Shadows - Shayde Mel'for

[rohenna]

She stepped inside. The light was soft, hazy, falling lazily like a lovers hand, bathing everything in a warm golden hue. She moved quietly toward the statue at the end of the aisle, kneeling down, head bowed, as she neared it, then moved off to one side, seeking solitude – or what version of it could be found in a Temple such as this.

The muffled sounds beyond the closed doors suddenly seemed so near, so loud, so alive, that her heart began to pound. Dizzying, she leaned against a wall, closing her eyes. Her blood set on fire. Her skin ached. Deep down in the core of her, something sweet and heavy yearned. Reaching up slowly, she trailed her fingertips softly down her cheek, her lips gently parting. Almost stumbling, she sank to the floor, her eyes half-opening, intoxicated by the sounds and the scents and the colours.

Taking a breath made it worse. The scent of incense overpowered her, amplified the sounds even more, and her pulse began to beat an uncontrollable tempo. The ache grew to a craving. She moaned quietly. Rising quickly, she ran one hand down her body from neck to breast to hip as she crossed the floor, knocking quietly at the door on the left side of the room.

Katharin, the Matron, opened the door and smiled a warm greeting, reaching down to turn up her scarred palm as she always had in the past. Shayde shook her head, then pulled her close, murmuring in her ear for a moment or two. She pulled back, looking at Katharin nervously, her voice soft and low.

“I want no consequences, you understand? No ties, no potential for hurt. No emotions. I came to give thanks...but...I can’t even think straight...”

“You’ve come to the right place." The Matron smiled. "And you ARE giving thanks...” She drew Shayde inside, pushing the door closed behind her.

[rohenna]

She watched Click and Lyran as they disappeared over the last ridge in Daris. An ache began to grow in Shayde’s chest; a hollowness that she allowed herself to fall into for a few moments. Her dear friend. She let the memories flow over her.

The first real conversation they had had above the Inn in Two Bridges, where they’d ended up sharing so much more than either had intended. The first glimmers of mutual understanding. The first roots of friendship bursting forth. Talking about guilt, and responsibility, and faith, and freedom, and anger, and fear. The dynamics of love and trust, and how to navigate them. Click showing her how to draw. Her gift to Shayde of the bound sketchbook. The look on her face when Shayde gave her the watercolour set. Mutual confidences. Click’s fierceness, her tempered wildness, her strength. Meeting Lyran for the first time, a protectiveness of Click that Shayde didn’t realise she had burgeoning as they spoke, quickly dissolving at the look of delight on Click’s face when she mentioned the meeting...particularly - Shayde laughed softly now at the memory - when she repeated his words: “She is more beautiful than any creature in all the planes, and stronger than a dozen men”.

The two parting gifts they gave her. Click’s real name...and the look of absolute unabashed adoration that Shayde saw her give Lyran just before they departed. She had drawn her breath in at its intensity.

Turning back to the shelter of the campfire, her arm brushed past a leather pouch she wore at her hip; a crackling sound made her stop and investigate. She pulled from the pouch a rolled piece of paper...a watercolour painting of a darkhaired woman attired in a flowing green gown, her hair loosely bound around her head, a graceful stance...she was standing to the left of the painting, white space to the right to draw the eye away from the girl...Shayde looked up to the rising moon, laughing softly through her tears, her heart filling with love and gratitude.

“Safe travels, my friend. I'll be waiting.”

[rohenna]

She was having troubled dreams again. They could not be called nightmares; they simply left her waking with a sense that she almost understood something important.

She was standing on a cliff, and pieces of it were falling away around her, tumbling into the dark mists that swirled far far below. Words were being shouted at her, echoing around, ringing in her ears.

“Blessed....” the words faded, and another chunk of soil and stone slid away. “Promised...” She jumped backwards, away from the edge. “Swore...” She couldn’t seem to move very far. “Vowed...” Another slab tumbled into the abyss. “Marked...” More.

There were vines at her feet now, and they came alive, twining themselves around her limbs, restraining her, holding her to the dusty earth. She held her blade in one hand, and when she was able to free it, cutting at the vines felt like cutting a man’s throat.

