[PQ+] Let the right one in

Hotaru

My ghost was lost to the grownup gallows

Maea's voice is a distant siren call, vague and muddled with only the faint baser instinct that one should pay attention lilting beneath the panic. Talyson's hands on her shoulders is the only reason she's moved at all, hand blessedly falling away from the dagger and leaving the tangleweed temporarily pinned.

More fire, and she makes a noise like a wounded animal in Tal's grip, tormented and befuddled. The drive to harm doesn't leave her however and with numb fingers she throws another sphere because the magic she'd once mastered isn't there anymore. Whether it nullifies the fire or not is beyond her capacity of thought in that moment.

- - -

Ru is pulled away by Tal and throws an ice sphere!

So I find my spirit in the bottle

The coldest blood runs through my veins

Talyson hauled the panick stricken Valkyrie out of the way in time to prevent a lashing of shadowy tentacles. Hotaru's projectile flew wild as a result, but somehow the slice of the dagger landed squarely once more and split the tangle of nightmares and defiled bramble nearly in half. Boreal's fire scorched the exposed innards and sent black smoke pluming towards the overcast sky.

Maea tried to lend her own firepower to the deed but at the last minute a flickering lash of the creature caught hold of her leg, yanking her onto her back so hard that she lost her breath. A searing pain like shadowy thorns dug into her ankle, and with a whimper she felt the nightmarish hallucinations start to come back. Closing her eyes and clapping her hands over the ears, she curled into a ball in the snow, trying everything to keep hold of her senses. "Not real," she muttered to herself, "not real notrealnotreal..."

And though it was on its very last leg of life, the Void Tumbleweed drew itself upto deliver one final strike, as if intending to - at the very least - take one other soul along as it left this world.

---

Talyson hit
Hotaru missed
Maea missed

Void Tangleweed attacks Maea and hits

Talyson: 480/500 HP
Hotaru: 228/228 HP
Maea: 105/135 HP

Boreal 50/50 HP

Void Tangleweed: 19/350 HP

You know my name

Table by Skylark

Ah, shit. Tal saw Maea go down but Ru was still lost in her own nightmares and this was just not turning out to be a good day. "Help Maea!" he called to Boreal, and the dragon rumbled agreement as she turned on a wingtip to land between the curled-up Ancient and the Tangleweed. She lowered her heavy head and spread her wings wide in a threat display at the damnable Void-touched plant, a rumbling growl sounding from her deep chest. Fire gathered in her throat, its glow a promise of hot death for any tentacle or vine that came close to the fallen young woman.

Tal trusted his companion to handle things on her end, so he was able to focus on Hotaru. He still didn't know what the hail was going on. Had she gotten a lick of void venom that they'd missed earlier? At least she was throwing all of her energy - and weapons - at the Tangleweed so maybe she just needed to get it out of her system. The horrible nightmare plantimal was on its last leg--err, roots? if Tal was any judge, at least, after taking ice and fire and Dagger wounds. "I've got your back," he tried to reassure the Valkyrie, releasing her to take up protective stance in front of her with his weapons and armor at the ready to interpose himself between any last-ditch vines and his friend.

---

Type: Grey | Style: Defensive | Level: Mastered
Rockhide Vest | An armoured vest flecked in black and white and lined with cool, fur-like material. This item blocks physical damage. Requires a 2 post cool-down between uses.

Boreal goes to protect Maea and Tal moves to defend Ru!

Hotaru

My ghost was lost to the grownup gallows

Talyson's murmured reassurance is heard somewhere in the chaos, but Maea's pleading and shaking voice is not. With her down in the mud Hotaru can only see the death throes of the tangleweed, and the dagger that still emerges from the center of its mass. But she doesn't need it. Just like she doesn't need Tal to defend her, not when she's intent on killing this thing once and for all.

Diving forward, her arms shift into deadly, massive claws, golden fur sprouting up her forearms beneath her clothes as she throws herself onto the tangleweed hands-first. Clawing, slashing, rending and tearing. Ripping it apart until it is a sad, twitching mass of dark tendrils, and she is left heaving for breath and staring unblinking down at the remains as if daring it to reanimate one more time.

"Help Maea," she croaks to the courier in a voice gone hoarse, kneeling in the mud as she watches her hands slowly transform back at the same rate that some form of reality takes hold back in her mind.

