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She felt that this was one thing she did have the authority to make requests about. It was her ring after all.

However, showing it to Caelius was probably a wise thing to do - Except it wasn't.

She only tried once to pull it off, but it didn't move. She'd not tried to remove it since the time in the hallway, she was used to it not coming off anyway. And she suddenly didn't want it to come off. She didn't want to hand it over.

The roaring in her ears was almost deafening, and for a moment all that was in the room was her and her ring. It was hers, she knew that, she felt that. She'd been chosen and it worked for her. Like she'd said, it was safest in her care. It belonged in her care.

"I'm sorry, Sir," she said quietly. "I can't." Sherry took a step back, then another.

She would have told Mark that she just can't give it to him. That she couldn't even if she wanted to, but she didn't want to hand it over so it not coming off was a moot point. She would have said as much, but the sound of gold and scales was drowning out everything and the room was no longer the office it was Gold. The eye of the dragon was looking at her again, and Sherry stared back, trying to see what was behind it.


A searing pain in her arm pulled her out of the gold and back to the office. It took a moment to register what had happened. Caelius had her, the pain was a broken arm, and he was trying to remove her ring. Remove her ring and the finger with it.

Armagnac was railing in her mind, anger and rage telling to right it. The voice and boiling emotions of her weapon were small compared to the anger and words from the ring.

Sherry was afraid, and in pain, and the fear of more pain wasn't helping. But this time she wasn't helpless. She wasn't pinned to a wall while something picked her apart piece by piece, she wasn't shield-less and weak on the training fields with Jason threatening to murder her. Sherry clung to the anger that belonged to the voices inside of her, and let her fear and pain become one with it. She wasn't helpless and he couldn't just take what was hers.

"No," she might have been crying, "no." In her right hand she summoned her weapon. "It's mine! Stop it!" She meant both her finger and the ring. Mostly the ring, she realized.

She drew on the everything she could then. Her strength, the strength of her weapon, their anger, her fear...and the anger of the dragon in the ring, and the power it was willing to lend her. Truth might not help much, but anything to fuel her will was helpful.

Glaives were not made for combat this close, but Sherry held it near the blade and jabbed at the Death Lead's knife hand. "Stop it! It's mine and you can't have it!"

Damage: 9

Sherry was feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything. The pain, the fear, the noise, the anger of herself and two other things, the fear of losing her ring, the need to do something to keep it - yet she still found herself pausing at that hand, that smile--

The woman was gone. Her reality came crashing back in like a wave - though Sherry could hear the whisper of a song over it. A song, and another voice that was much more familiar.

She couldn't fight any longer, her body refused. She tried. Helpless again. No, that was wrong. She had the ring still. She had it's power. The power to command and question, the power to ask for truth. To demand it.

It was all she had left, and she would use every weapon she could. Sherry drew on the power of the ring, focusing on it's voice, letting her rage and anger get as close to its as she could. "Stop!" She tried to pour as much command into her voice as possible. "It is mine, you can not have it. Why do you want it? What good will it do you? Why must you try to take it from me? Leave it be!" She was shouting.

Sherry didn't even have time to think about what Cealius was saying - the world was replaced by gold again. But this time she wasn't' alone there.

"Me?" She barely managed to get the word out- everything seemed to shatter, though it was just the cage. Shattered and turned to teeth. Sherry felt herself pulled forward, just in time, too, for a massive head was chomping at them. And then it -the world- was all falling.

Fear began to grip Sherry as the void loomed beneath her, the only thing keeping her from following everything else into it was the hand holding her wrist. A cold hand. "But," she managed a whisper. "What price?" It was one thing that she had been told to ask, and the words didn't even leave her lips as she began to fall into the void. No not a void. There was something down there, waiting to--

She opened her eyes to see her own room there. A dream? A nightmare? That would explain the whole waking up suddenly. Armagnac?

She seemed about as perplexed as Sherry, but not worried.

"I hate dreams," she muttered. She was just rolling out of bed when she noted the noise. "Huh?" That sounded like a child.

