HereComesTheSnow

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

Pulling the knife free from the ground once more, Rudolf stood—

And staggered again to his knees.

The blessings went, as the blaze made contact with Leviathan's soft underbelly, burning a heavy gash through where the steel itself had only left the barest nick upon even those scales. At once, he was abruptly thrust back into the normal world— his only buffer from slamming full-force into the brick wall of single time the brief seconds between one haste falling and the next. Just enough of a window for him to realize what was happening as it came...

And then it was upon him like quicksand. Just as the sudden swiftness had rendered each limb and breath feather-light, now it was as though his will was spilling out of him. Like drowning. Almost, it seemed like loosing his next breath would be a mistake, like there was a momentum within it he wouldn't get back once it was gone. It wasn't that his strength had faded, but...

Pain¹. Dull, burning pain, blossoming through his chest like paint on canvas. If you had flipped the cliffside on its head and drove all the weight into his sternum, or maybe locked their opponent's massive jaws around him and told them to chew, that sensation was probably close. His breath was shallow, too shallow to keep itself within him as Galahad's tackle collided with his torso, carrying him clear of an unexpected fireball.

His head swam.

He heard the older man's voice in his ears, and Leviathan's high above them both— but even where his ears now existed on the same tempo as normal speech, the voices were muddled, dulled, underwater. Drowning too, beneath the low roar that had subsumed him, with each pulsing wave of exhaustion that traveled up through the veins in his neck. They were tight, like stones forced through the bottom of the jaw. ²

He wanted to whimper, but didn't have the voice for a groan. He bore the pain silently, save for a hollow wind atop his tight gasps for air.

Bloodshot eyes tried to focus, to regain their bearings on the world, to little avail. The world spun, each attempt as fruitful as those to command his body to move, or his mind to forge a thought. His gaze was listless, half lidded, unfocused, as a symphony of light and sound erupted around them nearby. Color, heat, light, sound, fresh figures appearing, the vertigo of the man leaping to pull him clear of it all.

He didn't know what was happening.

Something of this seemed familiar. He recognized that there was a lot that he should, but he had to try and breathe.

There was a burning tar where his heart should be. He wanted to claw at it, tear it out of him, but the impulse died at the shoulder.

A point of green light in the mix grew close, buzzing furiously with a grimace on its face.

Wait... Light didn't have faces, that was—

—AZERWQXYRTKBYUH—³

As Eos's palms finally reached him, her flight extended without warning by the sudden relocation by way of dragoon, the verdant healing energy was, for better or worse, like grabbing a live wire. The pain in his chest lingered, but began to hollow— the pain of his muscles that he'd had the dull shield of exhaustion to ignore was now sharpened as he felt a few re-knit where his thrust with the lance had seen them pulled, beneath his notice till now thanks to the adrenaline.

Speaking of that, the dump through his system was still very much real, and while his heartbeat and breath were now finally once again under control, he was still every bit as ragged and worn as he felt— but now lucid enough to know it, thanks to the fact that he could manage a lungful or two of air.

And know the last of the many voices that had joined them, all too well.

"...Why?" came the stricken, confused rasp. He hadn't screamed the name of the strike revealed to him the way he had tghe shield, but his throat was still every bit as desert dry. A gnawing lump in his gut took hold as his eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the glare that had caught Isolde's glasses and catch a glimpse of the green he'd seen beneath, only one night before. "'Heresy', he..."

...He couldn't.

Uh oh, boss. a familiar voice chimed in, dripping with wry satisfaction at getting to rhyme a stanza Rudolf had never expected. Maybe she did like me.

His eyes drifted between the two holy figures. The headache from having his wings ripped and crashing to earth had reached a skull-cracking peak, nausea settling in beneath the ball of ice it felt like he'd just swallowed. As unpleasant as any sensation got.

"Cid saved our lives. Why set us against Leviathan? Lure him out? Hand him over? He— You—"

You really shouldn't be talking. I don't think you're able to even think out to the end of the sentence before you're saying it. This is how you get yourself into trouble.

