<span style="font-style: italic">”… to stay back with the others and hold the line.”</span><br/><br/>Sen nodded sharply, staring into the face of the taller woman with all the attention she could muster. Her gaze followed the line from the tip of Ausan’s sword and she caught sight of the Sisters, close together amidst the other soldiers and just as wide-eyed as anyone else. She tried to nod again as specifics were added to her orders, but the Lieutenant’s hand clapping down on her shoulder nearly buckled her knees. Her eyebrows raised as she faced her again, thankful that she hadn’t collapsed under the comradely gesture. At the mohawked warriors friendly, almost warm tone, Sen’s mouth widened into a small grin. The minor release of tension was incredibly welcome, and it reflected in the depths of her mismatched eyes.<br/><br/>As Ausan turned her attention away, the gawky woman turned toward the gathering of female Lindenian soldiers. She recognized the woman with short black hair, who was missing the tip of her ear and had participated in her “initiation”; she was now armed with a fairly large sword (though Sen suspected a wooden staff could have equal efficacy in her hands). Also present was the broad-shouldered woman who had silently given her a water-break before, in the trenches. The blonde braid rustled as she gave her head a little shake. Had it really only been earlier that day, when they were all almost bare and concerned only for how deep they could dig in the heat of the day? The broad-shouldered woman now hefted an intimidating broad-axe, no fatigue evident in her stony expression and the unwavering gaze fixed on the enemies that loomed.<br/><br/>She approached, calmly but with a confidence that announced her right to walk amongst them. The tip of her stolen weapon nearly touched the ground as she moved, still caked with gore. She saw the questions in their faces, and a few of them even flicked their eyes back to the Gods, but no one actually asked her anything. There would be time for interrogation later. Or there wouldn’t be. Either way, there wasn’t time now.<br/><br/>The newest Sister turned, just in time to be blinded by a burst of light. Her free hand came up to cover her face instantly but she winced, feeling additional tingles in her freshly-healed eye that had her hoping she hadn’t ruined the sight within four minutes of getting it back. A few muttered swears from her Sisters bounced around, and as her arm dropped and her lids bounced back, her breath caught in her throat.<br/><br/>The Commander was gone, first of all. She wasn’t sure where he had gone, but no one appeared to be panicking over it. The spot he had claimed didn’t stand empty, however. It had been taken over by glowing tendrils of pale purple-white, a color that faded from one end of the lines to the other, that filled the air like drifting wisps of shredded silk. They curled and snaked around each other as though alive, graceful and ethereal, but they started to gradually fade into nothingness. She turned to her sides, a question on the edge of her tongue, but she swallowed it back upon seeing that no one else was staring toward the patch of dirt with the Prince’s fresh boot-prints. Slight concern settled across her features, but as she turned back to Gods it turned into incredulity.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Beautiful</span>. Never before would Sen have imagined such a thought could ever be used to describe any battlefield, especially this one, but it was the first impression that came. They came from the sky, shafts and sheets of iridescent light, coming from heavens that had darkened with the retreating dusk. It looked as though they were concentrated in whimsical collections of color, color that spread and spread until it was no longer visible but had attained a radius that spanned everything she could see, a gossamer veil of aura. Like falling stars viewed from behind an opaque lens, it seemed as though a divine giant had struck the fabric of the carnage with a massive paintbrush, the strokes and streaks of luminescent silvers and pale blues settling toward the surface of Soluunar from the depths of the evening clouds. One of them came close to her, resembling a lazy gust of graceful, impetuous wind; she instinctively reached out to it with a child-like impulsiveness, needing to feel the visible breeze against her fingertips. It was completely intangible, her fingers brushing right through it and leaving it undisturbed as it came closer, passing over, around, through her body like an ephemeral silken embrace. Her eyes closed and she inhaled as it “touched” her, but only the familiar smells of blood and metal met her nose, and though she spun around to watch it leave almost instantly, it had vanished, fading into the mortal wind- rather,<span style="font-style: italic">adding</span>itself to the wind, a transparent film over the surface of the world.