Suddenly she was beside a campfire behind the hills in North Cear, screaming into the night “I hate you! I hate you all! You lie! Again and again you lie and you take from me!” The vines fell away and she stood freely...then the rain fell on her, cool and gentle, and she danced, laughing wildly. “Free!’ She called. “Joy!”

Then she was in Daris, barefoot, walking along the beach as the moonlight illuminated the soft slopes and gentle valleys of the ruins. There was a peace within, such as she had never felt, and she felt this peace to be purely her own, part of her bones and her blood and her spirit. Liberation. She smiled.

Mistress, she whispered. The illusions have fallen away, as they began to do so all those months ago. I am left with a quiet garden, freshly tilled soil, and nothing else but a handful of seeds and a heart filled with hope.

As she spoke, a small garden appeared just beyond the beach, and she moved over to it quietly. There were rows of raised beds ready for sowing...her hand containing a hundred seeds of all shapes and colours; some familiar, some foreign. She began pushing the seeds into the soil, one by one, until her palm was empty.

Now, she smiled to herself...lets pray for rain.

[rohenna]

It hadn’t stopped raining for days. She pushed her way out of the Ravencrest under the thick darkness of the clouded sky, restless and edgy, slipping her hood up over her hair. Moving to the jagged stone of the city wall, she reached for her familiar grip, but it was slick with water. She stood back, frowning darkly. No point even trying to climb tonight. The walls were wet; rain flowed down in rivulets through the grooves between the stones, and the puddles gathered around the place were going to cause very cold, wet feet after an hour. Glancing back briefly at the Inn door, she shook her head, then ran toward the city gates.

The rain made it difficult to see very far ahead, but the path was so familiar to her that it mattered little. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light quickly, and, at the pace she was moving, she came up over the final ridge in moments.

Oddly luminous in the murky darkness, the lake opened up before her.

The water was so cold that she felt the force of it like a physical blow. The first dive always took her breath away, and she surfaced, gasping, her teeth chattering. The rain was warmer than the lake water, and she spread her arms wide, her face turned to the sky, the sound of the raindrops dancing over the lake’s surface, the cold of the water sharp as steel, the thick darkness of rainclouds gathered overhead...and she roared.

Her breath gone, she fell backwards into the water, surrendering to weightlessness for a few moments, then she flipped over and swam. The rain subsided. Moonlight flooded across the lake as the clouds parted for a few seconds, illuminating the way back to shore. She stepped from the water, her teeth chattering, and made for her clothes, pulling them on rapidly.

She drew her knees to her chest, trying make herself small, then jumped to her feet. It doesn’t work anymore! I can't shrink to make myself fit anymore! She paced back and forth along the wet sand, trying to summon tears, then trying to talk herself into a calm state, all the while growing more and more agitated.

It doesn’t work! I can’t do it! She glanced up the hill. The giants were rumbling again, skirmishing and wrestling and raging, the violence reverberating through the ground. Her face cleared. She drew her weapons, and tore up the hill, calling as loud as she could, darting between the legs of one giant and thrusting her short sword into the top of the foot of another. She taunted them, darting in and out of the shadows until they forgot about her and started on each other, then she stood, watching from the darkened overhang of a large rock, as they beat each other to a state of bloodied senselessness.

Still no satisfaction. She cursed. Then a moment later: the cliffs! She moved quickly to the highest point of the cliffs, just hanging over the road, and eased herself over the edge. Moments later, she was on the road, gazing up at the cliff, her fingertips and nails bleeding from gripping jagged rocks...and still it raged within her...was it pain, lust, fury, fear...she didn’t know. She’d held a blade to that slavers throat, then to his ribs, and would have gutted him had Soap not talked her down. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know if I have any limits. And Im still trying to care.

Having released the wild thing once dormant inside her was proving difficult. Its hunger was great, its appetites many. As she loved, she loved with great passion. As she loathed, the passion was equally great. As she hunted, she was ruthless, verging on savage. As she saw injustice, she rose to battle it with vows of vengeance. She was all things at once, without temperance.

And somehow she was managing to present a normal face to the world. Imagine that. Then it struck her. She smiled. There was a war on. And I'm swimming, and buying new clothes, and taunting giants for amusement.