The words certainly spilled out that way, hardly wearing the guise of structure. But blindsided as he was, he couldn't help himself. It didn't matter how little he was thinking straightforwardly, or whether or not he could get it all out in one clear shot. She surely hadn't just conned them. This couldn't be another time. Not again. Not again.⁴

"We all stand against Valheim here! Why are you selling the idea— It's your country! What possible reason, Master Isolde?!"

A desperate plea. Despite how wrapped up it was in exhaustion, frustration, confusion...

It was not so different at all from the one he had approached her with, just hours before. That he might appeal to her reason, no matter what blasphemy he may have harbored.

"What about responsibility? The greater good?"

---

---

• _{1. Arrythmia. Specifically, ventricular tachycardia. If he could think clearly at all, he'd have known he was, probably, a few minutes out from an episode of cardiac arrest, as his nerves took longer to adjust to the new speed everything was working at than the heart chambers they were telling to maintain at double-hasted full ahead. But of course, that's the rub when those chambers don't have any time to get enough blood in the pump— thinking clearly tends to stop. It's even gotten to me a little, like sulfur on the winds from who knows what.}
• _{2. Cannon A Waves. High amplitude bloodflow from the atrium trying to force open a valve that shouldn't be closed, since the aforementioned tachychardia has the ventricle below contracting off-beat and too fast. In brief, jugular veins should not have that kind of pressure launching through them. It's quite painful, and to use a medical term, "very bad for you".}
• _{3. No artistic license used here. That's a quote.}
• _{4. Just because you don't like the deal, doesn't mean I lied about it.}

Falling Skies

LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN "COMMIE"

---

By the time he had gotten there, even at what he called a "spirited burn" and what Boeing called "beyond recommended thrust, what's your goddamn problem", the radar picture had cleaned up save for a few shavings off of the Secutor and the wreck of his erstwhile Big Game— ceded to Rhino by little more than necessity. It stung the Minnesotan a little, sure, but sometimes things didn't shake out perfectly. He was the first to admit that, because if he had his way, all he'd ever be doing was going after the Coalition's newest high-spec toys. It'd certainly prove the superiority of UEE Piloting... and probably be a wasted effort, long-term. Wars were won in the bigger picture in the real world.

Really, it was a win enough that everyone from the 7th was coming home from Phase 1, more or less unscathed atop that— save maybe Hex, but she was the sniper here. Vision from one end of the board to the other was her thing. He'd have to find out once they were all back on the Roanoke.<<Rhino, Commie: Copy kill on Priority Target. We'll form an element and handle escort. Maintaining corner speed.>>

As the heat of combat left his blood, the inversely clinical tone of his calls began to fade with it, replaced by something a touch more languid— but only just. He wouldn't slip all the way back into the upper midwestern until he was out of the coffin, even if he'd tried. As the three mechs changed bearing, the lightest of them glanced back at the Venator.

<<I hear the sentiment, Rookie, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass.>>

After that, it was largely back to whatever necessary chatter the ride back demanded from him, be it verifying contacts or working with Rhino to gut intercept attempts before they could start. In any event, their course wouldn't stray, no matter how much even Commie loved getting into close-in brawls. His beam saber had been a real workhorse already, anyway.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

Impact, an agonizing jar stretched over infinity in the double-layered time. It was the sensation of his bones, strong as even they were, fighting against a rebound that seemed endless in its attempt to force them out of place, to crush them between itself and the weight of the commitment and velocity behind his own exceeded limit. Black tongues of flame licked at his arms¹ as they spilled out from his white knuckled grip, burning through the layers of swirling water bit by bit. Each one met was a steel wall, each one broken another jolt that shook him to the bone.

It was everything he had and more, collected into one single, perfect strike. He'd torn through so much of that barrier from the raw force he had leveled alone... But it still wasn't enough. Even in time with Galahad. With Robin. They couldn't get through.

A storm. A swell. Behind. An oncoming sword.

Pulling away wasn't an option. Retreat was death.