<br/><br/>“Sister…?” came the hesitant, husky question. Sen jerked her head to the woman with the missing ear-tip, who had fixed her with a very awkward stare, one brow quirked. A flush crept into the blonde’s cheeks and she turned away from it. It hardly seemed fair to blame her. Frankly, Sen thought that<span style="font-style: italic">they</span>were the strange ones for<span style="font-style: italic">not</span>trying to touch the beautiful wisps of aura. Even cloaked as some still were in faint, pale bronze glow around their defining lines, the silken sheets that came from the sky were something else. She felt like torches or any other light-sources had been rendered useless by the glowing curtains of painted light, though no one else seemed to share her opinion.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFFF00">“With me!”</span><br/><br/>Sen wasn’t sure when he had returned or from where, but her nerves snapped to full attention at the sound of his voice and she jerked her head in his direction, a hard wave of adrenaline fanning through her blood vessels until it had engulfed her once more. Brilliantly-focused eyes noticed the wisps of violet-white lines that trailed down his armored body, dripping down like water after a dousing and pooling around his feet before disappearing against the darkness of the ground. She followed as the soldiers and Sisters around her pushed forward in a forceful wave, moving in the group and, for the first time, not being shoved along by it. Her feet found solid purchase on the soil that was slippery with blood, the lightweight blade in her hand held close but with a painfully small measure of control. They didn’t travel far, only past the first few trenches, and her way was lit as though a noonday sun loomed over the path.<br/><br/>The warriors parted in front of her as they fanned the approach of the massive, stone-skinned bipeds, and she came to a stop with the broad-shouldered Sister to her right and a Lindenian swordsman to her left. The Sister hefted her axe to the ready, but Sen mimicked the swordsman, adopting a balanced, wide stance and holding her blade in front of her. Her imitation seemed fairly obvious, and she pointedly avoided his gaze, just in case it had been revealed that he would be fighting alongside a woman who had clearly stolen her weapon.<br/><br/>The ground still thundered beneath her feet, little pebbles and rocks jumping as each massive step from a Drorghan crashed to the field. The inexperienced young woman lowered her gaze and her brow furrowed, a deep breath heaving and relaxing her shoulders, fighting the bile of fear that rose from her gut at the instinctive hate that burned in the monstrous beasts’ eyes. The axe-wielding Sister shifted slightly, and the left side of her left foot touched Sen’s opposite boot. Her mismatched gaze darted to the woman, but there was no answering glance or even indication that it was intentional. Still… the braided woman felt logic filter back into her, the lump of apprehension settling away, re-routed to observation and other, more practical uses. It seemed to her that the creatures moved differently… a part of her wanted to say that they were slower, but it made no sense. Did they hesitate? Did they reason enough to do something like hesitate? She wouldn’t have thought, but everything, from the quaking of the soil to the grating, hair-raising scrape of their bound weaponry seemed to be –<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFFF00">“Roll!”</span><br/><br/>A flash of light, colored like navy blue shadow but streaked with long, thin lines of bright platinum, broke into Sen’s peripheral vision. Instinct prompted her to turn and see the source, but there was no time; even as the Commander’s words echoed down the line of her fellow fighters, the trembling crust of the world changed. It swept from behind the fan of soldiers, fast but smooth, overtaking the dirt-and-blood colors in a precise wave of deep cobalt, laced with spider-web lines of silver.<br/><br/>Sen’s eyes widened as they followed the rapid encroachment of the blue shadow, and as it swallowed the floor beneath the Drorghans, the boulder attached to the nearest one raised into an arc of savage, artless destruction. The leather-armored woman watched as its shadow settled around two Sisters not far to her right…<br/><br/>… and gazed in disbelief as the unreal opponents were swallowed whole, the world beneath them shattering like glass. As though twilight itself had broken to engulf the bestial embodiments of brutality.