Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jaster's pace there had been somewhat slower than the others as he was unknown to them and uncertain that his movements further inwards would cause the distraction he was trying not to move into play, but he was also newly fused and lacking the strength the others appeared to have and of little threat to her. He had ignored others as he and Saljin slipped past them, quickening his pace and stride to slip around the corner and into the next room even as he noted her moving. He was of little threat to her. But he soon knelt down beside the two as they tried to bandage, sliding his arms beneath the girl on the floor and raising her up slightly in support. The blood little mattered to him though for once he tried not to study the fascination things of such a nature held for him.

"Raising her upwards a bit should help you." he stated softly, voice definitely not an order. He did not know them.

It seemed odd that her arm was gone, but he braced her body for them as much as he could. His thoughts returned to the missing appendage. Why would someone take an arm? And where was it? What exactly had happened? He turned his head, trying to see about the room, but his focus was needed on what they were doing. Trying to save her life.

Missing?

The sensation he received from Tajnevaki was a question rather than an agreement. Something incoherent slipped down over him and Taj shoved against him forcefully. Now was not the time to try to push his way forwards. It would hinder what he was trying to do, so Jaster fought to keep his attention on helping and he won. But the feeling was not dismissed and he thought about the reaction silently watching them tighten the wrappings to stop the blood. Was Taj asking if it were really missing or saying that it was not? Sometimes his cryptic answers were annoying if they were in the wrong spot.

"Saljin, start looking around for the lady's arm. I don't understand why it would be missing. A fight might have cut it off, but I would think that it would be lying here beside her. Taj likened the one out there as empty and waste, but I-we have no power to face her. There is no trust there though."

Saljin rumbled in extreme uneasiness as a growl slipped free, but he began looking around. His nose stirred the nooks and crannies behind the statues and all the places bloodied. All he found was dust until he followed the stairs upwards to stare at what was left of the one there.

Pained surprise slammed into his senses for the second time that day, and the feline form he wore shifted, vanishing to replace fur and claws with skin and clothing. Saljin stumbled backwards a step, finding himself sprawling. Staring in wonder, he found himself opening his mouth to speak only to say nothing.

Red hair and gold? Was that- that...? Saljin was quite uncertain how to describe what had been done and it was hard even with the things he'd seen to wrap his mind around what this was. Was that the god they had been looking for? To find him in such a state would sting and he glanced over at the younger man as he tried to help with the shattered girl. He shook his head, finding his voice.

"No arm, Jaster. I do not think it is here. The one up there cannot be helped. It will take more than we can do" His words were truth but not informative. They could not be. Not yet. Not to Jaster.

"Then we take care of her first. When we get her bandaged, we will move her to one of those round couches. It will be more gentle until a solution to them presents itself." His voice soft, but even then Taj pushed again, this time shoving hard into Jaster not unlike hitting him with a book that had pale hair behind it. He winced gasping in painful surprise as thoughts and images spun. A book with hair? He blinked. Literati?

"Someone needs to tell them that her arm is missing. Taj just threw a mental book at me to act, so.. the one called Literati I would guess." His voice was loud and clear with no name to call the master of books, but how far his tone would carry, he did not know. The three of them were busy.

Finn-att was tired of waiting - tired of standing and listening, watching everyone else wait, or else tend to the fallen Goddess. Tired of looking at that Thing - though Knowledge called it Queen, he couldn't see it as a being of either gender, hardly a being at all. Ugly, wrong, dangerous. Whatever evil had happened here to draw them, it had been the cause.

..and yet everyone simply stood, and watched it move to take its leave. What were they waiting for? Surely they couldn't mean to just let it go. So why did they not move? The centaur would have expected more action from Gods, particularly against those who wronged them, and Samyaza certainly had.

His frustration grew and became anger - not just at the Grigori-Queen, but at all others in the room as well. Cowards! How could the Gods be cowards? Even the one inside him sought to hold him back, to soothe his ire. But he would not have it. He was tired of it. Most of all, he was tired of standing idly by; and not just as he was this moment, but as he had for a year or more. Waiting, trapped, reined in by Night in a world of stone and stairs; he was tired of listening, tired of doing what he was told.

Someone had to move, and he wasn't going to wait any longer for someone else to do it, for a by-your-leave.

But then one...began to sing? It was, without question, meant to do something, but what he didn't have any real idea. So he decided to treat it as a convenient distraction, and moved, despite the horrified grasping of Itztlac at his mind. Finn-att surged forward, charging at Samyaza - he would jump the couch, draw his sword and strike at her.