- - -

Ru half-shifts her arms to mountain lion claws and tears the tangleweed apart.

So I find my spirit in the bottle

The coldest blood runs through my veins

The Tangleweed was decimated beneath the furious claws of the Valkyrie, and soon the landscape lay silent around them. The only sounds now came from the merchants that slowly got to their feet, and the injured horse whose heavy breathing came interspersed with quiet rumbling... and Maea.

She had grabbed onto the little dragon like Boreal was her last and only tether to reality. Heedless of sharp scale edges and prickly horn protrusions, she neither knew or care that her hands were being sliced up. Biting down on her own arm, the fangs were far more painful anyway - and slowly, gradually, something strange was taking place. A hum in her veins that wasn't poison, a burn that tasted of blood and Gold, of midnight and power. The harder she bit down on her arm the stronger it became, until it quite literally burned the nightmarish hallucinations out of her system.

It took a while, but by the time anyone - Tal, likely - came to check on her, Maea's eyes had cleared and the was able to pry her grip off of Boreal and sit up.

Looking at the remnants of the Void creature, then at her friends, she rubbed at her arm, hoping the bleeding would slow down on its own soon. "I'm... okay." Not really, but better than expected. "Ru, are you..?" She didn't really look okay either.

"I don't know about you guys, but I think I'd like to go home now."

Once the horse was healed, and the sled righted, and the shaken, terrified men had been spoken to. It might be a while yet before anyone could actually leave.

---

Void Tumbleweed: 0/350 HP

Final round, let's wrap up <3

You know my name

Table by Skylark

He'd expected - well, hoped - that Ru would throw her ice spheres at the fucker from a distance, but whatever was going on in her head was on a whole different level and he wasn't prepared when she launched past him to rend and tear with mighty paws and claws like two handfuls of knives. He wasn't dumb enough to try and jump in to help, at least, seeing pretty quickly that he'd be in as much danger as the Tangleweed from her wild attacks.

Besides, she had it covered.

He still stuck around to make sure, though, as Boreal huffed in surprise when she was grabbed from behind. It was the dragon's turn to trust in her human and Ru as she turned to curl around Maea, crooning reassurance and mantling her wings protectively around the pale Ancient so that they made a ball of white and red where Maea's arms and skin scraped across sharp scale and talon. The dragon lapped at the wounds with worry until they healed--

and then looked mighty pleased with herself, assuming that the woman's healing was a result of the dragon's intervention rather than a new racial ability.

Hotaru's command had Tal hesitating as he waffled between the two injured women, clearly uncertain who needed him more, but in the end he obeyed the Valkyrie's order and went to kneel beside Maea, offering her an awkward hug if she'd let him and helping her to her feet before they both stumbled back to Ru's side. "Home sounds fuckin' great," he agreed, voice gruff with worry. "Look, I'll stick around an' help clean up here if you two wanna get a headstart?" He'd managed to avoid the hallucinations this time around, and his physical injuries were minor in comparison to what the other two had taken. Leaving Boreal to offer them emotional support, the courier went to tend to the horse with his ring and help the men get their wagon up and running before he was able to rejoin his friends for a stout drink and whatever conversation would help ease the aftermath.

---

Tal fin!

Hotaru

My ghost was lost to the grownup gallows

Things slowly go to rights around her, but Hotaru is far from aware of it. Maea sits up and somewhere in there is her name - or a variation of it - and it's the only thing that distantly echoes in her head. Her shoulders jerk slightly as she rips her eyes away from the plant matter at last and finds the horse standing and alive. And...not Atlas.

There's no description for the pain that causes her. It feels like a second loss, because for a moment she'd been back there and had the chance to actually save him. She almost longs for the insanity of the previous few minutes because the empty space where her bond had once been hadn't felt so pointed.

"I'm fine," she murmurs, and stands slowly. Home to her is far from here, but she nods silently at Maea's faint offer. If it were any other time she'd be more considerate of feelings other than her own but wishes are for fishes and women on the whole better than the Valkyrie. Turning away from the sight of the kicked up mud, Hotaru silently follows Maea back into town like a golden ghost, closed off and somewhere far away.

- - -

Fin!

So I find my spirit in the bottle