Riven Wight

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Izzy gave a humorless chuckle as Riley finished. “You make it sound like I’m dog-sitting or something,” she grumbled. She glanced back toward the child’s corner. Slowly, she stepped toward him, her gaze on the floor and grip on her staff tight. She sat near him, her staff held in both hands near the end of the shaft and back bent forward slightly.
“Hey,” she began awkwardly, not entirely sure how to even try starting a conversation with him. Even if he would not speak, she had come all this way to check on him. There was no sense in leaving until she at least attempted to talk with him. “How are you feeling?”

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

*Gives a thumbs-up.*

By the way, I meant to compliment you on your foreshadowing with the dream and mouth-hand-thing (such a poetic and technical term)!

It's good to be thorough, even with small details. The reason behind the Guardians being created in the first place, though, is something I'd say isn't exactly small! Sounds fine by me. Like I said, the idea of them was me throwing a clump of clay onto the potting wheel for molding. You know where and how they would fit in best!

Mystery Inc: No Trace Left Behind { Angel & Siaya }

“The very same.” Nate crossed his arms, the flashlight sticking out from beneath one elbow. He raised a single eyebrow at her quick defense. “Take it easy. It was just a statement.”
He shrugged in answer to Maggie’s question, still eyeing her with a suspicious gleam in his eyes. “Same as you, if I had to guess.” He turned and walked toward the door, holding the flashlight at his side in a tight grip. “Fred’s my cousin. Practically brothers, really. And the police are incompetent baboons running around a cage of slippery banana peels. So,” he pulled the door open and used his foot as a stopper. He placed his free hand in a pocket of his jeans and turned to face Maggie once more, “I’m here to do their job and find him. You in or out, Rogers?” He nodded toward the door.

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“Would you keep them to yourself even if I did?” Izzy asked not unkindly. She looked to the floor at her feet. “I’m glad he realized what Cerasus was doing. If he hadn’t...” She shook her head, then gave a nod in thanks. At least she knew he would be lurking around, even if she would not always see him. Her gaze followed Riley’s cigarette when he used it to point, surprised when she realized she had not noticed him in the same room.
Though her night vision was scarcely a ghost of what it had been, it was still enough for her to make out what Cerasus had been reduced to. Her eyes met his for a brief moment before she had to look away.
“Is... is he stuck like that?” she asked, sparing Riley only a quick glance as she leaned her weight on the staff and ran a hand through her hair. It felt odd not having it up. “Or will he age? Will I still age, for that matter, or am I stuck as a teenager for the rest of ever? However long ‘ever’ ends up being. How often will he...” her hand moved through her hair, and her fingertips gently brushed the marks on her neck, “will he need to feed?”

They Live Among Us (Vampiricchild x Siaya)

“The warlock diet,” Victoria repeated slowly. “They have a unique diet?” Curious despite herself, she stood and followed a couple paces behind Alex back into the kitchen.
Victoria glanced around, before her attention settled back on him at his question. “Oh,” she glanced to the phone still on the drawer chest, realizing she had forgotten to tell him who had texted. “She’s fine. She sent the information I’ll need to replace my phone.” She let out a heavy sigh and went to sit on one of the chairs around the small table in the room. “And I still need to cancel cards. I’m starting to question the logic behind keeping everything in one bag.”

Deleted

This morning, not even the shouts and thuds of her brothers waking here irritated Izzy as it usually would. That was a sound of normalcy, a sound she had never thought she would miss. She needed to get up, anyway, as reluctant as she was to do so. She pulled her blanket over her face for a moment, hiding it from the sun filtering in through the curtains of her window.
She peered out of covers and glanced to the clock on her bedside table. With a sigh, she forced herself to get out of bed. How she had missed sleeping in her own bed.
Quietly, she made her way to the restroom. With a shower and a fresh coat of glittery navy nail polish in place from the previous night, the world felt almost normal. But only almost. Even a long, hot shower could not wash away the last two weeks.
Deciding to find something to better hide the marks on her neck than her hair once she got back, she collected her usual walking stick which she had brought back with her, and paused with her hand on the doorknob. This would be the hard part, pretending for the world that the last two weeks really were nothing but an impromptu camping trip and not a series of life-altering events. After bracing herself and doing her best to put on her normal irritated expression at being woken before noon on summer break, she headed downstairs. She brushed her brothers off as quickly as she could, then headed outside. She hesitated for a short moment before stepping directly into the sunlight, two weeks of avoiding it quickly conditioning her against it.
Though her bike still sat in the garage, after so long of being incapable of enduring the sun, she wanted to enjoy the comfortable warmth of it on her skin, even the muggy heat of the late-June day. Her bike could wait until next time.
The walk to the school took longer than she anticipated, but she made it nonetheless. Inside, the rubber bottom of her walking staff thudded against the cracked tiles as she made her way to the third floor.
She stopped when she heard Riley call to her from one of the classrooms, and entered. “Sorry,” she offered. “The walk took longer than I expected.” She shook her head at his question. “He’s made this journey too many times already. I wasn’t going to ask him to make it again. This is my burden to bear, not his. Besides, we both know you really were trying to avoid him.” She glanced behind her to the doorway and hall beyond. She bit her lower lip, a feat she had nearly given up on. “How is he?” she asked quietly.