At least, that was his intention...whether or not it would work out that way remained to be seen.

Ellis bristled at the sound of footsteps softly padding towards him before he forced his body to relax--it couldn't have been the thing out there, it had no feet and sounded to be in conversation he was too preoccupied to eavesdrop on anyway. He turned his eyes from the raw wound he was tending to dart a look over his shoulder, almost relieved when he found it was a tiny woman rather than a big scary thing. She couldn't have possibly posed a threat, and he was confident enough in his masculinity to be sure he could have kicked the a** of such a small creature anyway. Nonetheless, he was relieved when she wordlessly offered him more cloth to use to stem the flow of blood from this as-of-yet unnamed woman.

"Do you think you can tear that into strips?" Ellis asked quietly, nodding towards the extraneous garment. "We can at least wrap the wound up, a little. My shirt's gonna be pretty useless as a band-aid soon." Indeed, blood was already starting to seep through his fingers where they held the sodden cloth to the place Gaia's arm used to be.

Another man joined them soon enough, and he hunched over the unconscious woman protectively as this stranger propped her up. "Be careful," Ellis chided him, shifting on his knees to keep his ruined shirt pressed tightly against the wound. Wary eyes watched the interplay between new host and unknown quantity when a voice from the main room grabbed his attention. It was singing, of all impractical things--such beauty in so horrible a setting. He wanted to listen, but was hastily reminded that this was neither the time nor place.

"Yu," he called over his shoulder, taking the other man's suggestion to heart, "you're closer. Ask it where the arm is!"

Xuan was already at work long before Khevile on the words, melodic and almost without time. Gianfar knew something, something more then they but he was much Older in this time then she. But... no. She spoke of more things to do. These were things that if allowed would bring worse thent he pain, worse then the Crown's situation. And then-

Kheviel's eyes narrowd to amber slits as he heard the words through the mess, the din, the chaos of it. Wasn't that how endings were, but a mess and uncalculated fallings of all? An arm from the Empress? He unconsciously channeled Xuan's mind on choice of words.

A prize, something... perhaps useful since she is the Fount of Life, Xuan snarled and before much more could pass between them they were both aware of the sound of hooves.

Kheviel realized then his blocking of the door had left one crucial uncovered place. A window, innocently there. She could easily break through the glass, it would not be hard for anyone too. She was going to leave through the glass window and do whatever worse she could. There was too much wrong, too much screaming in his heart and mind, of pain and agony at all that was coming to be...

His hands drew daggers on instinct and a blade was launched, glimmering only slightly fom the enchant it held from years past. Blades that had been there at the worst of times, including that fateful night he and Xuan had become one initially. She could not be allowed to leave, she mustn't, for she had more to do that would bring worse upon them, by her own words. Gianfar be damned, they couldn't wait any longer, and someone else was moving in as well. It was too late, and maybe too little by now. His left hand was ready to flip the blade to the right as he watched, ready to try and react.

Song rose, washed the air with pure waves, much like the Sound he imagined. It wasn’t Samyaza. She gave him nothing. She was too wise for that, he guessed. Their surface pleasantries only thinly veiled what they both wanted, and he didn’t want the same thing.

”Meet again when seed has eaten
all the flesh of fruit and Tree,
when you’re gathered, can’t be beaten -
then you’d offer me to me?”

Even now she’s poised to flee.

He was so close...the shock of His crumbling, seeing Samyaza, the song he heard now. The Words were as close as that place where names hovered when you couldn’t remember them.

Then, echoing Samyaza’s lilting of his name, an acidic growl, each syllable thrown separately. ”Her arm, Gi an far!”
His mind spun, apples and sevens falling, the winning alignment was lost, the slots stopped on Yu’s question.
Where are the arms? Vines green and withered, mother and crone, entwined like snakes to eat each other. The immediate answer was obvious. All that was missing here – His name – was taken by her.
Why? He had no idea.
Where has she put them? There was nothing to her. She wore nothing, carried nothing, wielded Nothing.
The wheels snapped into place.

“The arms are in the Void within her!” he yelled to the room. His voice was normal, hoarse vibrations of flesh and breath.
Just as he was dropping his pretenses, a beast leapt the couch like Sagittarius in the sky. His jaw dropped too. He had warned them!

