The glint of dying light reflected off the metal greaves strapped to a body at her feet, attracting the gaze of her one functional eye; it lay mostly beneath the corpse of a Tutar, one riddled with so many arrows it more resembled a grotesque hedgehog than a monster. Sen paused her somewhat frenzied search for an offensive tool, tilting her head at the armored legs contemplatively. Surely a man so well-plated would have had a decent weapon on him. Her eye lingered over the outline of the massive enemy cadaver until she saw it; a hilt, and the barest glimmer of exposed blade. If any of the Gods still listened, the thing wouldn't be snapped in half by the bulk on top of it. She knelt down, painfully aware of the growing discomfort on her face, fingers wrapping around the leather-covered hilt. Sen gave a solid heave, expecting to meet more than a few pounds of resistance; unfortunately, the sword came free with almost none, having been embedded in the flesh of the creature itself rather than beneath it.<br/><br/>She stumbled backward, trying to stand for equilibrium's sake and very nearly failing.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Sister!"</span><br/><br/>Still on the finishing fringes of her imbalance, the bloody-faced recruit jerked her head in the direction of Ausan's voice. Of course, there was no way the woman had been calling her, but the voice had been close and in her general direction. Before she could consider the embarrassment of her misstep (odd how such things would still occur to her, at a time like this), Sen realized that the mohawked warrior was, in fact, referring to her. She blinked- well, her left eye did. There was a dull ache beneath the surface of her right eye, but the rent and torn skin itself had gone rather numb and she wasn't sure what bilateral movements were doing to it, if anything.<br/><br/>A Sister, then. Well, at least she could count that as her first and only success before her final breath. Still... she could not prevent the pulse of pride that came with her next heartbeat. She inclined her head briefly toward the older woman, something that was only little more than a nod; a gesture of subtle respect and acknowledgement, an informal salute.<br/><br/>As the Maiden turned back to the Commander, Sen glanced at her new weapon- it was unbroken, thank the Light, and though it was smaller than she had expected it to be that only meant it would not be too heavy for her. The thick, half-congealed blood of the Tutar still coated it almost entirely, but she didn't bother to wipe it off or even spare it another thought. Rather than continue her scramble to rejoin the bulk of the mortal forces, the newly-promoted Sister took a step toward Ausan, remaining close even as the unmounted cavalry approached.<br/><br/>She<span style="font-style: italic">wanted</span>to bolt back, of course, seek immediate assistance for her sundered socket and potentially scream from the pain and plunge into a world of half-darkness. What she wanted, however, hardly mattered any longer. In the end, not much at all mattered any longer. The pain would be gone soon enough, and she wouldn't be dealing with this bisected-shadow world for very long, either. Her corpse would be added to the heaps of her fellows before the hour was out, regardless of whether she stopped the flow of blood from her face or recovered from the exhaustion that begged and pulled at her muscles. Somehow, here, facing certain death between the backs of her Commander and Lieutenant... her resolve was solid. She was doing all she could do for something that was worth the effort; even if she couldn't do much, it was also well worth the eventual price.<br/><br/>The blue light came from her left periphery, shooting forward in the sky like a small, dull comet.<br/><br/>The braided woman raked her already-coated arm across her face again, trying to clear as much of the crimson leakage as she could, left eye fixating on the single- wait, there were<span style="font-style: italic">four</span>of them! Three more similar cerulean comets flew from the sky behind her and a spray of dark blood sprang from the face of an approaching Drorghan, an arterial splatter that signaled a deep cut. Another of the comets dove into the thick neck of the behemoth, and a yet a third blue figure embedded a point deeply into the cavernous maw. It happened almost too quickly for her to keep up. She knew she should be shouting questions, maybe panicking, but she could do nothing except watch with a mind so blank it was a wonder her heart didn't stop.<br/><br/>A gust of wind fluffed the bits of bang and hair that had come unbound from her braids and she finally yanked her gaze away from the scene and to its suspected point of origin. She could see a blue glow that matched that of the comets', a light that shone dimly from behind the mass of unhorsed fighters, but she could see nothing over their helms; before Sen could turn back, another blue-glowing figure slipped through the the front lines and fairly flew past her. It had been close enough to touch, had she extended her arm... or rather,<span style="font-style: italic">he</span>had been close enough to touch. Black-robed and hooded, the man had been so quick she would have doubted his existence had she not been able to follow the pale cobalt glow as it joined the others. The injured mortal couldn't tell how many blue comets had converged on the battlefield, exactly; they moved too quickly, too seamlessly to count. Less than fifteen was her best guess.