Anarion

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

CREEP
WHIPPED
TRUANT (I think?)

"You. Are you serious?" Annalee looks ready to do murder. She has one thing she wants, she doesn't want to deal with anyone else right now, would every freaking person, monster, and animated Hot Topic just get the hell out of the way already? The answer is yes, they would. Or at least, they would find it really hard to get in the way, which was close enough. Annalee started speaking in tongues, trying to chant a spell that would completely prevent the Sphinx from doing violence of any kind, so that she could just walk right past her.

Simple, convenient. Unfortunate, however, that she had just read up on that spell today before detention and in the all the confusion hadn't really had the chance to do something like practice it. So, it was almost certainly going to go horribly wrong in interesting ways.

[Hex roll: 1+3+1=5. 1/5 Experience]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia is mid-cartwheel when she starts to snap back into a different reality. She'd known something off was, but the force of the vision had been so vivid, so real. She had felt herself burn with Adila's words. She had felt the signboard in her hands, its wood as real as anything she'd ever touched, more real than most. And she had felt her heart skip a beat when Adila had looked right at her.

She manages to hold onto the momentum of her cartwheel and careen into a tentacle with something resembling a spear slash and give herself enough space to shake her head and try to take in what she's seeing. There's, things coming through everywhere, some in armor, some not. Eska's robots are being fought and subdued, Eska herself is under assault and not Kazelia's concern. Alina and Adila are...recovering? They weren't hurt, figure that out later. Rita's doing something heroic (woo!) and Azora is...oh no!

Azora was racing towards Eupheria and the Caduceus. If she got it, well, Kazelia wasn't quite sure, but from what Ourania had said, it would at least give Azora the power to escape from here easily and present it to Oberon. And if he got it...Hyperborea was doomed.

Kazelia wished she knew some of the magic that Azora did. Wouldn't it be perfect if she could somehow reverse the earlier vision and stop Azora by pinning her to the wall with shadow shackles? She can't though, even if she knew the spell, it's almost certain Azora would have wards to prevent that sort of thing, or simply wave them away with a spare hand.

So, instead, Kazelia races forward. She whistles for Shiva, but her mount is coming too slowly, herself not fully shaking off the effects of the visions, and not being present for the observatory scene for Kazelia to bring with her. So instead she's running with pounding steps on the cold stone floor. Her spear blazes with light and fire, casting long waving shadows as it cleaves through any tentacles in her way, leaving the faint hiss of melting bronze. The north wind is at her back hastening her steps until she's almost but not quite flying.

But then, *boom* Kazelia has to use her magic, all her strength, and plant her spear like a pole vaulter to avoid the explosion of one of Eska's hidden traps. They hadn't all been disarmed and some of them are here now too. She manages the swerve, landing with a roll and coming up with her spear as she tries to reorient herself. She's racing after Azora again, this time casting little ice crystals ahead of her, trying to find the trip wires that send out the poison bolts only to realize that they're some kind of invisible boundary field and being forced to stop and twirl her spear to burn the bolts out of the air before they hit her. She sets off explosives ahead of her and swerves out of the way as a line of scarab beetles emerges from some recess in the floor she's just passed and tries to converge on her from behind.

These things are distraction and slowdowns. She's leaving her own wake of broken weapons and burnt tentacles as she advances on the Caduceus to try and match Azora. If she can just get there first, she can keep it safe, or at least intercept her sister before she can grab it.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

I realized that I can't remember my conditions from before, which is why I haven't been listing them. I think Annalee had CREEP, WHIPPED, and one more?

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Annalee considers whether she might just explode from the frustration of this. Doubly so because somehow G'eldriia had lapped her and gone in ahead. That was injustice enough and now this idiotic sphinx wanted to stop her here. Oh, when she got just a little more magic, she was going to rain fire on this whole place. Even the moat. Especially the moat. For the moment she just seethed, thought about it a little, and came to her answer.