She was in her armour and on her way to Lendose before first light.

[rohenna]

The deep crimson flower was so vivid it kept catching Shayde’s eye. She’d potted it carefully, put it in a few different spots around the room, but for some reason, the place it seemed most at home was on the end of the mantelpiece where it could pick up the flickering light of the fire.

Scooping her wine glass into her hand, she sank down on the cushions by the fire. She was tired. The last few days had been exhausting...so much going on. Karis, Soap, Rhaz, Ael, Celestia...She felt as though the last of her reserves were used up trying to remain calm, and strong, and focussed.

The wine glass empty, she curled up, resting her head on the cushions, gazing quietly into the fire. Her eyes closed...just for a moment...


...She was bound, hand and foot. Tightly too; she could feel the bonds cut into her flesh when she tried to move. Ratface was there, and the green eyed bard, though the other two were not to be seen. Ratface was leering over her as he had during those nights he had watch over her, while the bard simply played, a haunting melody that made her eyes fill with tears against her will. Such a heavy sadness. Edged with a grief of some kind, she thought, as the music reached her again, her stomach clenching against it.

There was a sound like whispers, and she could identify snatches of it as it drifted in the air like wind.

“Dont drink anything you haven’t prepared yourself.”
“They told me you were just a hanger on. They told me. Looks like they were right.”
“We have to trust each other”
"What is mine, what is not mine, what I can take, what I can not take. It is very vexing."
“Perhaps you have outgrown your humanity?”
“Dance with me...”

The whispers began to blend and blur until they made a sound like a waterfall crashing all around her. A waterfall. The red flower suddenly drew all the colour from around the place and seemed to glow rich ruby red. Hearts fire, a voice in her head murmured softly, be strong.

Then a large, bearded Rhaz stepped forward, his boot pushing her over, swinging back and planting itself hard in her stomach. Gasping for air and through pain, she looked up at him, his beard powdered white and his scowl angry and full of loathing. He waved her own dagger in front of her face, then flung it away. Ratface pulled a piece of parchment from her pocket and began reading, while Rhaz stared at her, a cruel smile of triumph on his face.

Darion Crimson
Orion Steele and Lillianne Dreamseeker
Melanie Thana
Zo’art and Calimus

As each name was spoken, she saw them appear, their corpses propped up into various lifelike positions around a table in a macabre replica of a dinner party. Throats cut, their dead eyes staring at her, some with tears frozen on their cheeks, others with an expression of horror forever captured in the moment.

A wave of nausea ripped through her and she emptied the contents of her stomach on the ground.

“I gave her their names. Of all the stupid, foolish things...”

Thayne Rhaz began to laugh. Suddenly Soap appeared beside him, her eyes hard and mocking, her hand slipped into his, and they stared at her laughing, sneering...


...She woke in tears, holding her stomach in memory of the pain, the last vestiges of her strength crumbling away as the grief and fear overwhelmed her.

[rohenna]

She shimmied in through the narrow window into the tiny cell room of her refuge, calmer now for the two hours she was able to sit on the rooftop watching the stars. The sisters had been kind but distant, bringing her books and kind words; seeing the obvious strain on her face, not wishing to intrude. It was around midnight; Shayde moved quietly around the room, tidying her few belongings, her hands coming to rest on the pair of leather journals bound up with string that she had brought from home. Her mother’s journals. Tentatively, she took them up, crossing quickly to her narrow cot bed, sitting cross legged with her back leaning against the wall.

Images of her mother rose before her. Her laughter, so much laughter...scooping a tiny Shayde into her arms and throwing her in the air...the look in her eye as she excitedly pointed out the names of the herbs in their tiny garden, her dark curly hair tumbling about her shoulders, escaping from the leather bindings and pins as she chased a chicken, or dug fiercely into the soil, or helped Shayde’s grandfather move firewood under the eaves of their cottage...the singing she did as she worked on a sunny day – a dreadful sound that had Shayde and her grandfather wincing as she attempted to strike a high note...the soft, sad, joyful look she would get whenever Shayde asked about her father.

