Author: Mary

Things and such.

Sidequests Week 12

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

My sidequests for this week were to set a timer and clean for 15 minutes, clean or wash my vehicle, and to purge my closet and donate the clothes.

I will usually do a bit of basic cleaning daily and then do a deeper clean every weekend, and I know that takes longer than 15 minutes. Out of curiousity, I decided to set a timer to see how long it did take me rather than counting down to make sure I did at least 15 minutes. Cleaning the entire house took me about an 1 hour and 45 minutes – that does not include finishing out the remainder of the laundry that I started either, but that’s mostly a waiting game and then a bit of folding, which takes less than 15 minutes.

So that’s one card out of the way.

The other two were things that I have been overdue in handling. I’ve been telling myself I need to clean my car for months. It’s not that it gets bad – most people that get into my car always immediately say that it’s really clean. But there are some things that I haven’t done in awhile that need to be done.

So, after sorting through some clothes and dropping them off at Goodwill, along with a few other items I no longer use, I dropped by the car wash. I washed the outside of the car there, and then returned home to vacuum and wipe down the insides, and clean the windows really well.

So now my car is nice and shiny, I don’t have clothes sitting in my closet that I’ll never wear, and the house is clean. It’s a successful weekend.

54. Lucas & Epilogue

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Lucas

I nodded at Peyton’s statement. “What about you? How much more can you fight?” I asked, looking her up and down.

She smiled wanly. “I’m about tapped,” she admitted, as she turned to watch Lexie’s inferno rage across the cavern. I watched with her. As powerful as Lexie was, there was a lack of control in her attacks – so many of them went wide, or were easily dodged by Shadawn. In fact, it almost looked like he was toying with her. “It’s so close…” Peyton murmured, the third eye flitting between Lexie and Shadawn.

I tensed hearing her words, holding myself ready for the moment. The exchange between Lexie and Shadawn was almost terrifying to watch, fire and shadow swirling through the cavern so indiscriminately that I worried for the others. I couldn’t see them in the chaos, and could only hope that they were okay. Sometimes I had to quickly erect a short barrier to protect the two of us, and not just from the shadows – the fire was everywhere.

And then Peyton gasped, seeing something I couldn’t. “Lexie, get out of there!” she shouted. Frowning, I saw that Shadawn had herded Lexie into a position where he had set a sort of trap – swirling tendrils of dark energy lanced up from the ground and down from the ceiling and Lexie screamed as the energy wrapped around her, holding her in place. Her screams were muted, like she was in a strange cage. From within the confines of the shadow, the fire burst and swirled, but it was all contained. “Shit,” Peyton said.

The chaos in the cavern quieted now that Lexie had been caught in Shadawn’s trap. He stepped close to his shadow cage, chuckling in the eerie silence. “Ah, to be young. You have so much energy,” he said. And then he turned to look at us, smiling. “And then there were two.” He started to approach us.

“Stay here,” Peyton said. “It’s close. Prepare the spell and wait for my signal.” She started to walk slowly toward Shadawn, her head held high.

Frowning, I reached for my magic as I watched her. I focused on gathering the power of death before me.

“Nothing to say, Shadawn? After all those nights insisting that I join you?” Peyton asked as she came to a stop several feet away from him.

For a moment, his expression darkened and then he quickly covered his anger with a smile. “I think you’ve made your position clear, and I am not forgiving. No amount of pleading will spare you from my wrath this night.”

“Ah, well I wasn’t planning on begging to be spared.”

The smile twisted. “But you will. When the pain becomes unbearable, you will.” Before his sentence had finished, he began to grow larger, pulling the darkness of the cavern into himself as he loomed over her. By the final word, his voice was booming, cacophonous. I winced, wanting to do something. Anything.

The air around Peyton began to swirl and lighten – I could see that she was summoning ice around herself, could vaguely hear the sound of ice creaking as chunks of it shifted in the air. She attacked. He swiped an arm through the air, batting aside some of the fragments, but not all. Some of the ice shards made contact, and a cold blue sheen arced up along his arm and chest, causing him to growl in anger. Peyton summoned a massive wall of flame, not quite as large as Lyre’s but large enough that it engulfed Shadawn’s massive form. He howled in anger as it hit him.

