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Kera! Are you hurt?

Calen'loki started moving towards the armed humans and was barely paying attention to much of anything else. He completely forgot about the shepard and was keeping himself hidden while trying to watch the humans.

I think those humans are making war on some other humans. I think that I may have to see how afraid goats are of you later Gale, and perhaps find some food.

"I do not know them....I'm not from around here..." He craned his head around to see the men running by. "They are not Feretris citizens though..." His voice took on a tone of worry, as all the men he'd seen for the past few weeks had been enslaved and either anxious for freedom or utterly downtrodden. This surge in violent proactiveness did not sit well with him.

Gale quickly became frustrated with calen's inaction, and slid off the dragon's back, rolling as he hit the ground to avoid twisting his ankle any worse. He hobbled off into the woods, following the clear trail left by the slaves and Kera. He smelled smoke before he heard or saw the chaos: someone had started a fire. He stopped in his tracks, stunned by the sudden violence of the scene. Unfortanetly for him, he stuck out rather badly, a perfectly white, tall man with a look of shock on his thin face. One of the freed slaves, assuming he was a dimwitted guard, charged him from the right with an axe. Gale reacted instinctively, ducking the swing of the axe and leaning his weight forwards to elbow the unfortunate man in the sternum, and whipping his fist up to break his nose. He pulled the punch though, realizing just in time what he was doing and stopping himself. A look of utter dismay passed across his face and he clapped a hand to the stone at the base of his neck and staggered backwards, accidentally placing weight on his bad ankle. He fell to the ground, now wearing the sweaty, pained expression of a man holding back vomit.

Gale was swimming. He could outright hear the star-fallen, jeering at him as his resistance flagged. He had lapses in his vision where he would suddendly feel he was watching the going-on around him through a telescope from a long way away, or have a sudden numbness of a hand or foot. He was sweating bullets as he staggered to his feet and hobbled to the dirt wall Calen had produced. He slumped his arms over the top to support himself, and managed to make eye contact with the dragons. He had never held eye contact for this long in the time he'd known them. He mouthed the word "Run". And then his body went completley numb and he heard in the back of his mind a low, clear voice say Finally. And he knew they were all in deep trouble.

A howl of euphoria tore loose from Gale's-no, the star-fallen's- throat as he vaulted the earthen wall, landing easily on both feet. Either his ankle had healed, or he wasn't too fussed about the pain anymore. He looked taller because he stood straighter, cutting an impressive figure against the burning buildings around him. He also wore a wide grin on his face, giving him an odd resemblence to a coyote, and the stone in his neck was glowing faintly blue. Without bending down, he kicked off both his boots, leaving himself barefoot. He took one long, deep breath, drawing it in through his nose slowly and savoring the feeling of air in his lungs. Then he killed the person nearest to him.

His method was direct and simple. He didn't delight in gore, but in the act of killing, the moment where he almost thought he could feel the dearly departed's soul slipping away past his fingertips. That first kill was hardly spectacular if you weren't watching his feet. He simply looked around for the nearest fool and charged him, easily dodging his outstretched sword and punching him in the nose. As the man fell backwards, he grabbed the sword from his slackening hand, and rammed it through his forehead and into the soft dirt, soft enough that everyone was having trouble walking. Everyone except the star-fallen. Wherever his feet touched the ground, Calen's magic was dispersed and the ground became solid again.

He went on killing, not discriminating between Feretran and slave, man, woman, and child. At one point, three men with an extreme resemblence managed to surround him. None of them could help letting a grin slip over their features as they played their trup card: Each of them summoned a fireball and hurled it at the star-fallen, whose ever-present grin only widened. He held out his hands to either side, and opened his mouth wide. As the fireballs hit his hands, they swirled briefly and vanished, leaving behind faint sparks. The third soard into his gaping mouth and met the same fate. He drew his hands in towards his hips, letting them then drift up and halt at chest level. He winked one near-white eye at the man most directly in front of him and winked. The man paled, opening his mouth to say something. His words never flew, though, as the star-fallen thrust his hands forwards and opened his mouth again, and breathed fire at the poor man, who was incinerated under the full force of all three fireballs forced into one.

Calen'loki shivered as best a dragon could. When his magic was removed from the ground it felt, for lack of a better word, icky. Calen removed his magic from most of the ground but left it soft where feet were still sunken so that the humans could pull free. He had managed to make it far enough away to feel safe and so hid in the trees.

Kera, the star-fallen in Gale has been set free. He is killing the other humans and he is very good at it.

Calen'loki sent his magic through the ground once again but this time he simply moved earth rather than alter its density. The earth several yards ahead of Gale began to move up and away from him, creating a wall with a growing pit in front of it between Gale and the other humans.

There is a legend, came Kera's voice more faintly, that the star-fallen are akin to our ancestors, that dragons once fell to the sky. Use that as you will, but do not get yourself killed trying to save every last human. Kera, in contrast, was trying to save one human in particular, and didn't care much for the rest, although it was difficult for Calen, in his present position, to try to puzzle out why. And appeared that, unless she was dying, she was leaving him to his own devices.

Whether or not Gale's possessed body went after any of the remaining humans, some would certainly escape, and he would eventually run out of those who did not. That is the problem with killing, and never creating.

After a few moments, they might see Kera pass over head as she flew high towards the west, back home.

The star-fallen raised Gale's face and let out a harsh, barking laugh. He began to walke towards Calen, along the earthen wall. "I am the Evening Star, Of no other title. I herald of the dark and cold, bring of death and struggle. I am the death to the Morning Star his life. Mayhaps we come of selfsame plane, dragon, but thou art no blood of mine. Ah, there ye be..." He suddendly leapt off the wall, heedless of Gale's injury, and moved towards the woods where Calen lay hidden, having caught a glimpse of the dragon's mammoth form through the branches. He was nearly there when a spasm crossed his face. In that split second, his eyes filled with fear and his jaw went slack, as though preparing to say something. He also stumbled, feeling the pain in his ankle: for that moment, Gale was winning the fight for control. It was gone almost before it arrived, and the Star barely broke his stride.