b]you won't have me![/b][/i]

Something gripped her wrist, and she clung back onto it just as tightly.

The mud gave way. The grip on her leg loosened and then lost her completely. Fio was rising now, a soothing feeling like cool water washing over her as she was pulled further and further into the air.

Only briefly did she look back, to see scores of writhing, flailing limbs snatching at the air, emerging from the increasingly-distant muck as the cursed realm fell away.

They wouldn't have her.

Somehow she was somewhere else now. She was falling, but the soothing sensation around her stayed her heart and kept her from panicking as she had before.

The slender, petite girl felt her bare feet lightly touch cool water.

When she was able to examine herself, the sigils on her body seemed to have almost completely burned away. Their protections would have lasted scant seconds longer, at most, the pale skin beneath nearly completely exposed.

That was more then the mere curse inhabiting the body of a Fomorian. That was something deeper and more ancient. Something twisted at the very core of a cursed being's existence.

And yet here, in this place, that hatred and malice was gone.

It was relaxing. Calming. Had Fio not had a goal in mind, she could have easily slipped into the dreamworld herself.

Above her the stars. In the distance a tower stretching towards them.

And she wasn't alone.

The Sword Witch's eyes fell upon a slight figure, not incomparable to herself, seating in a gently swirling about them. A girl, with the ears of a rabbit extending from atop her head.

There was no doubt in her mind who this was, for she had invoked her a the very beginning of the ritual.

The Goddess of the Deep Lake. The Sleeping Girl in the Dark Water. But a gentle and soothing darkness, not unlike that of one's bed.

When Fio looked at her, she could feel her eyelids growing heavy. But she shook her head and inhaled deeply, trying to steady herself.

The Sword Witch wasn't entirely done here.

To be face to face with what was undoubtedly divine was hard to come to grips with in her mind, but at the same time that didn't mean she was going to become speechless.

Her voice came form her, but also from the entire shallow lake.

Exciting.

Fio hadn't found that particularly exciting at all!

"Hmph, well, I guess if you thought it was a good story then [i]something[/i] came out of it," she found herself saying, folding her slight arms across her chest as she shook her head again slightly to try and clear the sleep away.

"You must be the Goddess of the Deep Lake. The one I invoked to come here in the first place," continued Fio, "I didn't intend to tell a story, myself... I guess it's more like I came here to read one."

Given how the Goddess had reacted, perhaps she had ended up telling a story anyway.

"... I shouldn't have strayed into that cave. I can't believe I let myself do something so stupid," she found herself saying, her frustration growing once more, fist clenched at her side as she averted her eyes from the Goddess. It was a waste of all her preparations. Certainly she had learned quite a bit, but she'd lost her opportunity for more.

"... I-if you want to hear more stories, I don't know if I have many to tell, though maybe you'll see something in my dreams," she continued, still looking away, "A-and... and I'm... I d-don't sing, so..."

[@Rune_Alchemist]