Some of our fellows' uncertainty seem to have diminished. Strike now, strike swiftly, lest we miss the opportunity. Eid continued to struggle with his disobedient host in an attempt to draw the sword at his hip.

They are being as brash and possibly as foolish as you. The scholar and the hunter are yet to have acted aggressively. They both know something, Gianfar mentioned as much. And you still have failed to draw my sword. Even as he fought to prevent the sword from being drawn, Eddard found himself instinctively moving around the edge of the room along the wall to put himself into a flanking position nearest the window that she seemed to be heading too. And then there was song in the air. Would he give in to Eid's rage?

The song has begun, I command you to dance with this Queen. Do so with the brave and the strong. Do so without regard for the meek and cowardly.

I should not have to explain the unspoken contract I am obligated to as host to you of all people. I will not blindly throw you into undoing when it is my responsibility to foster you into your former power while I have a say in the matter. If you must consume or discard my being one day, it will happen because I did as was charged. With his final proclamation, Eddard forced his right hand free of his sword and assumed full control over his faculties once more.

M u s i c ?

Just the same she stilled, poised in front of the window, QuiverBoy at her back and Gianfar nearby, but parted by furniture. They were all moving. A great form charging up. The other warrior sidling like a crab. Time seemed vague in the turning of the gears of the gods around her until the mortal blade drug over the haze shield.

Her eyes refocussed. "I hear war horns in the Hall-"
The centaur's sword never connected, the metal was eating itself up to the hilt, towards his hand. Then another disruption, and she quirked to see a dagger stuck in her, bloodless,　falling into particles before vanishing altogether. The 'wound' closed. "Foolish mortal contrivances strike first blows to start the dance, covered by the lady's magic thrall. "

Her concentration was briefly broken, just the same, and the field dissipated. It wasn't necessary. A quick glance confirmed what she needed. The boy was still there...to take the glass. She put her claws to his neck, turning like an asp, and drove him through. Followed.

Follow the leader.


(Arctang will suffer void rot on his neck from the contact, but not as bad as they may have been, since Samyaza is not using them as a focussed attack. )

His...his sword! Startled to a halt, he stared wide-eyed as the blade dissolved, working its way up to the hilt. He never bothered to see if if it kept going and ate up what remained of the weapon, because he threw the uesless thing away from him in horror. What...how had she done that?

Itztlac might have given him some kind of 'I-told-you-so' answer, but if he did, it never registered with the centaur - he was too busy staring as Samyaza drove one of the gods through the window. He didn't know which it was, but it didn't matter, as reflex took over within a moment. He gathered himself and leaped through the window after the pair, with sense enough to make sure he didn't land on the fallen God.

Metal may not have done the trick, but his hooves were a force to be reckoned with, and he was more than prepared to use them. He looked for an opportunity to strike out at the Grigori.

I would not be so certain. Don't be foolish! If you die, we both die.

But there were some things more important than his own survival, or even his God's.

Jaster nodded, falling silent as he held her gently while the little woman hurried to find something to cauterize the wound. He heard voices and yells and singing blended coming from the other room. Whatever they did in there, this girl's arm must be important in some way. The feeling he got from Taj was that it was extremely so though he did not begin to understand it and Taj seemed uninclined to explain if he could. Mystery had fallen silent and he began to suspect that the rest was in other hands still.

A tourniquet he had been thinking of, but once the word sprang from the little woman's lips, he knew that heat would work better. His knowledge of aiding was limited to what he had read from the library long ago and taught in school. Not much. She seemed to know.

"Cauterize." The word repeated itself as he thought of the meaning. "It would stop it."

Saljin had turned to stare as the woman ran up the stairs. These three needed time to do what they could, but someone needed to see what happened in the next room. It was better to be wary and alert than to delve entirely into what was being done. The shattering of glass was heard, and he turned his head startled by the sounds. Glancing at the one near him, Jaster frowned glancing towards his friend as Taj moved uneasily though he remained silent.

"Make sure she doesn't need help up there, Saljin. Or burn herself." Jaster stated, indicating where the little woman had gone. He glanced over at the man beside him holding cloth to her arm. "I suppose that creature went through the window, but why did she need her arm?"

The shifter nodded, moving upwards and past the throne and one there. He stopped to the side so as not to startle her, violet eyes watching closely. It would not do for her to be burned. She was the one who knew what needed done. "'Tis hot here. I am Saljin. Do you need any help, Lady?"