He grit his teeth, the taste of copper filling his throat—

And the last layer shattered as Izayoi's attack struck true, and his efforts were rewarded with a spray of blood not his own as his blackened, burning lance bit deep into Leviathan's hide, one of twinned fangs. Her roar echoed in his hastened ears, and so committed to driving the spear home was he that as its heavy blade bit deeper and deeper into her flesh, he couldn't pull away before her writhing length flung him off. His lungs inflamed, his muscles flagging, his mind and heart racing still, he tumbled end over end before finding solid footing as he landed—

...Now we're in the thick of it.²

He locked eyes on the aftermath of their assault, just in time to see the Lady of Whorls' massive head dive below the cliffside... and bringing the glittering shard of ruby, still bearing the last wisps of the black flame that had been laid upon it, over the side with her. Maybe his grip had been jostled by the impact. Maybe the moisture had left the haft too slick.

Maybe his luck was already taking its dues.

Either way, he was once again unarmed, in the sternest test the team had ever faced.

Retreat was no option.

He didn't know how much longer the hastes would be laid upon his body, and already Leviathan had emerged anew, swiping with tail and fangs from either side of them, peppering the area with scattered bullets of sea magic. He threw himself to the side. A burst from above forced his instincts to will his body to get the hell out of dodge. The deluges that had wracked the field meant that he didn't know where those paired swords had gone—

One arm reached high over the shoulder. The other low to the hip.

May thy blade chip and shatter. At the speed he lived these next moments, he could not answer the challenge with his voice.

Two more lines of black fire writ upon the world, lending weight to feather-light slashes in one hand, and length to the short but potent fang in the other.³

The enemy, ahead and behind. He had been flung far enough away to be clear of the lashing tail, which already had Izayoi setting herself to work on it.

Therefore, somebody needed to cover rear guard.

He pivoted on his heel, choosing the closer target and throwing himself low to skid under the snapping jaws, his anointed speed carrying him far, too far to retaliate, unless he arrested his motion immediately—

The flame of the rondel bit deep into the earth at the base of the abandoned shrinegrounds as Rudolf slammed hit home, trusting the stiff and sturdy metal within the heavy fire to hold fast as he flung all that momentum back around, a great burning wheel upon a sudden axle. His teeth grit as his arm felt like it might tear right off from the unfamiliar strain.

But more importantly, at the edge of that terrible centrifuge a burning arc was cast into the base of the mighty sea serpent's skull, before she could even pull her head back for another swipe.

---

---

• _{1. Granted, because of our symbiosis-adjacent arrangement here, the only thing actually getting burned by these is the water he's trying to get through in the attack. While it's easiest for a meathead like him to consider his luck as wood on a campfire, things would get very out of control if the manifested flames could recursively burn more luck than he spent on sparking them. And if self-immolation was on the table, you can imagine how anyone getting to this point would be an unsustainable prospect.}
• _{2. Hey hey people. Like I said, hearing a lot more from me. In this instance that's a good thing— you'll need somebody to keep you company while the kid retreats into a shell of reactions.}
• _{3. I do have to mention how barbaric that practice is. Are those people swordsmen or shamans? You would think somebody steeped in that kind of animism and/or spiritualism for five years would be a little more careful about where he spends his own fate, but even my warnings fell on deaf ears. And I'm in his head, directly benefitting from the trade.}

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

He was a fighting man, an enthusiast in in his craft, a damned pain in the ass

Oftentimes the narration tells on itself in these moments

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Amerigo Spadoni

Castle Hathforth, Present Day
@AWildSquirtle@Estylwen

---

Amerigo bowed his own head graciously upon his introduction by Aubri, in answer to the Countess— though not without catching that surreptitious glance sent his way with a wink and a sly smile. In truth, he had only a few inklings of what the little Angelite had told her in that moment, not even anything he could honestly call a guess— but if her eye was on him now, for whatever reason, he saw no reason not to play it up for his audience.

"Charmed, Contessa Vernon. A shame we meet at such a trying hour."