"That's not...even a riddle. I'm just...ugh I cannot even. Okay, ugh, first, I do not care, like, at all. Second, let's cut to the chase, okay? Here you go, they're perfectly fashionable and you look great in them. There I answered, can we skip to the part where you let me in now?"

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

The first time this had all happened, Kazelia had been so afraid. She had been helpless. Really helpless. With someone who cared nothing for her well-being and kept her alive and intact primarily because it would make Azora's dealings with Father slightly more convenient. That was terrifying. It was part of why she'd been so ready to use all her power when Ninian had tried to capture her. It wasn't until her dealings with Kyouko and a very different sort of Hyperborean attitude towards kidnappings that Kazelia would even contemplate the idea that some people found this sort of thing fun. (Recalling recent conversations, a tiny part of Kazelia's mind took this moment to wonder whether Alina would enjoy being upside down in shadow shackles.)

For a long, long time, there had been a true difference in the nature of their power between Azora and the other sisters. Morgina's elevation was a Hyperborea innovation, and Eska's seemed to be of her own making and even more recent. Most of their existence, Azora had been the special sister both in power and in treatment. They were linked, Kazelia thought. A tracing back to that most ancient time when they had all left together and Azora alone had been proud to be with their father as the others marched begrudgingly into the snow and the cold. Was it that moment that Oberon had given something special to Azora? Some greater glimpse of his own power and essence? Or was that merely the moment he had favored her, offering greater training and knowledge over time until she had gained a nature beyond that of her sisters?

The differences started subtly, at any rate. Azora had always been prone to casual demands and the younger siblings at hopping up in response. But when that they had come to that second world with its sun-dappled glades and large trees the size of church towers, Azora had shown a new sort of power. Once, Kazelia had been dancing between missions, for parts of her heart still sang to her that long ago, and she had ignored something Azora had shouted to her. Then, all at once, she had been off her feet, as she was now, and Azora had been holding Kazelia without any need to touch her, some well of dark magic offering her strength greater even than Kaja. She walked differently after that, then she began to float. She saw things differently, like she was looking at the world overlaid on a grid with extra information that nobody else could reach. She thought grander plans and experimented with bigger creations. She started training her own witches, Kazelia among them. And of all these things Oberon approved and nodded, for he saw in his daughter a growth that would aid him and that was absolutely loyal to him. He could thus allow it to flourish because it was, first and foremost, his.

Let us go back to this moment though. Somewhere over the course of Hyperborea, Kazelia had become on a level with beings like Oberon and with Mother. Not entirely their equal, but playing on the same field so to speak. She was not just Kazelia anymore. She was the light of Argossa. She was the ancient song. She was Mother's gracious host. She was an open heart filled with the firmament and the void balanced around the essence that was herself. She was even, beyond all those other things, a princess who had learned from one of her friends that sometimes being captured was just about the best place you could be.

So this time, instead of begging, she looked at Azora from her upside-down little hanging place with calm eyes that weren't Rider eyes. And she said "would you like to sing with me, sister, while we wait? I don't think we're alone here." And as she has done oft of late, she hums a wordless but merry little tune to pass the time. This one has distant sounds of gallops through the forest and old dances in sun-washed meadows. For a moment, at least until their lovely host arrives, Azora and Kazelia's hearts will be connected. What's that like for Azora, who sees the depths of Mother, the stone and birch of Argossa, and the light that animates Hyperborea all mixed up in there?

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

For the record, I actually would really like to get ahold of Timmy and Elodie and bring the whole crew barging in on Samael as the last part of today's story. I think it would be hilarious when they bring Elodie as a BOGO and then there could be a confrontation between her and Samael.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia must have been very good at going places that she didn't belong, I thought. She certainly wasn't supposed to be here with me now. She was under Oberon's protection. He was very dashing. A bit much sometimes, I thought, quite loud, but he was the embodiment of one of those pieces of truth in the universe and that made him someone special. It doesn't matter to me, of course, whether that truth is the unbridled arrogance of the cold and the dark that believes it owns something or whether it's a shining heart that believes bonds of friendship and light transcend all worlds. At least, I don't think it matters to me? It feels like maybe it will start mattering sometime soon, as I sit here and watch myself, or watch Kazelia moving about lost in the dark.