The music had stopped, replaced by murmers, shattering glass. Their last moment to act was stretching out, almost merciful, but it was in slow motion.

His thoughts weren't for the unfortunate who had gone through the window, or for the valiant youth whose hooves plowed the air like he'd send them after his sword. He was wholly bent on Samyaza. He couldn't let her go just yet. She was not the sort of villain to monologue useful information before she died, or to give in to torture. How you tortured someone who embraced nihility he didn't know. But even to see her, to hear her, to watch her fight was teaching him.

He burst up in a cloud of feathers, yelling over his shoulder.

"Don't let her go! She'll free the others! We have a chance against her alone!" He was shouting through molasses. But in real time his contradiction chased right on the heels of Ea's order.

He spread his wings, his robes fluttering, his hair down and wild, filling the window space like an image too cliche to have graced the Pantheon decor. Light even haloed him, electric sparks like stars caught in his hair. Miniature bolts jumped from windowframe and pillar, from red bellied clouds outside and the dusty ground. It wasn't Indra's Vajra or Thor's Mjolnir, more like the errant finger that touched Franklin's key. But every bolt centered on her, as if she gave them off. She was caught in the middle of a lightning globe, a science experiment.

I hope she uses potassium to puppet limbs or fire synapses. Electricity won't grip void, or seize it up. Let it hold her, just enough for others to attack. Good gods...can they? Does anyone have offensive magic besides me?

Her shield was down, even the centaur boy had a chance, but it would be up any moment. They had to press her more, closer to the limits of her power. Make her Speak.

It was a disaster in motion, one which you could only watch with a sickening feeling in your stomach. His dagger had hit, dissolved, and the wound shut. All that effort, for nothing at all? He felt a sort of lost despair at the situation, uncertainty cluding his mind.

KHEVIEL! Xuan roared in his mind, forcing him to snap back to the situation and renew his sense. Once she was sure she had him aware, her voice was a growl at him in his head, angry and frustrated at the entire situation. Don't you dare give in now, I know you can do something. We have to - for Gaia, for everything... hell, for us. She's up to no good.

And what, you didn't hear the other? Unmade? He wasn't exactly ready to get them both killed - himself, alone, he wouldn't have cared, but Xuan was a part of him.

And Gianfar says otherwise. Who's to say who is right? She has Gaia's arm and there can't be a good reason for that. Hell, she says she ahs more to do and if she is going to call relatives, that's bad. Didn't we have enough of a problem with her? Think of having more of them... There was a slight desperation to her voice, a ruling fear of things getting worse then they were, of things being unfixable.

Kheviel was already moving again, this time for the door and flung it open to dart outside and around to keep a sight on Samyaza. He was an assassin, not a mage, and it was more then painfully obvious that his weapon skills may prove fruitless here. There had to be something, anything -

It was a flash of inspiration, a one in a million shot but it had to be something. If she could consume things like metal, could she mute a fire? He still had a few more daggers on him at the worst - he tore at one sleeve, ripping it in quick motion and wrapping it about the hilt quickly and securing it with a pierce with the blade. His hand pulled free a lighter from his pocket, something kept to burn evidence if needed and at the worst, use it for other's lighting needs. He drained off some of the lighter fluid onto the cloth, holding it carefully and lit it.

Gripping what hilt was not covered by cloth he aimed and launched again, going for her back with force on the throw. Flames licked at the skin of his arm, causing him a flash fo pain he barely registered as he let the blade go, waiting and hoping. At the worst, what? Nothing? At least he was trying. But it was a two-pronged battle - against her, and himself, as the weight of the world hung low.

Eddard watched as the events unfolded, the weapons dissolving as they came into contact with this supposed queen and then how she drove one of the gods through the very window he had tried to move to and then followed her victim. The two leads he had hoped to follow were now contradicting each other, the scholar and the hunt, and oddly enough their actions seemed to contradict their roles as well.

He could not look within, to Eid, for guidance. He had offended him and driven him to silence once more and likely wouldn't follow his word anyway. Instead he followed the words of Gianfar.

As the haze shield seemed to dissipate, Eddard enacted his weakest human spell, the casting time almost instant. Though the duration would be short due to Eid's presence handicapping his abilities, Eddard gambled that the encounter would be short enough that it wouldn't matter. His eyes glowed silver as he drew the one of the two daggers that was concealed in his boot. Rolling around to peer through the broken window, the enchantment on his eyes allowed him to percieve the pattern in the weave of magic that surrounded her, even flowed through her. The complexities were astonishing and difficult to interpret, but he could see one thing. The shield was indeed thinning and dissipating.