The worst result he could imagine would still at least be funny, to say little of the best before it showed its face to him. He could always see when he was making an impression, whether he necessarily meant to or otherwise— and it was always found in those second appraisals, rather than the first. On that note, he took his own of the woman before him, beautiful and clearly the authority here— yet barely any older he or Aubri. It seemed they all shared responsibility some would consider beyond their meager years... some would.

Sharp eyes set between her bedraggled dark waves stood out to him the most— in spite of the crisis she had been tasked with managing for hours now, she still found no lag within her will to start measuring, reading, and remembering with her gaze. He found it polite to make no attempt at hiding that keen eye— and afforded her similar courtesy.

It was a different thing from the stress of the moment taking her instincts to the forefront, and sizing up any potential new threat like a wounded dog. He suspected the armor, stature, cape and title all earned at least in part off the backs of men and women that would not have been able to make that distinction quite so readily. She would be one to watch, regardless of how this went.

On the matter of watching... he placed his free hand behind himself (his sword arm at a leisurely rest upon his pommel, perhaps churlishly if you spared a moment to worry about it) and nudged the changeling further out from behind him, nodding his head to Raguelie.

"In more immediate terms, we believed it best we ferry these two from those demons in the streets to people who might better be able to keep them safe, at least until this dreadful incursion subsides. I was rather insistent that I would see the both of them live another day, you see— and I'm afraid my employer and I had to drive the point home in the face of disagreeing voices."

Aubri, of course, was dead on the money regarding Amerigo's basic inclinations. He was a fighting man, an enthusiast in in his craft, a damned pain in the ass to convince to walk away from something like the second shade they'd run into out in the streets. Were he by his lonesome, he could easily see himself offering his services as a sword-for-hire just to rid the world of the abominations Dremora's Shade spewed out as well as get into an enjoyable fight.

But he wasn't. And he'd wait at least a little while longer to entrench the two of them, before he let his every whim have its day in the sun.

Patience and poise separated good swords from great ones.

"Given the circumstance we find ourselves having sailed into, we do appreciate the hospitality. And this moment we've stolen away from your duties, in the absence of Her Majesty."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Eisenhorn@VitaVitaAR

They really were nice legs.

Gerard, as previously, simply endured the long silence with an attentive eye and a stilled bearing, allowing her ample space and silence to ruminate— if nothing else, it was good practice to follow the lead of the whole rest of court. Her guards were all but carved of stone, to the point where he wasn't even sure whether or not they'd truly registered the Roses' presence.

Point was, he knew grinning and bearing it was the best option on the board. The last thing he needed to be doing was showing impatience, annoying her by saying to hurry the hell up, and scuttling the good work they had done thus far. It was a windfall already to have earned this much favor from any such fae as the Lady before them, let alone on his first outing doing anything but keeping his damned distance. It'd be poor form to let greed take him now.

So, he watched, he listened, and he even leaned in as she did from below in his kneeling posture, as though indulging in a conspiratorial whisper. Nodding along as she spoke, he allowed his mind to run through possibilities for a moment, weighing her words as they were due. Valueless symbols of power... perhaps some form of trophy taken from those would-be usurpers? Trinkets she declared signatures of her title, which she truly was guarding jealously?

Hard to say at the outset. Eventually, it would be made doubtlessly clear— The next question would be what he would offer in return as collateral. High stakes.

His first thought was his loyalty, that sudden and impossible being of an Iron Rose that he treasured deepest.

Next, his life. An easily understood gamble for man or myth. Hard to find more universal proof than that, though... he was still breaking bad habits with gambling it to begin with.

Still, that'd make it a simple matter of earning his way to the table. Keep the thought in his back pocket until more was clear.

Third... perhaps his sword, his helm? Far from valueless as she'd intimated, but in a way every bit as symbolic of his power. Maybe something more arcane, if that was the direction. Maybe his name.

...In any event, his posture rose again, as a daring expression crossed his face, and his golden gaze refused to doubt.

