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 Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 7:14 pm
Quote: Biting Chill ( 18 ) : The cold is strangely harsh, and even the still wind is vicious enough to sting. But the cold isn't the worst part of tonight--it's what comes with it. Out of a swirl of blowing snow, a massive, wispy wolf takes shape, enormous and snarling, with fur spiked like jagged icicles. Its eyes glow with a cold, wild intelligence, and before you can even react, it lunges as though you’ve trespassed deep into its territory. Every strike it makes feels like the bite of winter itself. Wherever its claws slash, wherever its jaws snap, frost cakes over. Even if you're lucky enough not to take massive damage, the cold seeps bone deep. When you manage to land a hit, the creature bleeds a strange, clear blood--icy water that freezes instantly into slush on the ground. The more damage it takes, the more its form flickers, shredded like wind-torn snow. The wolf fights with the relentless instinct of a dire beast, but it is not invulnerable. It will never run. It will fight until its body is broken and flickering, then--finally--a sudden gust will rip through the air and carry its dissolving body away. Howls echo on the wind. The rest of its pack probably isn't too far behind. Tyndareus wasn't extremely thrilled with the idea of wandering around while powered up anymore, but he had little choice. Not when he had no other way of contacting Pyrrhus. His... acquaintance? That was probably the best word for it, he thought vaguely as he tromped through the snow, trying to feel for any White Moon auras that felt correct. Someone only slightly stronger than him, and definitely a senshi. A couple of times, he'd chased the flare of such an aura, only to immediately back off once he realized he wasn't seeing Pyrrhus. When had he started running from potentially fun fights? Ah, well, it had only been a few days since the revelation he was slowly helping an ancient force destroy his home. Things were bound to get a little bit... discombobulated. The chill was beginning to get to him, too. He decided perhaps it was best to pack it in for the night. He turned... A swirl of obviously magical snow had him on high alert, but it was what emerged that had him frozen on the spot. The large, icy wolf lunged.
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 10:05 pm
Pyrrhus wouldn't say that he was looking for Tyndareus, but that would mostly be because admitting it tended to make something in the core of his chest ache. Thinking about his beloved just...made him feel empty inside, and it was hard not to think about Bernard when he looked at the man he'd reincarnated into.
The new Tyndareus was handsome, clever, kind of funny if Pyrrhus was in the mood to admit it. (He was, more often than not, these days.) And he'd listened. He'd believed Pyrrhus about what had happened. That had almost made him believe that...maybe it wasn't all hopeless. Maybe he might actually choose to ******** leave Chaos and come back where he belonged.
He didn't even have to love Pyrrhus again. It was okay. Pyrrhus had gotten his one shot, and maybe people like Kaifeng and Helene got to have reincarnation romances, or people like Troilus and Pergamon got to be each other's second chance, but that wasn't for him. It would be enough to see Tyndareus freed of Chaos.
So he found himself hunting Chaos, but with a mind towards finding someone specific rather than just throwing punches at whoever turned up (Tyndareus was an exception, granted provisional rights to not have his face punched in solely because of who he was.)
And the Webspinner guided his steps in just the right way to find the very person he was looking for. Just in time for the large, icy, clearly magical wolf to lunge at him.
"No," Pyrrhus snapped, and he threw his entire body forward, slamming shoulder first into the wolf's side to knock it off course.
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 10:24 pm
Pyrrhus showing up made everything within Tyndareus thaw. Good. This was good. He'd been wanting to talk to him, anyway. They just... needed to take care of this wolf first. The wolf fell over at Pyrrhus's surprise attack, its shoulder gushing strange ice-water blood from where it took the heavy hit into the ground. "Hand of the Tyrant," he growled, focusing all of his efforts on the wolf. Pyrrhus was no enemy. Not today. Not ever again. Noir Songbird Tyndareus speaks the name of his attack, and a circle of scorched earth encircles the area. Characters view Tyndareus as a tryrannical ruler whose ire they should avoid. Affected enemies are afflicted with fear of Tyndareus's wrath, which makes it harder for them to act against him. It lasts for 30 seconds, has three uses, and affects enemies within ten feet.
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 10:42 pm
Pyrrhus knew Tyndareus's magic. He trusted, intimately, that it wouldn't hurt him, but he sprang out of the way anyway, if only because with the beast smacked down and struggling to get up, it was the perfect time to, quite literally, kick it while it was down. A heel, smacked into it hard, right at the throat.
It cowered away from Tyndareus, and Pyrrhus's fingers itched to call on his own magic, to see if the creature would disperse when the magic in the zone was nullified, but the risk of it turning its attention back to Tyndareus was too great.
So he stomped on its throat one more time, hard, and the wolf made a strangled noise and, under the weight of his boot, it become so much cold wind again.
"Are you alright?" Pyrruhs asked, turning his attention immediately to Tyndareus (like they'd just finished a rough job that had nearly gone wrong, it felt so familiar, so much like instinct.) "It didn't get you, did it?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 10:45 pm
"I'm alright. I'm safe, it didn't get me," Tyndareus responded on instinct, going to Pyrrhus. "I assume if you're asking, it did not get you either." He blinked a bit with the heavy weight of... something. It felt so... eerie. Deja vu-like. The immediate desire to be soft, to hold Pyrrhus's hand and check him over himself, threw him for a loop. But he didn't pay attention to that right now. "I was actually looking for you," he admitted. "Can we talk? Somewhere a bit less dangerous, perhaps?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 10:49 pm
"I'm fine," Pyrrhus assured him. "Your magic kept it down. Good work," he said, and he felt suddenly awkward--it felt weird to praise someone in the dark livery of Chaos, but it was. Well. It was Tyndareus. And that was more important.
And Tyndareus had been looking for him.
The very thought of it almost stopped Pyrrhus in his tracks. It made something in his chest twist, made something ache inside him.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's...we should get out of here, there might be more of them." He fell into step beside Tyndareus. "But we can definitely talk." They needed to, after before, didn't they? After he'd shown Tyndareus what Chaos actually was?
And there was a truth he needed to confess. It itched at him, twisted in his chest in a far less pleasant way.
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 11:01 pm
Tyndareus did not blush when Pyrrhus complimented him, but it was a near thing. The praise unlocked something deep in his heart, warmth rushing out to flood his whole body with a kind of delight he wasn't sure he had ever really known. Not in this life, anyway. And he wasn't sure if he would ever know anything about his previous life, either. Pyrrhus had clearly known him, this much was obvious between Pyrrhus himself and that freaky fish guy, but that didn't mean much. (Of the two, Pyrrhus was infinitely preferable). The world just... seemed to fall away, despite the echo of howls of the wolf's pack buddies, the icy wind in the air forcing a shiver from his usually-quite-under-control body. "Good. I'm glad you're amenable to a discussion," he said with a rare smile that made him feel like he was exposing too much of himself. "Thank you. Lead the way."
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