Back then, you see, her heart was still buried. She was so subsumed in Oberon's truth that it was hard to reach anything else. The only reason I could do that at all was that she had come here unannounced, without the usual entourage that Oberon brought with him, and without his regalia of power to fix his will into all the travelers.

But without that, I got to look into Kazelia. Really look. I'm very good at seeing all the falseness of people, you see. She was full of jealousy when she wandered in here, but all I had to do was pick at one little thread to see that jealousy was nothing but the product of living with Azora and Oberon for so long. It was hardly core to Kazelia, and as soon as you pulled that tiny gauze of association off of her, it was gone like so much dust blown away on a sunless wind.

It was odd though. I hadn't seen a case like this one in a very long time. I was all ready to tell her that there was simply nothing to her at all. I'd picked apart her loyalty (magically induced, worthless) and her training (nothing but drills). I enjoyed the taste of her wanderlust, but that had been imposed on her and she had not, at least at that time, adopted it in her heart, there was no joy in it yet you see, and so it wasn't real. But right when I thought I was done, there was something that my searching little fingernail bounced off of. That was rare, you know. Less than one in a thousand who visited me. But it happened. This though, it was an odd case. Kazelia didn't know she had it, you see. Normally I receive some kind of defense. There's a dialogue, I pick apart the threads, and the person sees that core of themselves and lets me glimpse their truth, if they have one. But Kazelia, she had one without knowing it herself. That must have been Oberon's influence. Her passion was buried beneath his shadow.

Hmm, yes, that seemed a cruelty even to me. Truth should not be hidden, it was a rare enough thing without trying to stamp it down. I really didn't like that. I don't like that. I believe in passion and freedom you see. I do now. Maybe I always have. I knew that the girl there needed something special. She needed to feel something to unlock that passion within her. Ah how rare indeed for me, of all things in the universe, to think about adding something to a person. And yet, I knew that she needed to feel and few emotions were permitted to her. So I took away the stars from her. I do that for many riders, but they see the falling stars in their eyes, the strange light and darkness of the void. From Kazelia, I took them all, a sight robbed from her that would leave a keening pain in her heart.

I cannot say that I can see the future, but then again, this is the past so it's not at all a difficult vision. She would feel that pain, that loss dearly. She would ask her father about it, and Oberon, who did love his favorite daughters in his way, would promise her that she could get them back. He would plant a seed for her, a seed that would become anger and frustration. She would go somewhere full of magic and expect more and she would see her father fail and realize that he was not everything to her, could never be everything to her. Nourishment for a seed within a heart that would admire a flame and beat an ancient song. I could hear it, can hear it now, so gentle and so strong. Pulsing with the flame in our heart.

I took her stars and sent her back, even as her sister thought to tackle her and remove the book from her hands. And the rest, as we say, is history.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

"You're not...you can't be serious." Annalee lets out a long sigh. The kind of long-suffering sigh that lets a whole extremely long day pile up on itself all at once like a sack of rocks. She's ready to just relax, but master Samael needs to see Timothy and she needs to find him. She had been right there! Right! There! But no, somehow he had been invisible at the time. And now that she knows where he is (or where he was at this point, though she was sure he'd be near Elodie after that little run-in) now there were obstacles. Hells below, did people who couldn't fly have to do this every time they came to the school?

"I'm an enrolled student, I was tossed outside the walls with a werewolf along with that spider girl you just let inside, and I've got an errand from both one of the TAs and the Angel, so get out of the way and let me inside." She gives the sphinx a look that says I am extremely tired and it is a bad time to mess with me.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Plus. Y'know. Never a bad idea to give emotional teenagers an open-ended question to try and answer. :D

@TheAmishPirate

I believe what you meant to say is that this is a bad idea in 100% of situations and nobody should ever do it.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

deleted text for accidental double post