<br/><br/>In a rapid fade it was returned to the original color, though the crumbled and broken framework remained, now complete with mostly-consumed stone giants, snarling and roaring their distress and rage in a two-toned harmony. Their boulders slammed to the world in unison and Sen’s eyes were nearly shaken out of her skull, but adrenaline and a “well-rested” body returned her focus quickly. There was no time for hesitation; this was opportunity. There was no time to let this chance slip away. She quickly ducked forward, faster and lower than either of the fighters at her sides; the sword that she had held so carefully in front of her fell low again, trailing like an extension of her left arm, lifted only by the momentum with which she moved.<br/><br/>She made it past the edge of range of the boulders’ arcs, eyes fixed on one particular beast. As the massive rock flung around again, the thick chain came for her body, taunt with weight and force- her long torso bent backward, neck exposed as it curved as far towards the ground as it physically could. Sen felt the thick<span style="font-style: italic">whoosh</span>as it the heavy links brushed past her contorted figure, the rush of air telling her just how close they had come to her body even if she couldn’t see. As they passed she whipped upright and continued forward, the entire manoeuver almost a single movement. Her dual-hued optics re-aligned with the raging face of the creature, its arm still pulled away from the side of its body in the heft of its crude weapon. Opportunity glowed once more, but this time a heady draught of fear came as well, breaking the walls against it -humans were not meant to be so close to the face of a Drorghan, not alive, anyway- and it swept over her muscles in an instinctive self-preservation mechanism. She couldn’t hold it back, but she<span style="font-style: italic">wouldn’t</span>let it immobilize her. Not again. The familiar voice echoed in her ears, as clear as if the speaker stood only inches away.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">”Why are you here?”</span><br/><br/>The cruel, inhuman face turned away from her over its flexed shoulder, seeming to be focused on another assault; the chance could not have been any more obvious had it been lit with torches and labeled “Kill me here”. The huge, gaping mouth opened again to release a furious bellow, but it was too late. Almost simultaneously, Sen buried her light blade into the Drorghan’s beady eye even as the Commander spiked into its brain, stilling the creature into death almost instantly. Her face turned toward him for only a second as he shouted, but she caught his words clearly as she yanked her stolen blade from the mucous of the glazed, punctured eye.<br/><br/>The Prince-Commander surveyed the field from the shoulder of the corpse, and Sen turned to do the same; new bodies of her fellows had been added to the older ones amongst the strewn ground, but she couldn’t identify which area she should leave toward- even as she decided, each of the creatures were brought to a bloody, lifeless state by the blades of those who remained. Another tornado, obviously a created phenomenon, tore through a branch of Tutar that approached on the coattails of their larger counterpart’s demise; Sen watched with a slightly open mouth. The vortex was made of the same violet-and-crystal white shreds of fabric that she had seen before, but this time, they were<span style="font-style: italic">huge</span>- massive strips of violently whirling rent silk, lifting and flinging Tutar as though they were bits of dust. The bright white of it made the already-glowing battlefield almost painfully bright, and Sen narrowed her eyes, shading them with one arm against the brilliance, trying to watch as the cyclone disappeared from her vision. She blinked, trying to evacuate the splotches that still danced in front of her.<br/><br/>A long, slow breath escaped her and she turned her head up from where she stood, still beside the Drorghan cadaver’s face, toward Barth. No new orders came forth, however, as he headed back toward the bulk of the human forces. Sen turned as well, toward those who had stood in the line with her, and followed him with the rest of them. Her eyes scanned the remaining soldiers quickly, seeking the Sisters- they were rarely far away from each other. She spotted them easily enough and fell among them, noticing with a twist in her chest how<span style="font-style: italic">few</span>they seemed, compared with their numbers upon the approach. The broad-shouldered woman with the axe was nowhere to be seen, and the twist gave a keen squeeze.<br/><br/>Sen decided not to let herself spare a glance back.