She lifted the first journal to her nose and inhaled; the old familiar scent of herbs and dust that struck her when she returned to her family home and opened it up for the first time. The leather beginning to go brittle around the edges of the cover. The flyleaf...Eleyne Mel’for, Winter 618ME. The script neat and looped and similar to Shayde’s own. Two blank pages, as if it were trespassing to begin writing so early, and then a number of pages containing weather notes, herbal remedy recipes, and a to do list. Finally, several pages in, she found a journal entry.

The child grows restless within. It knows. I imagine it to be any day now...the ache in my back never ceases and my temper is frayed. I cannot wait to meet the little one, part of me, and part of Fier’niel. A half elf. If only I could have known, been able to learn more about him before he left, I might have had some legacy to pass on to this child. I worry for Father; he has had this wretched cough for weeks, and I see it weakening him; though he refuses to admit it, and I am in no position to help anymore since the child lays heavy in my pelvis. We will get by. We always do. Matthias has been a gem, running errands into the village for us these past few weeks. Often he will linger on to dinner, and we will speak of Fier and the short time we knew him; both a gift and a curse for me, as I ache to speak of him almost as much as it pains me to remember he is gone.

Shayde read the entry several times. Fier’niel. She tasted the name on her tongue, first silently, then testing out different pronunciations. Her father’s name. Suddenly he was real, for the first time in her life. The thought that he might still be alive, somewhere...

Greedy now, she continued reading, flicking past pages of gardening notes to the next journal entry, then the next. By the time the sun rose, she had made a page of notes, and when the sisters came to call her to breakfast, found her curled up asleep on top of her bed, the journals wrapped in her arms.

[rohenna]

She dreamed.

It was a huge web and it was all that was holding them both from falling down an endless chasm. She was crawling across it, trying to tie fraying ends together, muttering to herself “I have to keep him safe” over and over under her breath, the whole web swinging precariously.

The moment she would complete a knot, one over the other side of the enormous web would start to unravel, and she would scramble across the other side.

Wind roared up the sides of the chasm below them, causing her to lose her footholds or miss a grip. By now her hands were bleeding, her fingers raw.

Prophecies and threats whispered in her ears, over and over.

The web frayed.

The wind roared.


Shayde woke just in time to tumble out of her tiny cot in the Temple, and hit the floor heavily. Pushing herself upright, she pulled her blankets off the bed, and draped them around her thin shoulders. Count your blessings girl, now, before the darkness floods your hope.

Their feast was to be held shortly. Click and Lyran were back. Celestia had an possible solution for Soap. She had allies. They had allies. The McWilliam’s family were...gone. For good, it seemed. That part of her life was over. She hoped. There were choices. New choices, options, springing up each time she spoke to someone different. Sometimes from the least likely quarters. Hold onto hope. If only she weren't so exhausted...

[rohenna]

She woke in the half light, comforted suddenly by the realisation that she was in her own home, in her own bed. Closing her eyes for a moment, she allowed the relief to flood through her, a long, quiet exhalation of satisfaction.

Carefully, quietly, she lifted the weight of his arm off her, slipped out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen where the fire still burned low. She made tea, then as it steeped, dressed herself quickly in her leathers, pulling her boots on, and drawing her cloak around her shoulders. She sipped at the tea, then pulled on her gloves, strapped on her blades, tugged the hood over her head, and slipped silently out the door.

Out on the rooftops, Nuarari’s enormous white eye gazed down on her with a benevolent light. Shayde smiled in greeting as she pulled herself up onto the familiar rooftops, slinking across the angled roofline like a cat. She stretched, her arms wide above her head, and lifted her chin, closing her eyes, angling her head back toward the moonlight.

“Every minute we hide is a moment of triumph for him”

You made a vow to yourself, Shayde. You vowed, the moment you got here, no man would have power over you anymore. You vowed no more. Remember who you are. Remember what you are capable of. Remember who your friends are, Shayde.

On the flat rooftop she used for practise, she sat quietly and focused on her breathing, stilling her mind. Then she rose gracefully, dropping her cloak to the ground, drawing her blades in one deft movement, moving about her practice steps in fluid motions, her hair whirling around her face, then falling back against her shoulders as she wove her way through the dance.