<br/><br/>Before she could even begin to consider further, a Drorghan stumbling backward (from the same gust of wind that had ruffled her hair?) promptly decimated the cranium of one of its fellows. The blood-stained boulder flew back and Sen found herself unable to look away as the rock pressed the skull into an unnatural shape, caving the bestial face. Bits of thick, plated bone and what she assumed to be its brain splattered away from the collision in a moist, foul-smelling hail as the body collapsed.<br/><br/>Thoroughly overwhelmed, the blonde woman very nearly choked on the bile that rose in her throat. This<span style="font-style: italic">could not</span>be happening. It didn't feel like a delusion borne of blood-loss, it was very real as far as she knew, but... it simply... it couldn't be. The sheer implausibility forced itself over her mind and wrestling with it almost made her physically nauseous. The injured Drorghan that had killed one of its own sprouted a veritable armory of knives from its small, vicious eyes, then fell alongside the exploded melon that had once been the head of its fellow.<br/><br/>Just like that, two of the Drorghan were finished.<br/><br/>Sudden, intense discomfort and a blackness encroaching on the outer reaches of her limited vision reminded Sen that she should continue breathing. She quickly exhaled the stale breath and drew new (if fetid) air deeply, and though her lungs no longer burned the darkness seemed unwilling to fade. Warm blood continued to run in rivulets down the right half of her face, some of them coursing all the way to the nape of her neck and collarbone; she reached up to wipe them away again, noticing for the first time how<span style="font-style: italic">heavy</span>her arm had become. She was unable to stop it from shivering, and her fingertips were very cold. Sounds were starting to fade, losing the sharpness that marked them as real and turning into a blended constant. As it came away from her face the arm dropped immediately, deep scarlet dripping from the fast-numbing extremities. She<span style="font-style: italic">couldn't</span>fall, not yet. Not now.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Please, not yet.</span><br/><br/>The lead that lined her limbs was replaced with cotton. Shadows that clouded the outskirts of her vision pulled back as though they had never been and sound came rushing back to her ears, as though someone had removed a pillow from around her head. The ache behind her mutilated eye sharpened closer to the surface of her skin, but seemed to recede slightly in the depths of her skull. She inhaled deeply, noticing with increased clarity the acrid smell of her own blood and the rotten stink of the corpses, the feel of her stiffened leather armor against her body and the weight of her purloined sword in her hand. For a moment, she was almost positive that she had died.<br/><br/>But then... why would she still be standing in this carnage?<br/><br/>Her head snapped around to her right as she tried to see her fellow soldiers as much as she could (requiring almost a full circle, again). They looked as though they had experienced something similar; many of them were straightening armor they hadn't even noticed to be askew before, their shoulders re-aligning and eyes opening with renewed fervor. More than a few had a confused (if grateful) expression on their faces, some even questioning the ones next to them about the bizarre mass sensation- no one had answers, from what Sen could tell.<br/><br/>Just when she was ready to fully accept this as the peak of the totally-impossible, a fierce whirlwind sprang from nothing in the calm skies above the Drorghan's advance. It sucked the giant plated monsters into it effortlessly and regurgitated them equally so, slinging them into those lucky enough to avoid its swirling vortex. The sounds of armored backs crushing into leathery bellies, skulls colliding and chains tangling echoed in Sen's ears, the ground shaking as the massive forms crashed back to the surface of Soluunar and making her unsure if the booming intensity had more effect on her brain or her balance. If the shaking grew any more violent, she wasn't sure she could keep her footing even at a stand-still. A thick<span style="font-style: italic">shunk</span>sound abruptly cut off a Drorghan's roar, a heavy spear neatly puncturing its cranium.<br/><br/>Three down.<br/><br/>The cyanic shooting stars -the glowing people, Sen corrected herself- turned their attention back to the horde as the tornado faded. Deadly knives caught what little light there was to catch as they flew, their precision and speed finding any vulnerability there was to be found and stabbing it mercilessly. The flying ones, larger in their heavy armor, continued to attract most of the attention from the beasts and nimbly avoid any retaliation to their provocation and lethal thrusts. Sen felt her breath coming easier, and she unconsciously wiped the blood from her face for the umpteenth time.