Deleted

Izzy met Riley’s gaze as he began the explanation of his plan, turning to look to Cerasus when Riley addressed him. She looked back to Riley slowly, glaring at him as he chuckled.
“What?” she interrupted at Cerasus starving to death. She inhaled and looked back to Cerasus when Riley elaborated, her head tilting only slightly when Trevor interrupted.
Izzy looked to the ground as Riley finished answering Trevor’s question. He had been quite serious about no one winning or losing. Her attention snapped to Cerasus. She swallowed as he begged for his death, for her sake. When all was said and done, Izzy slowly stepped in front of Cerasus, knelt down, and sat back on her feet. Her decision indeed.
If she chose Riley’s plan, Cerasus would remain alive, and she would not be a murderer. But, as Riley put it, her life would be dedicated to Cerasus, and he dependent on her. His life would forever be in her hands, and she would never be truly human. And, of course, there would be Cerasus’ ire to deal with. He had made it quite clear how he felt on the topic.
In doing as Cerasus bade, he would get what he said he wanted, and she would return to humanity in its entirety. But she would have killed him now not in defense, but ultimately for her own selfish gain, playing a part in the suicide he had wanted to commit. Could she live with herself for doing that?
Whichever she chose, she had to be certain she was willing to suffer the consequences for the rest of her life, no matter how long that ended up being.
She closed her eyes and took a deep, heaving breath. She swallowed hard, then slowly, her jaw set in her resolve.
“I’m sorry, Cerasus,” she said softly without opening her eyes. “No... no matter how noble you think it is, your way is a coward’s way out.” She looked to Riley, her eyes glistening wetly. “I’ll do it.”

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

Thanks!

Got a little carried away. Heh. Let me know of any objections, and if you're okay with the effects of her overusing her powers.