In the blink of a silver lit eye, Eddard picked an appropriate hole in the weakening field and let his dagger fly with all his strength as if his mark wasn't Samyaza but something far past her. He was strong enough to tear through a castle portcullis with his bare hands, would this strength do anything to serve him against a foe so rich in magic? And then he too was climbing through the window in pursuit.

"Hopefully we won't have to find out," Ellis replied, looking over his shoulder as the singing stopped and glass shattered. He caught frantic movement out of the corner of his eye before turning back to the other man. "We should move her now," he insisted, moving an arm behind their patient's back, "before the fighting gets any closer. The metal has to heat anyway, and there's no point leaving us all exposed like this. We'll lift her on three--ready? One, two--"

Doesn't "cauterize" mean--

Yes.

Oh, gross.

"--three." Ellis rose slowly, an arm gently supporting the goddess' back beneath her bloodstained wings. He waited for the other man to rise with him before leading them towards a couch tucked securely behind a wall of the throne room, out of immediate sight of the battle.

Apparently, they were not yet finished with their hobbled waltz. The sound of further tinklings of glass and iron fitting broken further with extra passings just served as warning that more then one not-even-god had decided to follow along. She took to ascending, let them fly if they could.





fizzle-snap-pop The air was alive with something like enlightenment, only the painful, headache kind. That would be Knowledge's learn'd strike. Jumping on the bandwagon as well. Pressing, pressing, press the lesson further, deeper,
press the gory, ghostly boojum
'till it sickens, weary state
and turns upon the field in hate

"Very. Well. If-you-aren't-done."Jaw ground bone on bone and worked in fury to get word from invisible, sparked throats.

Another dagger, this one flaming. She reached back and plucked it out, spindles paying the licking tongues no heed. She turned where she was and used the weapon point to mark a path in her field of vision, the voice from no throat echoing stronger in ripples the trinal chant that stung the ears,

"Val foth nosslythe, calrue no eldawehn."
"Val foth nosslythe, calrue no eldawehn."
"Val foth nosslythe, calrue no eldawehn."

The words formed threads and shot through the earth in a runed ring around the small grounds of the pantheon building. It rose in flashes like geysers, a wall, huge, eating light and air and sky between. It ate the earth a foot wide, and cut off the nearest pursuers from the building....the building from the her.

A troll, an elf-thing, and the centaur near, visible. countable.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you. Then we need it to burn hotter, but I'll do it for you, Lady." He glanced to her feet, noting that she was blistered already. "There is no reason to ruin your feet further when I wear boots and my reach is a bit longer. Sit and take the pressure from those burns, but I will need you to tell me when it is ready. Medicine is not my forte."

His jacket was quickly off and tossed aside, shirt sleeves shoved upwards. Adding dry wood carefully to the flame he hoped the fire would grab hold of it and begin to blaze even more. Glancing over he caught sight of a small bellows often used to stir the air and make a fire hotter. Without hesitation, he picked it up and began to push the flames making them rise and grow stronger.

"More wood and air should help speed it up a bit." He wiped the sweat from his brow, smudging his forehead with dirt. Glancing towards where Destruction was changed, he shook his head. Jaster would not like this one little bit. He'd spoke of his regret to Evadne and they had talked on the trip to reach here. Perhaps this was what was needed to make him understand. It was time to lose the boy and become a man. He sighed, shaking his head. Either way, it would not be easy.

He glanced to Betha as he stoked the fire once more, stirring the flames higher. "Do you know what is truly happening here?" His voice was soft and not so curious as wanting information on what they faced.

"Yes, we should." Jaster agreed and then moved slowly, carefully with the man. It would not do to make her injury worse when they were trying to stop it. Gently he aided settling her on the cushion, but still maintained his support so that bandaging would be easier.

"I am Jaster, but the god we become is Tajnevaki." He introduced himself, hoping that the little woman would soon return and this girl would have a better chance. "My friend is cursed to be a shapeshifter, but he means no harm."

Jaster glanced upwards as the ground shook and the light coming in the windows seemed to dim. What on earth was going on out there? A frown creased his brow as he glanced over, but he cradled the girl in his arms a bit more protectively. She could not defend herself. It was up to them. He wanted a bed and to sleep, but though he blinked tiredly, he focused on what he was doing. Fusing the stone had taken a great deal out of him, but he still forced himself to task.