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">What <span style="text-decoration: underline">is</span> this?</span>Her single-eyed gaze fell to the two people still in front of her, all of her questions shining in the luminescent pink-gold depths.<br/><br/>"Your prayers were heard."<br/><br/>The voice, coming in clear over the din of the battleground and the astonished babble of the soldiers, caused Sen to nearly jump out of her skin. She spun around to the side in an instinctive maneuver to avoid the trajectory of the speaker, but her good eye remained fixed on him. Glimpses of a metallic, brown-gold set of armor peeped out from beneath dark, deeply blue robes and a long, tawny horsetail trailed in his wake... along with a heavily-plated man in a full helm, armed with a quarterstaff and a glare.<br/><br/>"They were heard," came the voice again, quieter now that he stood directly in front of the Prince-Commander, and resonating with a sort of calm that Sen was hard-put to identify beyond that imprecision, "And now we fight."<br/><br/>Wait. They were<span style="font-style: italic">Gods</span>? The meaning behind the blue-robed man's words hit Sen like a smack in the face and her eye darted back to the figures still dealing destruction to the horde, then to the two strange figures only a few feet away, then back to the battlefield. Her feet felt rooted to the blood-soaked ground and her breath started to come faster, anxiety seeping in to bolster the remnants of adrenaline. The God spoke to the Prince again, but when silence answered him he started to continue. Sen hardly blamed the Commander. To even witness something -someone- like this was nothing short of impossible, let alone to actually be<span style="font-style: italic">addressed</span>by such a -<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFFF00">"Well it's about damn time."</span><br/><br/>Sen choked. Audibly. It wasn't clear<span style="font-style: italic">what</span>she had choked on -tongue, spit, air- but a loud, sputtering and quickly-smothered cough erupted from her figure as the Prince-Commander sassed the God. She knew he was continuing to speak to the divine presence in front of him, but she was so thrown by the tone of his voice and choice of words that she could scarcely understand them. A well-hidden piece of herself wanted to laugh, but it was covered by the wave of incredulity. A battlefield full of Gods, and for at least six seconds the only thing she could do was stare, disbelieving, at a mortal man with a thick beard over a smart mouth.<br/><br/>Sen's idea of the Commander altered in that moment- he may have no longer been on his obscure, noble pedestal of leadership reserved for those of royal blood, but she felt a little knot of personal loyalty form in the depths of her chest.<br/><br/>The knee-smasher approached Barth, and though she wanted to keep a wary eye (her only one) on him whenever he was within ten feet, she was promptly distracted as the God turned toward her. Ordinarily, the braided woman would have shrunk back as though physically struck by the thick-set immortal, but she found herself fairly frozen by the nature of her situation. The God took only a few steps toward her, and with a jolt of remembrance she instinctively stepped to the side to avoid his path, almost identically to how she had only moments before. This time, however, he turned with her and stopped less than two feet away. Automatically she dropped her head, not in a bow but merely a maintained acknowledgement of what he was. A beat passed, and he didn’t move. Sen knew she was going to start trembling soon, if she hadn’t already. What was he<span style="font-style: italic">doing</span>?<br/><br/>A finger’s width of cool plate mail gently touched beneath her chin, tilting her head upward, timed with a corresponding palm that pushed her bloody bang upward and rested lightly on her forehead. The one-eyed woman found herself staring into the God’s face, a face that was<span style="font-style: italic">very</span>close to her own and focused on the chaos that had taken over her right eye socket, the lips a contemplative line. Her jaw tensed above his light touch, functional optic wide- she was sure she would forget to breathe any second now, but it hadn’t happened yet. The divine figure’s smooth, rather blockish jaw and heavy brow gave his face a steady, immutable appearance, and whatever shone behind the glassy black of his eyes was nothing that she need fear. Quite the opposite- Sen could feel some of her anxiety melt into the mud beneath her boots. It was like… she struggled to find something to compare to the God’s aura. It seemed almost like she had been trudging through a storm, a wild and vicious hurricane, and after being buffeted by brutal winds and piercing rain had finally found a strong, stone wall behind which she could take refuge. The wall would not bend beneath the gale-force winds, would not disintegrate beneath the stinging cold of precipitation. The Brigham woman would have been hard pressed to decide if this was actually the feeling she got from the immortal himself, or simply from the fact that<span style="font-style: italic">any</span>immortal was there<span style="font-style: italic">at all</span>. Any port in the storm would have given relief… but something about this particular port was even more steadfast, reassuring. Perhaps it was simply something that came with being a God.