"A wager, you say? I should be happy, then— I've built this entire life on the back of long-odd gambles. I, at least, ought to have the home field advantage." he declared, placing a gauntlet over his cuirass, atop the heart beneath the steel. "I expect to return soon, with your prize well in hand, milady. All we would ask now is how we might enter her domain to make this challenge— in the admittedly unlikely event the rest of our Order hasn't already pieced it together themselves in our absence."

He inclined his head, after taking a moment to turn his eyes over to the two aessyr one more time.

"Beyond that, all I can say is I share my companion's wishes of good fortune to these two. I can hardly imagine safer hands to leave them in than yours."

A wave of the hand, indicating the unmoving ranks of spears around them.

"We should trouble you no further than this."

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

sounds like a plan chief, i'll brainstorm what i wanna get up to over the interim

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Hiding behind an abandoned carriage to avoid a second confrontation with a Shade on the loose,

two kids and a diplomat desperately trying to hold amerigo back, Raguelie definitely just told Elysabeth he's a loose cannon

aubri only you can save us

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

@The Otter@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

There was no resistance as his blades passed through the space where the Serpent's neck had lain, mere fractions of a second beforehand. No impact to shock his bones, a sensation that all the same seemed to almost shatter him. The silence too was deafening— a void where the sound of, if nothing else, the ring of her sturdy scales rebuking the steel of his twinned swords should have filled his ears. At once, the embattled boy's blood turned to ice, as the tail ends of a sideswiped guffaw rang in his head.

Oh, that is rough. You had better be real careful when you next enter the Gold Saucer, and this is what we get for it.

A choked, gritty snarl escaped Rudi's throat, as the taunting impulse left him a parting gift of 'look up, by the way', prompting him to throw his body to the side as Leviathan's massive head hurtled down to crush him, before her instinctive jerk away from Galahad and his falling lance (by some burnt stroke of luck coming to roost) corrected her course and brought her skull crashing into his torso regardless, knocking him into a far-less controlled tumble. Not far away, he heard the seas roar, as water surged around her.

Without really thinking, he slammed the wings into the earth, trying to arrest his movement once he felt the ground beneath him again. He'd put on as brave a face as any for this Trial, but really... what the hell were they thinking? Any of them, let alone him? This was a primordial Eidolon.

The seas roared, and then crashed. He hardly had time to look up, before his wings were stripped and he once again was tossed away, a rag caught in riptide.

Of course they could hardly scratch her. Of course he would miss— her falsified counterpart, a zombie faye with a coral horns and some parlor tricks tacked on compared to the real thing, had already been enough to nearly wash him away beneath the tides, barely a scratch made in return.

He coughed and hacked as he tried to clear the stinging salt and swelling sea from his lungs, his nose. His hands were free now, he could tell that through the proprioception that didn't need to reorient itself after the second trip through maelstrom in as many weeks. They managed to clear enough of the spray from his brow, and slick away enough hair, to crack one eye open.

His swords, plunged into the earth and bereft their wielder. His teammates, all strewn across the field as he was. Their hope of proving their valor before the storm. Before the storm, he felt a paper tiger.

Leviathan, encasing herself in a roiling orb of brine, as raw aether gathered within each bubble of the foaming waves that surged within. Her coup de grace, surely. He watched Izayoi's wind slash tear into the barrier's outer layer for an instant... but be itself shredded, swallowed, and sealed when it passed.

He had stashed Valon's lance not far from here.

But what was the point?

Each word of the Lady of Whorls' furor echoed in his mind like a ringing bell, the thunderclap of an oncoming hurricane. Even as his grasp closed around the weighty lance, and his heart hammered as he tried to will himself onward, he saw no way through. If Izayoi, who had once rent open the seas not so long ago, couldn't manage... then surely he would fare no better. Even with all the power he had borrowed, he could barely force his way through a pale imitation of her whorls. Let alone this barrier.

It was beyond him. His measure was not there. He could throw himself against that thing all he liked— for him, for any of them, it was as a steel wall. The side of an ironclad fortress, while Leviathan's mighty cannon was doubtlessly mere moments away from firing, whatever that huge mass of power was going to be. This was their last moment. This, in all the important ways left, was the trial. And it had found them wanting.