Nothing was going right. This was impossible! That Thing was all but impossible to stop, wasn't she? With her spell, a wall went up around the Pantheon, cutting them off - cutting them off from others who might have been able to do more. He was beginning to realize that he wwas all but useless. His sword was gone, and whether or not his hooves would have been more effective, he would probably never know, not with the Grigori now fleeing through the air.

Though he knew now it could not harm her, he unslung his bow, drew an arrow from his quiver, and let fly; perhaps he could delay her, if only with mere annoyances. It was a pathetic hope, but it was not in Finn-att to give up. He would try anything he had, no matter how foolish it might seem.

The magical wall sprung up behind Eddard, catching him off guard. Such power. Eddard knew he had bitten off more than he could likely chew...and he relished it.

With the thrum of the centaur's bow Eddard broke out into a strafe, rounding away from his fellows in an attempt to avoid any sort of blast area effect. He could not hope for too much with his other dagger, especially at the distance he wanted to have. His motion brought to mind a number of possibilities for the next course of action. He weighed them as best he could, each sharing varying degrees of futility.

He couldn't likely pull off his spells that manipulated his locomotion for he was exhausted of magic aside from Eid's dampening effect. Approaching a dilapidated building, a scheme began to formulate in his head. It had the likelihood of failure woven in it, but was still worth a shot. Now if only the other two are able to stall and survive.

"s**t."

The voice was neither fully elf nor dragon but a mix of both as they both came to the same conclusion. They were cut off from the others, and worse, he had no solid clue just yet what to do about this. Obviously she'd cast magic - a tongue he knew not - and spells took effort, a source, something. She needed to be broken, airborne or not, and that ... dome dropped. Damnit, there were three of them, and she was.... ungodly.

Nice choice of words, Xuan commented dryly. Don't stand still.

He spit on the ground, shifting quickly as he snapped one wrist for another dagger. What he wouldn't give to know a spell or have even a wand to try and use right now. He shifted, moving to space himself from the others as he gauged his place, the angle, and more. The blue-skinned one was moving, and the centaur wasn't giving up. Good, good...

He shifted the dagger between hands and let another fly, trying to keep her busy as he thought. Distractions, annoyances.... distractions.

"Samyaza," he said keeping a loose stance ready to react. "What is it you're hoping to do with all this? What is it that you want? Why are you doing this?" Talk. It was easy to make somehting stop thinking if you tried and maybe he could bait her into something. At the least, if she answered, he may have some idea to deal with things later, providing he didn't die now. She was too intent on fleeing though it seemed, then to stay too long... but it was still dangerous.

To the others the wall was despair. Count the distance 12 inches deep or lightyears made spanless without light (how fast could darkness travel?), it was the same to them. It could be a hairs breadth; they could not pass.

Gianfar alone felt hope, rising like a drug in the back of his throat, a sudden buzz.
It took so little! Only half of the gods, if that, were giving chase. His thunderbolts had slowed her only enough for daggers to sting. He had feared they would be no more than bees, pesky to a lioness. But here! She not only swatted, she roared!

Sussurous syllables, paper tearing or fire’s first inhale. Repeated, rising pitch and swell. The sound drummed in marrow, blood, aqueous humor. The roar was visible in black tongues of flame. The earth was tearing, fountaining black. It was parchment under a titan quill. To speak, to write, to make or unmake were the same in that tongue.

Let it be so burned into me!

He was trying to learn from instinct and the rosetta stone of a single spell, hunched in the dark by the light of the candle had once been the great Flame of Knowledge. That taste again. Hope.
He had a chance.

It was easy work settling the one-armed goddess upon the nearby couch, especially with help--she was such a tiny, frail thing, lighter still less an arm and unmeasured pints of blood. Such a shame; such a waste.

He felt Neva's interest pique at the other man's introduction and looked up from the hideous wound the goddess bore, smiling thinly. "I'm Ellis, host of Neva, the Frozen Heart. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but under the circumstances..." he trailed off, letting the destruction that surrounded them speak for itself. The sounds of battle seemed farther away now, muffled by the dubious security of the wall to the throne room.