"Its time to face our fights."

She caught the first boat across to Sheppard’s Landing, watching the sunrise from the deck as the wind ripped through her hair, her eyes watering, her chin lifted defiantly.

“He does not rule your life. You do.”

The Temple of Teshalia was warm as she moved quietly down the aisle. Kneeling at the foot of the statue, she laid a small offering of wildflowers she had picked along the way, then bowed her head.

“My Lady...I humbly beg for your blessings for me and mine, so that I may protect them from harm. I know that the future is unwritten...I will move forward with a clear mind and an unburdened heart, and trust that with your guidance a solution will present itself. Mistress, I need something to go our way...a little luck would be gratefully received...”

A few hours later, she stood on the swaying dock, staring up at the ship called the Tyrant, her hood back, her hands on her hips. Sailors stared down at her, one wolfwhistled, while his friend nudged him, pointing out her sheathed blades. Her gaze did not falter, and she met the eyes of each of them until they looked away.

She murmured quietly.

“Thayne Rhaz. I will not hide from you any longer. I will not run from you any longer. Once this feast is done, I am coming for you. I care not for plans or intrigues or patience any longer. This is you, and me, and this needs to end.”

Then she turned and headed for home.

[rohenna]

She was curled up under a blanket in front of the fire in the Bladeshall. Lillianne and Orion had gone to bed, but there were a couple of Blades who stood guard outside the door, should they be required. Orion was not...himself. Bone tired, her muscles aching, she’d sunk hopefully down on the rug with a glass of mulled, spiced wine, waiting for sleep to take her. It was fruitless. The devil’s face loomed before her every time she closed her eyes; just preceding the flashes of moments from the night: the scythe embedding itself in Amelia’s chest, Orion plunging Naglfar deep into the devil’s chest, those few precious, fleeting moments where she thought, finally, it was over...then Lillianne sobbing, kneeling over Orion as he came to, and that cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when she realised that the bastard still lived on in a new form.

Those months of fearing sleep, of waking from nightmares bruised and battered and bleeding and sobbing...the thunderous voices tormenting she and Kadmiel, then the Blades...for a moment she had felt freed of it all, safe in the idea that the devil might be gone forever. And then...that heart...she felt suddenly bowed over like an old woman, bent double by the return of the burden. She rose, threw her cloak around her shoulders, and fled into the night.

Moments later she sat high on a sloped roof, leaning against a warm chimney, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Where there was doubt before, there is only resolve.” She had spoken those words, earlier, after the shadows had attacked them all in Ravenswatch, after the first waves of hellhounds and fiendish creatures launched at them in Cear. They had applied to one thing, but once out of her mouth, she felt them solidify within, as if a kind of armour.

Change had to happen. She would need this new, internal armour, now. She stayed on the rooftop til dawn, making plans, until the first light of dawn spilled across the rooftops, and her mind grew quiet for a time, watching the birth of the new day.

[rohenna]

She had taken a room in Two Bridges for the night, too drained to return to Cear after giving her all to the altar in the Grove. The water robes lay draped across the bottom of her bed; the beautiful blue and gold fabric vivid as a flame in the plain room.

Hours passed, laying in the darkness, and heavy as her body was with exhaustion, sleep would not come.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there, her head in her hands, her hair draped around her face. The sight of the daffodil pushing its way through the blackened soil should have warmed her heart, filled her with hope. But she felt nothing.

The heart tree was still dead.

Gradually, as the darkness gave way to the morning light, her despair wove its way into the layers of armour within her heart, transforming into resolve.

[rohenna]

Shayde had stared at the glowing hammer in Celestia’s hands, the news like a physical blow. She’d known Kadmiel had it in his possession when he left; Celestia surmised that for it to appear in her hands, something had...happened to him.

After she left Celestia in the grove, she went back to Tristan, and sat down by the water’s edge, pulling her boots off, and hugged her knees to her chest.

Memories of the big, gentle paladin floated through her mind. Conversations about Dasaria’s past, about its possible future, about their plans for after the war...quiet moments...what he had taught her about strength and courage, his encouragement of her Museum plans...his wisdom, his humility. The first night they had talked honestly on the rooftops of Cear.