Out of time. Out of options.

... Shots rang out. Voices, screaming over the boiling roar of the tides. They were lost to him. All he could hear was the rushing water. All he could feel was the bitter cold sinking into his bones, the way it had below the waves.

And then, tiny hands brushed his shoulder for a fleeting moment, and the outstretched palm of another desperate ally he couldn't see turned itself over to his direction. Paired blessings, anointing him, of all those present, as the one who would act. And...

---

Time... shifts.

---

By its lonesome, being granted haste is an unnatural rush through the nerves. It’s like every weight upon you, right to your own skin, has been lifted and pulled away. Lightning, blessed by Dhinas, courses through you where your blood used to be. Your vision sharpens. Your hearing almost fades.

It’s free access to that oft-mythologized “flow state” every follower of Himstus knows of. It’s more than that, even— already, I watch the grains of sand fall through the hourglass one by one. Already, I can feel the aether surging through me, as I live these seconds more thoroughly than any I have known.

With one haste layered upon them, even an untrained commoner can equal the finest knight in raw velocity, the fleetness of foot and thought. While I’m no warrior savant, I would still like to believe myself well-trained; enough that I have stepped quite broadly into the realm of supernatural. No man may reach that peak for more than a moment through their own training. It doesn’t matter who they are. This is why the spell is so coveted by warriors the world over— imagine dehydrating yourself for three days only to take a liter of coffee right to the dome. It's the difference between standing still and a dead sprint. Between a dull gray and a blinding, blazing red. It’s like life has been breathed into you, when you had forgotten you were one foot in the grave.

That is the first haste.

The second… feels…

—I crouch low. A sprinter’s stance. The grip on my armament is white at the knuckles but my arm is still, calm. Ahead of me, I watch the world that had slowed to a half-crawl seem to stop. Eons later, my mind finds the word, this taking so long a testament to how poorly I learn for all my good teachers’ efforts—

…Multiplicative.

I look to Miina, her arm still outstretched in the instant her spell took hold upon me. I realize that I have spent this same instant coming to terms with my new echelon, and am spending yet more of it looking over my shoulder to Esben. There is still smoke rising from his rifle, and the fairy that brought her wind to me, Selene, is still far closer to me than him. Her wings do not beat. They drift.

I am as removed from the first haste as that state was from my highest natural gear. I wonder for a moment if I might not explode, having this much magical potential running through my veins like white hot magma. My chest is soft, warm down, a chocobo's feathers in the summer. My limbs do not feel themselves move, they are so filled by energy— I simply trust that they have, because I've no other recourse. My heart hammers like the whole of Midgar. I'm not sure I can truly discern one beat from the next.

Worrying? Ought to be. But I have to shelve it. In this altered state, that is oddly easy.

Finally, I return my gaze in that moment to Leviathan ahead. Even in this eternal second, the energy of her channeled aether is powerful enough that even those of us that have not been cursed with naturalborn ability to manipulate the breath of the world can feel it in our bones, in the deep, gnawing dread. That shell around her too, an aquamarine pearl of surging steel, is still no doubt strong as ever. I’ll need to punch above my weight all the same.

Memories flash through me, collected images and words. I am before a fire, hearing Galahad’s advice. Let the weight of the spear’s head carry it through the lead, and follow with my body behind. Gather my energy through the legs and trunk, then leap forward.

I had given the concept a try a few times between then and now. Too committed and too singular for fighting another man, but… I have it down enough to level against a big, stationary, and undeniably protected target as this.

I am at the dunes, after giving all I had to a burst of non-hasted speed, thrusting out the strongest barrier in my arsenal and watching it nevertheless begin to crack as a titan tried to force its way through. Even though it in and of itself was a singular moment I had forged.

So from that my lesson is that there is no necessarily uncrackable wall. No barrier that can’t at least be weakened, if you hit it hard enough behind a sturdy enough weapon. And this thing, pilfered though it is, profaned though it is, was made to pierce through a mighty wyrm’s hide. And I will put behind it a strike at least as hard as that Revenant tried to impale us with.