He turned to peer over his shoulder at the other pair in the room, his eyes carefully skating over the chrysalis containing the one ultimately responsible for all of this. They seemed to know what they were doing, or were at least good at pretending so. "Good," Ellis stated, turning back. "We need all the hands on our side we can get. If that thing did this to her," here he gestured at the bloody stump where an arm used to be, "who knows what it could do to the rest of us?"

Why are you doing this

They were stalling. She could end all three with ease now, running ants full bare awake god blood. They all tasted of it. The mana of the Crown raced in all three, pungent and heady on void scorched tongue. Better not to dawdle. There were yet reborn gods behind that barrier, a building of them, and she was wounded. The further away, the harder to track and pinpoint. Spells to be set up, webs to weave, all things likely to deceive.

”You’re all just pissing in the wind.”She smirked, looked up as arrow and dagger, bloodless, struck and rose straight up swift and sure as a bullet fired in celebration.

Taj stirred for an instant and Jaster had the distinct impression he was smiling. A few faint words slipped out to him and he repeated them thoughtfully.

"In the stillness of winter, we find silence and acceptance tho listening to an even subtler secret." Jaster shrugged faintly in amusement. "Or so he says. I don't always know what he's talking about. He often talks in riddles or images."

Glancing upwards as three entered the room, Jaster noted that one was being carried. The big green guy carried the fellow with black wings he had passed on the way in and the girl looked as if she would attend to him. That creature must have hurt him seriously if another was carrying him in.

"Somehow I don't think we've seen the last of the injured." Jaster said softly.

Saljin never hesitated in what he was doing. Even when she had not answered but seemed lost in thought, he merely stoked the fire higher. Several times he pulled it from the flames shoving it back in. But finally it began to gleam a burnished red. The shovel would easily cover the injury they needed to sere, but was it hot enough?

Glancing over at her, he asked, "I believe this may be ready, but you will need to decide. As I've said, I've never had to cauterize an injury before. Jaster and I have been lucky so far. Just bruises and a few minor cuts."

The void barrier cut off his target from his spell, but nothing could be further from his mind. The lightning raced a wide circle around him, pouncing from ground to cloud, young dragons mad with freedom, threatening to enlighten any in their path. He was exultant, eyes wide and watching the black scrawled scroll unfold.
So familiar, so familiar! Were not all things familiar to him?

The rending of the earth before him, the rending of His Name from Person, it felt like the rending of layers and layers of sediment in Gianfar's soul. He was split, all the stratus showing, artifacts, nuggets of knowledge flashing from the canyon walls as he pinned his wings and dove deep within himself.

Let it be so burned into me... Unfortunate wish. All his thoughts, visible joyous energy, converged on him. The lightning met with a crack. He was transfixed, then dropped like a doll.

He lay outside the Pantheon with white tendrils curling from his puffed wings and nest of hair, the last laughs of vanished dragons. His eyes were wide open to the sky.

"How odd..." He muttered in wonder.

All but ignored save for that small insult, Finn-att could do little but try to follow Samyaza on foot. It would be just his luck if she could fly faster than she could run, but he would follow for as long as he could; if nothing else, perhaps he could give the others some starting point to try and find her again.

((fact recall on names being written in the First Tongue (I have had it in earlier posts, but its important so I should probably get a successful roll to be fair before imparting things)))

“As for names, I have been thinking about that. I had forgotten until I heard Samyaza speak. This is conjecture drawn from hazy memories, but bear with me. Let’s say that in the beginning the gods spoke the First Tongue, the Old Speech, whatever you want to call it. Some philosophers say that Creation made Gaia with a word. I think that a thought, a desire, a name, and a thing are all one in that language. A thing’s name and its being are the same.

It would have been a language too powerful for Aoide, for mortals. How could their minds comprehend all of Creation? So I must have made them their own languages. But all younger tongues can only describe, not really Know things. A rose is a rose by any other name, right? How many names are we known by, any of us? We use those languages to commune with our worshippers. I think we used their language more and more. We faded and we forgot. Now we don’t know the Old Tongue. We don’t even know our own true names.

But the Grigori never faded, never died…never forgot. I think they know it, at least in part. Samyaza’s strange rhyming way of speech, I think it is a mouth used to the First Tongue speaking so that we can understand.　I think the spell she cast to make the void wall may have been in the First Tongue, or some sick version of it. If it is the language of Creation, then couldn’t it be used as the language of Uncreation? If the Grigori know the true names of things, they could change or unmake them. Even Harmodius.”

And if he could only remember it, he would have the power to change things…wouldn’t he?