She reached into her pack, pulling out a small ring from a leather pouch. She’d cut Holly Fortinbras’s ring from the slavers finger after she cut his throat, cleaned it, and had kept it ever since, hoping one day he might return, and she could give it back to him. Turning it over in her fingers, the tears began to spill.

He should have lived to see the end of the war. He should have had children, a home, helped with the rebuilding of Dasaria in the aftermath...he should have lived to see what his hard work had bought him, what all the sacrifices were for. She sat with her grief, allowing it to wash over her in waves.

The afternoon gave way to evening.

Returning the ring to her pack carefully, she rose, wiping the tears from her eyes, and lifting her pack to her shoulders.

She turned back to the water. “Goodbye, old man. Rest well.”

[rohenna]

She'd lost count of how many ales she had drunk. And then, once emptied, she'd smashed the bottles on the floor, one after the other, with the greatest delight, while Karis looked on. Breaking glass was an infinitely satisfying sound.

A short while after Karis had caught the eye of a handsome young student, Shayde had crawled, one step at a time up towards her room in the Ravencrest Inn. Eorian had tried to help her, but she had waved him away, angrily. It was late, and the Inn was almost empty, so he had turned on his heel, vowing under his breath to check on her in a few moments. Shayde crawled to the bottom of the stairs, fragments of her conversations with Karis and with Sam earlier that day whispering in her mind.

“If you rode two horses until they foundered, is it the horse's fault, or the rider’s?”

She stopped on the third step, picking up a dropped coin and gazed at it, mesmerised. After a moment, she slipped it towards the pocket of her dress, missing twice, cursing obscenely until the third, successful attempt.

“Eventually, the bottle runs dry...”

Hefting herself up to the next step, she slipped, her wrist bashing against the hard corner of the step, and she cursed again, this time loudly. Deep scarlet blood welled up around the graze, and she sucked on it, grimacing a little at the taste of copper and salt. Something deep inside her stirred.

“You and I...We are much more alike than you cared to admit once.”

The sounds of breaking bottles again floated through her mind, and she bubbled into drunken, uncontrollable laughter. The wild thing stirred in her heart and she closed her eyes, sighing with delight, a welcoming sigh.

“I think you do wish it....AND you don't.....and therein is your journey.”

She balled her hand into a fist and pushed at the door at the top of the stairs, then hauled herself through it, kicking it shut with her boot, her skirt slipping back to her thigh. Glancing at the suddenly exposed flesh, she made a move to pull her dress over it, then paused, and raised her leg in the air, considering it; pointing her toes, bending her knee back to her chest, then extending it again.

"Does it bother you that I can look at you and see what you are feeling?"

The wild thing in her heart roared. She spread her hand on her chest. Her eyes grew wide as her blood began to sing inside her.

“He leaves a wake of chaos behind him.”

Pulling on the door to downstairs, she swung it open, and then tumbled to the bottom, landing in a heap of fabric and limbs. She laughed, unable to feel the places where bruises would form on her body by the morning. Murmuring to herself, she crawled on all fours to the side entrance to the Inn, and out into the night. Up, the wild voice urged, up. We need to be up high tonight, buffeted by wind, that freedom, breathe the night air...

Moments later, she was on top of the city wall, looking out over the valley, the moon rising just over the ridge of the ranges. Her eyes gleamed silver, reflecting the moon’s glow, and she rose to her feet awkwardly, swaying a little. Out of her pocket came one last, final bottle of ale, which she emptied in one breath, her eyes fixed on the moon still. She gasped for breath, then flung the bottle off the wall onto the path below, closing her eyes with an ecstatic expression as the sound of smashing glass reverberated around cobblestones and walls below her. Then she wiped her palms on her skirt, and turned her face to the sky.

“I can touch you tonight, Nuarari. I can. I’ve tried for years, from the tops of trees to the spires of churches, but tonight, I can feel it. I’m going to be able to reach out and touch you.” She laughed, suddenly filled with an optimistic joy. The wild thing within danced in her blood, singing songs to her of freedom and wanderings and great snowy heights. The high winds buffeted against her. She could see all the way to the mountains from up here. All the way to the moon...