That didn't make any sense. Why would there be a child in the hallway? Unless... Sherry looked down at herself. No. She was still an adult. Though it was possible others weren't. She should check on that. She couldn't just leave a child crying.

Sherry moved towards her door and opened it.

Sherry hadn't been expecting to see a child that looked so much like herself. Little and blond, adorable even under the tears. The hiccup that happened as she looked up only made her more adorable.

"I, um," Sherry could almost swear she'd seen that face in pictures. Of herself. "Um. Yeah. I'll help you." Why was this girl on the island? Sherry looked around them. No sign of anyone else. "Outside can be pretty scary around here, but don't' worry. I can handle it." She looked back down at the girl. "Where did you come from? Where do you need to go? Do you know?"

"Okay." Sherry smiled and followed after the girl.

She began to frown as things seemed to get a little odd. The hall was too long, and too dark, and the walls were closing in and - that dead end shouldn't be there. This was wrong. All wrong. Where were they? Where-- the little girl walked right through the wall. "Um."

Sherry was left standing there with two doors. A red heart and a green cup? Sherry looked around. This...this was all there was here. She'd established this wasn't her dorm building. Was this the dream?

Sherry hoped not. Dreams held more weight than she liked to admit, at least in her experience.

"Okay," she said, looking around again. "Back probably isn't an option. So a door it is." She moved slowly, first placing a hand on the door with the red heart, trying to get a feel for it, then a hand on the door with the green cup.

"How am I supposed to choose?" She had a feeling once she opened one it would be too late to change her mind.

She let her hand rest on one door, then the other again.

The voice was hurrying her along. "Probably not a good idea to linger, is it?"

Sherry could feel Armagnac weighing the options as well. They both knew which one she preferred.

Behind the red door was power, strength, visions of things which Sherry did want, but that terrified her at the same time. All the power, none of the helplessness.

The green door was quieter. A piece, a part of something. If she went though this door she would become one with that which was more than just herself. A cog in the machine.

Sherry looked down at her hands. There was no ring, there was no pain. Just her. Just Sherry, one little hunter on an island full of them. One little hunter who was just a piece of something, a part of something. Her hand rose to touch the green door again. Years ago she told herself she was a cog in the machine, and she was fine with that. She was still fine with that. Except... "I don't want to lose myself. I want to be something more than just a piece of something." It was selfish.

"Besides," she said, to herself and her weapon, "I think..." She looked down at her left hand. It had been the tiniest little taste of power. Just a tiny, tiny bit. Power and defiance. "I liked it." Her hand hovered over the red door. She could be a ruler. She could be everything.

Yet. Who would she rule for? Herself? There was no point in power if it was only for herself.

She had to choose.

"I don't like either one. I want to be myself, but I don't want to be terrible." Which was worse? Staying a part of something, being just one piece of the whole and never special, but helping something be great? Or being someone power hungry and strong and ruthless and herself great but terrible?

Sherry looked around again. Two choices. "Sorry, Armagnac." Sherry reached out for the green door.

Empty. Large but empty. Nearly empty.

Sherry moved slowly, cautiously towards the cup of water. The grail. Her fingers brushed the edge of it, lightly. There was so much there. So vast, so old and young, near and far. It was overwhelming - except not. She just... couldn't find herself there.

She pulled her hand back and stared at the grail.

So much there. It called to her, the very water of it called to her, and she knew it would give her everything. All the knowledge, all the wisdom, youth forever... and again she felt what she was drowning in all of that.

She didn't want that. She'd come too far to lose herself. Maybe it was selfish, and she felt guilty for that, but it was true. She was afraid of losing herself. She was selfishly, stupidly thinking of herself as more important than that. It was one thing to be a part of the greater good, one things to be part of something more... but here in this quiet room facing nothing but the grail and a forever lost among everything else, Sherry knew that she didn't truly want that. Not deep down in the core of her being.

Sherry looked around. Could she leave? Would it let her? "Leave. I will leave. This...this isn't want I want." She turned back, looking for the door.