She released another, immediately following the first, the flames hiding Shadawn from sight momentarily. And then he came crashing through the fire, bodily slamming her against the ground. She cried out in pain as she hit the floor, her eyes fluttering, the hovering third eye flickering slightly. Shitshitshit, I thought to myself. How much more can he take? Is it time yet? Even though she wasn’t looking at me, I could see Peyton shaking her head.I was already focusing on the death spell, and could feel the coalescing of the dark tendrils of my own magic gathering before me, a deep spot of brown. If I released the spell, would I be able to gather it again? I could only use it once. I cursed myself for having started the preparation for it, wondering what I could do.

“PETER!” I shouted desperately.

Shadawn glanced up at me briefly as I shouted, frowning, as a chittering screech echoed through the cavern. Peter jumped down from where he had been hiding high up on the cavern ceiling. Startled, Shadawn twisted back, attempting to swipe the spider of his head. It was almost funny to watch. As Peter moved, skittering further down his body and biting into his arm, I could see that the spider had attached the small bag of gunpowder to the back of Shadawn’s neck with some webbing. Peyton saw it too.

She focused a smaller fire spell on it, lighting it.

It wasn’t an impressive explosion, but between it and the spider still biting it, Shadawn was distracted enough that he released Peyton. She pulled away – the third eye grew bright, coalescing a deep purple energy, and suddenly several lances of bright purple light shot out like lasers, cutting Shadawn deep. He screamed in anger and pain, finally swatting Peter away, and turning to focus on Peyton.

Peyton, who had slipped up from the ground and was running straight towards me. “NOW, LUCAS!” she screamed.

I activated the spell.

The swirling brown and black miasma of death that had gathered in front of me shifted as I focused on it. It all seemed to happen in slow motion for a moment as I focused on Shadawn and saw his eyes widen in surprise as the energy formed a skull. I thought I could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere within my head, I could hear it slow as the skull grew to match Shadawn in proportion and swallowed him whole. The sound of an utterly inhuman wail filled my senses and overwhelmed me, forcing me to my knees.

Then everything seemed to implode into the spot where Shadawn met death. I gasped as I felt the air suck from my lungs and I closed my eyes and pressed my head to the hard rock beneath me.

When it was finally silent, I gasped. I felt hands gripping my shoulder. For a moment it felt like they were going to help me up, but then Peyton slipped her arms down around me and slumped against me, holding me tight as she joined me on the ground. “We did it,” she whispered, her voice very close to my ear.

I opened my eyes and looked up. The cavern was eerily quiet. From further away than I had thought, I could see Lexie standing, the aura of her magic still burning like a flame, her head twisting. “Peter,” I croaked, my throat dry. I felt strangely exhausted, I realized belatedly – my body trembled from the strain the spell had put on me. It had literally taken everything to cast it. Peter landed in front of me, tapping my head gently with his forearms and chittering. I reached up and patted one mandible gently. “Good boy,” I said.

And then I passed out.

Even before I opened my eyes, I realized it was bright. Almost too bright compared to what I had grown used to underground. Sunlight. My eyes fluttered open, and I hoped to find myself in a comfortable bed, somewhere civilized.

I was in a jungle. I sat up, looking at the massive skull with the vining flowers crawling along it – the place where I had met my god before. I stared into the cavernous eye sockets, and the void stared back. Don’t forget your promise.

I blinked and it was like I was flying over the ground at a fast pace, over fields and forests and mountains, north, where the ground grew barren and icy and snowstorms raged. I saw the massive tree.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled.

I woke, staring up at the rounded stone ceiling of one of the domed domiciles we had found underground. I wondered for a moment if I had been captured by Underlings, until I realized that this was the same one I had slept in before facing Shadawn. I sat up, rubbing my head, and could hear Peter chirping happily as I did so. “Oh good, you’re awake,” Peyton said.

I could see that she was sitting on one of the other stone beds. For a moment, I found myself absently thinking how ridiculously beautiful she was, until I saw her eyebrow quirk in reaction and remembered that she could read my thoughts. I desperately searched my head for the first song I could think of and settled on Yellow Submarine. I nodded. “How long was I out?” I asked.

“About a day. You’re the last one up. We’re getting ready to move out, and we might need you to heal some injuries before we go – I tried my best, but my healing is never complete.”

Move out. My heart jumped for a moment, realizing what that meant. We were leaving this place. We had completed our mission. We were free to live our lives. “What now?” I wondered out loud.