“Nanna-sin...” She whispered, stretched out her hand towards the bright sphere, and stepped off the wall into the empty darkness.

[Domina]

Cel walks along the road of Ravenwatch and she nears the main gate. Her summer dress waving in the night wind as she practically skips with joy from her night swim.

She suddenly hears a PLUNK that is rather sickly and flinches greatly with a squeak. Cel turns sharply… and sees Shayde crumpled on the ground and she inhales the maximum of air allowed in her lungs. Hands cover her mouth quickly as a scream wants desperately to escape.

Cel can't move...only pure terror slipping through her form until Elios sends a screech and she breaks from the trance. She runs over to Shayde and her hands hover over her, unsure what to say or do. She looks up and her heart skips several times once she realizes the height of the possible fall. Cel doesn't notice tears falling rapidly until some fall on Shayde's face and she looks on Elios.

"What should I do?! Oh gods...why gods...please help me..."

Checks for a pulse and doesn't feel any. Her heart skips again...she rapidly pumps a powerful burst of energy from herself into Shayde to try and revive her. There is nothing yet. She binds what she see's in a quick fashion but of a master's hands and then pumps more energy in her...pushing herself exponentially. The idea of losing her friend driving her ambition greatly.

She gets a minimal pulse and hurries to secure Shayde. She sets them invisible incase this was a hostile act and summons the strength to carry Shayde to a place only she knows of...a place the Champions of Light reside. No one would conceivably find this place unless they were part of the organization.

Cel speaks with Sarah privately for a moment and she helps Cel with Shayde. They take Shayde to a room with a single bed and a table of older wood. Cel looks on her comatose friend and her body begins to shake as tears fall. She falls to her knees and cries into Shayde's bed side...

That's just...how it goes...

[Jain Zar]

(( please delete since Elvina couldn't know, apologies ))

[rohenna]

It was quiet, and dark, and cool where she was. There were names that kept nudging at her mind, things she felt she ought to remember; they were meaningless sounds, intrusions on her peace. A tugging to the right, every now and then...a bright light that was subdued as if seen through misted glass. Then the light would fade and she could return to the quiet again. How long for, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. She just floated, suspended in the endlessness of the cool, and the silence, and the black.

Then it ended, abruptly.

A voice sang to her, sweet, low, a familiar sound like a mother’s lullaby or a lover’s ode...she couldn’t tell which, only that it was familiar. The sound was at first painful, a tearing away of the tranquil silence she was immersed in. Then it grew, twined around her, through her, became part of her...what an idea. She wasn’t even sure what she was. Where she stopped and everything else began, or even if it did at all. Gradually the song became a persistent sound, like a heartbeat or breathing; she hardly noticed it after a while, felt only that it provided her with a kind of buoyancy.

The light came and went. Sometimes it was sharper, more clearly defined than others. Sometimes she felt drawn to it, a soft yellow glow or a powerful, almost white light, softened edges always.

Then the other form...it was confusing to her, suspended in this state with no names for anything, and there it was, sometimes for what seemed an eternity, a spinning, whirling thing, morphing colours of reds and golds and bronzes; always moving, almost noisy in its agitated motion. It caused turbulence. In spite of its constant revolving, though, it was solid, an anchor of sorts.

Other colours, causing milder indentations on her silence, came and went. Other sounds.

Then it stopped, and she heard...felt...a rushing sensation, and there was a quiet voice, a gentle voice, but with the scent of moss and cool nights and the sounds of running water and crackling fire within its timbre.

“You touched the moon, silver eyes. There is a gift in that, and a price to pay. Now you will see what cannot be seen. Now you will feel what cannot be put to words. The wild cannot be tamed. This is your gift, and your burden.”

The voice was gone. The music lingered. The colours grew form. She became a body again, heavy, aching, slow. Her lungs filled with air. Her awareness moved to her fingertips, twitching in reply to her silent enquiry.

Shayde opened her eyes and looked to the shapes...people...in the room. Her eyes were devoid of blue now, a startling silver colour reminiscent of moonlight on lakewater.