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

Despite the creature’s thrashing body, Anora’s energy shackles--strips of glowing purple with veins of gold pulsating in the translucent color--held. She did not so much as hesitate to drive her blade home as a cascade of decay gushed from its mouth, the shackle around its neck bursting into mist to allow the knife entrance. When its life appeared to have all but completely slipped away, Anora stepped back, pulling the knife from its flesh and releasing her hold on the shackles on its arms.
She watched it fall in a lump to the ground, her body tense and ready to defend herself just in case. But then it fell still, turning into nothing but the corpse it should be.
Despite the situation, despite the aura that pulsated in the air and the danger of the reptilian woman still lurking, unseen, somewhere around her, a small smile quirked at her lips. She had killed a monster with a taste for human flesh, saveing any it would have gone after. This. This was part of what was missing. This was what she was meant to do. She felt it in every fiber of her being.
“Okay, you cowardly gecko!” she called, emboldened by her defeat of the ghoul. “Where’d you--”
Her words cut off in a gasp as another, stronger wave of the aura crashed over her. She took a few steps backward, away from the dead end, her gaze darting around. The image of the man intensified once more in her mind’s eye, the silvery outline rolling from him much like the aura saturating the air. The feeling that not only was he the source of the aura, but that he and her dreams were connected made her inhale and hold her breath as a single word... no, a name whispered through her mind and echoed around her head.
“Pahnjaka,” she breathed, the name familiar, even natural rolling from her tongue though she knew it had never formed it before.
If he held the key to her dreams, she had to find him. No matter what it took.
The ground rumbled beneath her feat, making her attention snap back to reality. An answer about the dreams that had plagued her would have to wait. Something deep inside her clawed at her, pushing her to put a stop to this before it escalated any further. Tossing aside any thoughts of the reptilian woman, Anora turned and raced toward the opening. She closed her eyes and bent her head, unsure if charging through the spot where paralysis had threatened her would work or not.
An icy air rushed over her, and her paced slowed for a terrifying minute as exhaustion threatened to settle in her. But just as quickly as she had run into it, the sensation passed, and she was sprinting down the backroads toward the grocery store as fast as her legs would carry her. Her car would make locating Pahnjaka that much easier. Her injured shoulder stung as she ran, and she could feel her sleeve sticking to her skin from blood that had soaked into the dark fabric around two narrow tares, but she gritted her teeth and ran on.
Her pace slowed for a moment when she realized the once crowded streets had been abandoned, then ceased, a look of horror on her face, when what sounded like an explosion rose from the direction she was heading. She craned her neck up as the light of the noon sun flooding the backroad changed. Flames shot past in the sky, licking harmlessly at the tops of buildings. A veil of smoke quickly followed after it.
Breathing heavily from both the exertion of her run and panic, she glanced to the road ahead of her.
The moment she emerged onto the sidewalk of the main street, she froze, her lungs refusing to work as she took in the destruction that had ravaged the area. It looked as if she had walked onto the set of apocalyptic movie. Cars were on the sidewalk as if they had been blown off the streets, some dented from ramming into streetlights or each other. Alarms sounded from every vehicle in a deafening drone, their headlights flashing as if even they felt the panic hanging thickly about them. A couple fire hydrants had blown from the sidewalk, leaving only geysers of water in their place that spread an artificial rain on the cracked concrete around them. That water joined leaks spraying up through the broken concrete from busted pipes below. Glass glittered in the sunlight from the shattered windows of every shop down the strip.
A few blocks away, she spotted the source of the damage. Though his back was to her, she could almost see the power radiating from a man. His gray-skinned opponent with what from her current position looked like a bleeding wound on his palm, stood in what the only remaining intact patch of concrete down the entire strip of road. Tendrils of every color wrapped around one of the powerful man’s arms, waiting to strike.
Anora had the feeling she was going to be late for work.
Swallowing hard, she ducked back into the side street and pressed her back against the wall. The sheer strength it would take to create such devastation was way out of her league. But she did not know if anyone else could even see the two. She had to do something before they took out more than just the one road, but if she got in the middle of that, she may as well sign her own death sentence.
A distraction. She needed to create some sort of distraction, something, anything to bring to light the destruction they caused. Even if it would do no good, at least she could say she tried.
She quickly wiped her knife off on her pant leg, returned it to her boot, then dove to where the hood of a car had nearly collided with a storefront. She crouched behind it, only her head visible over the hood. Though she had completed what she had in mind on a small scale a few times, she only hoped she could accomplish it on a larger one, and from such a distance. If she failed, there was no telling what would happen to anyone inside the buildings if things continued to escalate.
Taking a deep breath, she lowered her chin in determined concentration as she exhaled, and raised both hands toward the duelers. Her eyes locked on a spot between the two, and began to glow with a fierceness unlike any they had ever shown before.
A pool of the familiar purple mist streaked with golden particles, her magic in an un-molded form, bubbled over the ground. It began to slowly rise upward in a spiral until it was twice as tall as both men measured together. Tongues of the magic reached out to either side, and the glittering particles rained down as the mist condensed into the swirling, particulate form of a massive falcon, its beak pointed toward the sky and wings stretched out to their full magnificent span.
Anora’s breaths quickened, and fatigue made her legs shake. She was pushing her use of her powers further than she could handle. She knew the feeling from when she had first started using them. Still, she ground her teeth and pushed on.
The bird gave a mighty beat of its wings, then turned its head, its unseeing golden gaze shifting between the two men. Then, it opened its beak.
“Enough,” Anora whispered, but her voice emanated from the bird’s mouth with a crackling fierceness demanding respect. “You’ve had your fun.” Anora faltered, sinking partially to her knees as her world began to spin. The giant bird’s gaze focused on the gray-skinned man. “Now leave, lest the destruction you have caused be dealt upon you tenfold!”
The bird let out a sizzling screech, then raised its wings above its head. The moment the misty feathers collided, the entire form imploded into a tight orb, then burst into a shower of violet mist and golden electrical sparks. The display cascaded to the ground around the two men, the sparks closest to them lashing out with electric fingers.
With a groan, Anora sunk behind the car, her stomach doing queasy flips and darkness threatening the edges of her vision. She leaned her back against the wheel and sat there, limply. She closed her eyes, trying to stop the frantic spinning her world had been thrust into and keep down the contents of her stomach. She could only hope the men would not bother trying to find the source of the spectacle.

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

Quick question, if you don't mind! Would the barrier or whatever have you that kept Anora from retreating without being paralyzed have fallen away, or would it still be there?