“We keep our promises,” Peyton said, reading my mind. I nodded. Peyton could return the bulk of her god’s power on our way out, and then we would have to visit the little island for Lexie to restore her goddess. And then I’d have to go on my longer trip, far north, to the tree. I frowned, feeling a little overwhelmed at making the trip. “You won’t be alone,” Peyton promised.

I nodded. I realized I hadn’t expected anyone to come with me, and her reassurance was instantly calming. “Thank you,” I said. I shifted, setting my feet on the floor. “And after we finish that last bit of business, what should we do?”

Peyton grinned, and stood up. She held a hand out to me. “Anything we want,” she said.

I looked up at her. Then I took her hand.

Epilogue

Life had slipped into some semblance of normal for Jennifer since the escapade on the alien ship. The invasion had been halted, and some of the invading aliens had been hard to flush out of their hiding places on Earth. But many of the freed aliens helped to find them. It had become a worldwide, multi-government endeavor. The other victims of the invading force were settling onto Earth for now – they had no long range vehicles to take them away, and no homes to return to. Not only that, but their magic flourished. Although a lot of people were hesitant or even outright scared of them, many of the newcomers simply wanted to live out the remainder of their lives as the last of their kind. Some had even begun to focus on trying to find ways back to the other worlds they had abandoned, hoping that perhaps those worlds had survived without their help.

Jennifer had Cassandra home for a brief time. They had visited the other parents of the Chosen – Cassandra had met Peyton’s mother, and Lucas and Lexie’s parents as well. Jennifer helped Cassandra get to her appointments and her treatments, but her health had deteriorated quickly. Disturbingly quickly. Jennifer had watched Cassandra’s vibrancy drain away. And yet Cassandra had been determined to try through every miserable moment to extend her life. “I promised,” she insisted every time. “I have to try to live.”

Eventually, caring for her went beyond Jennifer’s skills. Now Cassandra lay in a facility receiving hospice. Jennifer was there as often as she could be, and tried to keep herself mentally prepared for the inevitable phone call. But, she wondered, could you ever really be prepared for that news?

When the call finally came, she stared at the screen of her phone, letting it ring almost too long before answering.

“Hello?” she said, forcing herself to sound calm.

“Jennifer? It’s Wendy. Cassandra… she’s gone!” the nurse on the other end blurted the sentence out, almost too blunt for Jennifer to stand. For a moment Jennifer wanted to scream at her, asking if that was how she delivered such news to everyone.

Jennifer swallowed hard, and calmed her temper. She opened her mouth to speak, and then swallowed again to wet her throat. “I see. When did she die?”

“No! Oh god, no, nono! She’s not dead. She’s gone!” Jennifer leaned back against the ledge of her kitchen counter as the words sank in, while Wendy continued to babble. “I went to give her meds, and she just wasn’t there. No one saw her leave! Her stuff is all here. No one has any idea where she’s at. Do you think…?”

Jennifer let the unfinished question hang in the air. She wasn’t sure for a moment. Then she desperately hoped in the next moment. And then she was certain. “Thank you for calling me,” she mumbled, and hung up before Wendy could reply. She walked over to her calendar, where she had clipped the letter that Cassandra had left behind long ago when she had first gotten her diagnosis. The letter the lawyer had given her to read when Cassandra died. She stared at her daughter’s looping handwriting on the outside of the envelope, and ran her fingers gently over the outside of it, wondering if it was time to open it. Then she turned and tossed the letter into the trash. “She’s not dead,” she told herself firmly.

Cassandra wasn’t going to die before her. She’d never need to read it.

She was certain of it.

A few days later, she was trying to scroll through her email. Somehow, reporters and the curious always seemed to get her personal email address, and it was chock full of requests for interviews or random questions. Jennifer sighed, wondering if perhaps she needed to delete this account completely. There was no way she would ever be able to sift through it all.

There was the sound of an explosion outside, so loud and close it shook the building and car alarms sounded down the street.

Without a second thought, Jennifer exited her apartment and ran down the stairs to investigate and see how she could help. As she stepped out, clouds of dust were starting to settle. Crowds of people had drifted out to investigate, and others leaned out from their windows. The street was ruined and cracked, and at the center of it stood a short, almost familiar looking figure. A young black girl, with short hair, wearing a tunic dress. The girl turned on the spot, looking sheepishly at the damage that had been caused. Jennifer approached the girl, her mouth agape. “Lexie?” she whispered, hardly believing.