<br/><br/>“That’s quite an injury, soldier,” he finally said, dropping his hands from her face and leaning back very slightly. Sen remained as he had left her, her tongue still just a little too shocked for words. “I will close it, but I fear the sight may be lost already.”<br/><br/>Her tongue snapped awake and without even thinking, she answered,<span style="color: #80BFBF">“Many have lost more than that today, Sir,”</span>she started, her voice lacking the characteristic hesitance and displaying a smoothness in its place,<span style="color: #80BFBF">“If it will keep me fighting even one second longer, then -”</span>the rest of the sentence died abruptly, un-cut eye widening and cheeks flushing as she realized she had been speaking so conversationally with a God. Should she apologize? Would that make it worse? The proper etiquette for this situation hadn’t exactly been covered in any of her lessons as a Brigham… not that she could maintain proper etiquette in situations that<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>been covered.<br/><br/>A faint smile tilted the corner of the God’s lips, the warm tan of his skin creasing slightly around the side of his mouth. Her anxiety melted away again, like snow in a tropic- it tried to pile up but could not last beneath the heat of the sun. A soft smile of her own curved in response. Without another word, the bronze-plated hand came up and set its palm directly over her disheveled socket. The rush of feeling that invaded her bloody wound was like ice- except that it was not uncomfortable. Colder than the coldest of winter snows but carrying only that intensity, that deep soothing, healing iciness that could almost be considered a burn, except that it wasn’t hot. It instantly pervaded her skull and seeped around her face and even down her shoulders, as though spilling over from where it filled the mutilated eye. Numbness receded from the surface of the injury but there was never pain- only an increase in the intensity of that frozen heat, and the dull ache that had been building behind it was smoothed over as easily as a wave would smooth a mound of sand. There was light coming from the God’s palm and Sen was forced to close her left eye against the brightness. She could not help but notice that he smelled distinctly of caves; it called to the back of her mind scenes of ancient rock and unchanging well-springs, of snow-capped mountains and old, stone ruins.<br/><br/>She felt the change. The ice faded and was replaced with a tingle, an almost harsh tingle that filled her orbital depression- it was like when her foot fell asleep, but such a feeling was hardly as expected anywhere above the shoulders. Not pain, not quite, but not comfortable and certainly not as soothing as it had been. Sen winced despite herself and stuttered<span style="color: #80BFBF">“Ah, it-it… s-something is…”</span><br/><br/>In the blackness behind her right eyelid, an image appeared- it was only there for a second, but it was as clear as if it had been drawn in stars on a moonless night. Three lines, curved at the ends, colored a deep golden-bronze.<br/><br/>Then it was gone, as well as the invasive sensations and the God’s palm against her face. She opened her eyes, feeling both lids flicker as she did so- instinctively she reached up to touch her right eye. Her fingertips came across unbroken skin, the tissue of a smooth scar distinctive and running in a thick line from her temple to the bridge of her nose. Vision returned to the repaired orb, nothing more than a shadowed blur but clear in the promise of more.<br/><br/>“Look at me,” came the gentle command from the immortal, and Sen turned her face up to his. He leaned forward with a scrutinizing expression, and unless Sen was very much mistaken he seemed just a tiny bit surprised. Only for a second, though- as it faded, the young mortal thought she heard him mutter something about “Lydia’s influence” to himself. Regardless, he straightened and she promptly inclined in a slight bow.<br/><br/><span style="color: #80BFBF">“Thank you,”</span>she said quietly as she raised her head once more, feeling the dried blood crack on her right cheek as she spoke. To her surprise, the God merely gave her a slow nod and a reassuring, calm smile before turning smoothly around and heading toward the rest of the soldiers. The entire interaction between the two of them could not have taken more than a few minutes, but the feeling that it left within the gawky Sister made her wonder if time had not been frozen, or extended somehow; everything had been quick, and yet it had seemed so… unrushed. Leisurely, almost.<br/><br/>Shame it couldn't stay that way.<br/><br/>Her focus honed in on the Prince-Commander as he spoke, his words reverberating with honest passion, then to Ausan. Her right eye may still have been giving her little more than dark shadows and vague shapes, but the expression that faced the Lieutenant was clearer than words:<span style="font-style: italic">with you</span>.