I am below the waves, lunging for this Eidolon’s false copy, a faye reanimated and trapping me in the leaden notes of her song. It was only a scratch upon her scales, and only piercing a vortex instead of a whole barrier, but my blackened flames do still shepherd my blade home.

How much can I pour into punching through that thing? What do I have left to burn? Enough to reach out and touch this eidolon... a little more thoroughly than a scratch?

A second voice answers me. You’re not particularly giving yourself much time to live out the fortune you’ve already shaved off, it says. It’s rather businesslike about the ordeal through that stilted, staccato cadence it always goads me with, but I can feel an intrigued smile at the corner of the entity’s nonexistent lips. Everyone, eventually, runs out of luck. Period. Not just the good stuff, but the bad stuff too. Still, there’s good news and bad news to this. I can still give you the blaze you want. Enough to fortify this strike further than any other... but you’re going to be hearing a lot more from me from now on.

With something quicker than a thought, Valon’s spear is a bonfire of profaned flame, the black tongues erupting from my palm and licking at the air as though writ upon the world with a heavy, broad calligraphy brush and anthracite ink.

You know, I for once don’t feel like living my next days dreading the bad news— not when I first need to go and earn them, from the bad news that’s already before me. If I turned a day’s finger over on the monkey’s paw once already in this fight, this one…

Yeah, I’m better off not even knowing what I’ve just done to my life. At least until I know I’ll get there. I’ve surely sold some noble end twice over by now, so if I am to die an unlucky man here…

That’s the spirit, champ. It says, pleased that I know better. The conversation is over. My vision, so broad and clear with the speed I am granted, narrows to a pinpoint.

The body no longer responds to the will. If anything, the opposite is true. My mind is informed by the shape my action gives it. The motion is already there. The messages sent long past. At this unreachable pinnacle that only Izayoi has known, intent is not call and response. It is holistic, pure, as it puts power through my legs.

My breath is a hurricane. My twisted aether the black storm. My weapon, and my limbs, the crashing lightning.

My mind, the eye. Serene at the center. Nothing left to do.

For the first and only time, for I know I will never reach this again, I understand why she responds in a more reverent voice than she affords her prayers for our victory, when I ask what she is missing from the days of her prime. I understand it now. This is where we warriors reach out and touch divinity.

The instant overflows. I taste the Godspeed.

The ground cracks beneath my feet, and that fractional moment, that lone shard of still time I had been living out so much within fades into the aether, as I launch myself through the next. The flames at the tip of my bloodred lance gain ruddy hue as I cross the distance, a streak of black in my wake. I am suddenly before her, throwing my whole being behind the point.

Ye serpent, crawling at the base of the World, the cradle at the roots of life itself. You are of the primordial sea, to it you were cast, and to it you shall return, by thy ancient name in my tongue— Jormungandr. I anoint the weapon in this boy’s hands the same as the wise old man who first tossed you to the mighty oceans. The one-eyed king, in the land of the blind. It will strike every bit as true as that which was hewn from the Yggdrasil. Strength and skill will not stray it from its mark, for it is the wolfbiter, the swordbreaker, the rocking—

At first haste, I believe I said your weight leaves you, and you feel like you can do anything and everything at once, for you’re so fast nothing holds you down.

At second haste, however, in putting the Godspeed into any attack…

I learn quickly that speed is a weight all its own— and one far greater behind the point of this lance, biting and burning deep into the watery barrier, than even a human wrecking ball like me could muster with strength alone.

---

---

In one instant, the Kirins' most wayward, lost soul had been spread-eagled and strewn along the battlefield by the Tides that had surged around Leviathan, same as the rest—

And the next, his voice cut through a silence that should not have been there, a single name leaving his haggard throat.

"GUNGNIR."

And in his wake was the clap of thunder, no matter how clear the day overhead.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@HereComesTheSnow Ameri is actually pretty op.

@Estylwen

i mean who are we to say no to that smile