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[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdPhKXfbPSk][color=f26522]♬[/color][/url][/center][hr][hr]
[color=696969]It was shortly after she'd speared the boats with jagged ice that he came for Edyta: a man with a feather in his cap. He was quick. He'd gotten the jump on her, which was not something that happened. For a moment, she'd wondered, but time was not in great supply and she escaped into greyborn space, brimming with energy. There, it was confirmed. A knife came for her neck and only a sense of presence and combat drilled into her from a young age allowed her to sense it before it struck.

The rezaindian rolled out of the way and came to her feet in a single motion, facing him. She raised zamrażanie and palenie. [color=6ecff6]"So you are like me."[/color] She did not want to fight.

But the man did. He did not answer. Instead, he sunk into a three-dimensional fighting stance, knife in a reverse grip. He might fall upon her. He might fall upwards. They would establish the rules of the place where they would fight. It was oddly... intimate, but he was looking for weaknesses and Edyta could not allow her mind to wander. She would give him one, then: an opening.

The very moment she made her 'mistake' - her bait - this... [i]ghost[/i] shot forward with the kind of speed that would be impressive even had magic been in play. She barely got her weapons up to cover the purposeful opening, and then he was dodging and ducking and slashing and it was everything that the rezaindian could do to block his attacks. His knife met her soft skin and left a clean little slice near her shoulder, and then another on her thigh. That was when she realized that he [i]was[/i] using magic: the energy he had taken in with him.

He was going to overpower her.

Edyta let herself fall back into reality, and she dropped onto the deck of a burning ship. She sprinted and drew and pulled herself back into the realm between realities. Now there was space between them. She sunk into a long-high-back stance, one sickle out in front, to give her range, and the other raised for a power strike. This would be fought to the death.

[color=6ecff6][i]Up does not exist. Down is an illusion.[/i][/color] Greyspace was whatever you made of it, aside from echoes, silence, and patience: shadows of the realities outside. Some were beautiful, most were mundane, others were horrific, but they did not concern her now. She ran up a slope, over him, and leapt - somersaulting - backwards when he made to follow. Perhaps Mother Oraff had given him a man's body: stronger than hers and built for war, but she was younger, nimbler, and surefooted. 

The Ghost made to strike again, but he was slower this time. He fell upwards, but he had not let himself fall into reality when he'd been given the chance. [i]She[/i] had. She gambled it all on a single strike. Catching his blade with hers, the rezaindian released the false feel of gravity - an artifact of her attachment to the world beyond - and dropped. 

His knife was pulled down and aside and her other blade came to sink into his lower abdomen. The blood went where they imagined it would. They had created this pocket reality together. It was theirs to live in and one of theirs to die in, most likely, though she did not wish it were so.

Gutted, The Ghost staggered backwards, but he did not try to fall away. [color=6ecff6]"Please,"[/color] she spoke into the grey nothing. It was changing, though. The sounds of birds twittering and a rushing stream could be heard. She had a vague sense of greenness. [color=6ecff6]"Please don't make me kill you."[/color] She shook her head. [color=6ecff6]"There are so few of us."[/color]

He stared at her, and she could not read his deep, dark eyes. 

[color=6ecff6]"There are so few and all we do is kill each other[/color] [color=f26522]for [i]them.[/i]"[/color] 

[hr][center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn6YnUt4Vuk][color=6ecff6]♬[/color][/url][/center][hr]
[color=004b80]"Now there will be one less."[/color] He was implacable. He raised his knife once again, as if to fight, but the wound was mortal and they both knew it. The world was becoming greener. She could feel the wind on her face. They were by the water and there was a dock.

[color=f26522]"So be it,"[/color] replied Sister Laska, [color=f26522]"But answer me one thing before you go: Why this? Why [i]any[/i] of it?"[/color]

[color=004b80]"Because I was paid to. Because that is how your wicked world works."[/color] His muscles had been sliced apart. He could not properly shrug. Now he could not hold himself up anymore. He crumpled slowly to the ground and then he was lying on a grassy green bank by the riverside rushes. There were bullfrogs and the sun was setting. A boat waited by the dock. This was his contribution and it was... beautiful. [color=004b80]"We bring things to this town from Hyparii. We do it for..."[/color] He sighed and he was weakening. [color=243635]"I don't know. I don't know anymore and I don't care. I'm going to a happier place: the place where all of us go, and I don't mean heaven."[/color]

A cold feeling pulsed through Edyta's midsection. [color=6ecff6]"Go in peace, then,"[/color] she replied weakly.

[color=004b80]"Oh, I will,"[/color] he rasped. The blood had spread all around him, but it was clovers and wildflowers now, on the green, [i]green[/i] grass. [color=004b80]"One... last... thing,"[/color] he grated.

[color=6ecff6]"What is it?"[/color] She hung onto his dying words: he who had tried to kill her; she who had killed him.

[color=004b80]"Juulet,"[/color] he choked out. [color=004b80]"Beware. Juulet."[/color] Then, he was gone and she sat alone in the world that he had built - the world that would disappear once she left it.[/color]
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