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[sub][color=8E939E]✧     Location: Snakeburrow Woods     ✧     Purse: 12 copper     ✧      [@McMolly]    ✧[/color][/sub][/center]
The tension in the air was almost as palpable as the aether; Eila loosed her arrow, and everyone held their breath, watching the crippled wolf for any sign of life. The tingling in Kyreth’s fingers advanced to full-on buzzing, and he gripped his pack and knife with white knuckles, as if he could somehow squeeze the magic out of his hands. 

Then, all at once, action; the crashing of foliage and a great, horrible snarling, guttural and [i]wrong[/i], accompanied two more wolves as they burst out of the woods shouldering the path toward the caravan.

Kyreth jumped back without thinking, taking shelter behind the wagon. While his companions were set upon, for the moment no wolf came for him; meanwhile, his fingertips buzzed a warning, magic thrumming under his skin with a primordial heat that seared him in pulses timed with the racing of his heart. In his urgency to cut off another catastrophe before it began, Kyreth grasped blindly at his belt, watching to his left and right as he untied his waterskin with trembling fingers and poured it out over his hands. 

He emptied the entire thing in his haste, coating his hands and arms and soaking his tunic sleeves. The water did little to soothe the burning thrum in his fingers, and had he been thinking clearly, Kyreth would have remembered what Lord Mystralath taught him about aether and realized that wetting his hands wouldn’t stop him from producing fire. But he wasn’t thinking clearly, and he didn’t know what to do – this way, at least, if he did have a mishap, he might not set [i]himself[/i] on fire. 

His strongest instinct was to run, but doubt was quick behind it; run where? Into the woods, where more wolves were probably waiting? Down the road, where he’d only single himself out for attack?

Wait—

[color=8E939E]“Lilann!”[/color] Kyreth cried, whipping around to find Lilann just where he left her – on the edge of the group, singled out and with a snarling, rotted wolf hot on her tail. 

There was no time – Kyreth was too far away and the wolf was faster than he was. So he did the first thing that came to mind: there was something in his hand (a now-empty waterskin), so he threw it in the wolf’s direction, with absolutely no plan beyond that.