[center][h2][b]Ophelia[/b][/h2][/center]

"Don't look at it. Avert your gaze, or frenzy will take you. Hit it with your eyes closed." she whispered feverishly to Torquil, knowing they had scant little time before something happened. Every fibre in her body still screamed at her to run, to not let its gaze take them, even to wait and brand herself with the rune of the Deep Sea to stave off the Frenzy. She didn't know how much time they had, how long before this eerie and dreadful interlude would be over and the slaughter--theirs, and its--would begin. She loaded a bloodied quicksilver bullet into her Evelyn for the first time, readied herself to loose a blast of light, and nodded at Torquil. There was so much more she felt like she should say, but time was slipping through their fingers like sand. Hadn't Farren bought some sand from the birdbath? She wondered if he'd remember, but the thought didn't get far as the numbing guilt of leaving him froze her synapses and left her entirely locked in to the combat that was about to begin.

Gerlinde was always so fearless, even in the face of the terror that had been Paarl. Ophelia wondered how she fared, if she could lead the charge and grab its focus for long enough that Ophelia could brand a rune... but even the deliberation had taken precious seconds, seconds they needed desperately, and she was about to fish out the runebrand before she heard the telltale sound of a gun firing in the distance. Someone had broken the wretched spell of fear, the dirge that called them to the grave, and Ophelia stiffened as though ready to pounce. She nodded wordlessly at Torquil for the last time and was ready to go. Agility was her only answer to danger, and not being able to so much as look at this thing without that horrible thing happening to her--visions of Farren in Rebirth's Rise threatened to assault her if not for the imminent danger--meant that she would simply have to fire off whatever projectiles she could and escape far from its range. She'd have to call out to the others, warn them too, but not until everything began.

When she heard combat begin in earnest from the other side too (hoping the song would at least end), she'd press a quicksilver bullet into the light of her blade, let it build, and look just long enough to aim before scything her sword down and loosing the projectile at the centre mass of the Winter Lantern's head. She'd shout out: "Don't look! Frenzy!" before darting back--quickstepping if necessary--into the Workshop and out of the way of its gaze. Her mind tried to recall other spots that might be good to hide behind if they needed to vacate the cottage (which they would, for she could not risk the chalice) and could only really think of the clustered headstones and the statues of previous Palebloods.