Lexie turned to look at her. “Umm. Hi?” And then she seemed to really look at Jennifer and her face lit up. “Wow, I guess are you Jennifer Brand? Cassandra said I’d be sent close to where her mom was, and that she’d be able to get me back to my parents, but I didn’t think that’d be the literal first person I’d see. Although, if you’re not Jen, you look a LOT like Cassandra.”

Jennifer stared in shock, and gave a brief nod. “Yes, I’m Jennifer. I can get you to your parents.”

Jennifer wanted to ask a million questions at once, about her daughter, about her health, about how she was doing, but all of those questions were put on hold as the younger girl suddenly burst into tears. Jennifer stared in wide eyed alarm at Lexie. The girl smiled, wiping away her tears with the heel of her palm, and laughed. “I’m home,” Lexie said simply.

Jennifer smiled, and moved forward to place a hand on Lexie’s shoulder. “Not yet. Let’s get you there.” There would be plenty of time for questions later – Cassandra was where she wanted to be.

Happy World Poetry Day!

On By MaryIn Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

I’ve always been rather fond of Stephen Crane’s poetry, most especially “A Man Said to the Universe,” “I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon,” “In The Desert,” and “Should the Wide World Roll Away.” There is something in each of them that really encapsulates my world view to some degree, and of all of his poems they’re the ones I come back to again and again. Perhaps it is how succint they are – I do like my poetry to be shorter.

I’m also fond of a few of ee cummings love poems, specifically “since feeling is first” – and I would be remiss to not mention Emily Dickinson, since my overuse of dashes is entirely her fault. Shel Silverstein is fun to read in general, but I keep Masks on my phone as a reminder to always shamelessly be myself.

Even some of the cheesy instagram poetry hits just right at times, most especially a particular one by Beau Taplin.

Well, the month of April is also National Poetry Month. The friend that I did the 2023 Writing Challenge with is going to join me in another, much shorter challenge – we’re going to write a poem for every day of April.

The rules are as follows for the 2024 April Poetry Challenge:

  1. We must complete 1 poem daily, on that day, and post it to our blogs.
  2. Because life happens, we may build up a lee-way of 3 poems before April to use if we cannot update that day.
  3. Every effort should be made to write a poem that day, and the lee-way poems are only a last minute back up if that cannot be done.

So starting April 1st and going until April 30th, we’ll see how we do with daily poetry updates! If we do create any lee-way poetry as a buffer, we will post those after the 30th. This also coincides with the ends of our 2023 Writing Challenge stories, and give us a break from thinking about those before we settle into rewrites.

Sidequests Week 11

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

The sidequests for this week were to remove one thing from my space that is sabotaging my best life, to learn a card or magic trick, and to drink my favorite beverage.

Well! Is is cheating if I count something that I did last week for that first card? Probably, but the effects of the choice have been so great and I only tossed the items related to it in question this week. I’ll count it!

I changed back to pine pellet litter for the cats, which meant doing a new litter box set up entirely and having to throw away the old ones.

About 5’ish years ago I had changed to pine pellet litter and generally liked it, but had an issue with one of the cats always pooping right outside the litter box. It wasn’t hard to clean up, because the litter box was situated on a hard floor, so it was easy to pick up and wipe down and sanitize the area each time, but it was mildly annoying. “Maybe they don’t like that litter you use,” my dad insisted.

So I figured, okay, fine. I’ll try regular litter again, we’ll see how this works out.

I dislike the smell of regular cat litter, especially the more used it gets. I also have cats with very fluffy paws, so it tracks everywhere. I had to vacuum daily, only to see litter tracked across the floors several hours later. I would wake up to grit in my bed. Not only that, but one of the other cats disliked the feel of it getting wet close to her paws, so she started pissing over the side of the litter box, which was a whole new issue.

And whoever was pooping right outside the litter box was still doing it.

I didn’t immediately change back to wood litter, instead trying to stick out using the regular litter, especially because buying new litter boxes and setting everything up is a little bit of a time/financial investment. But finally last week I’d had enough, and switched back. The smell is a lot nicer, for one. Sometimes the wood litter gets tracked around the house, but there’s fewer pieces of it. So I only had to sweep during my weekly clean instead of vacuuming daily.

And someone is still pooping outside of the litter box, but I can wipe that down pretty easily.

I love it so much more. The setup is pretty decent too. I found a reddit post where someone had recommended years ago buying a restaurant drain bin with a bin that fits under it and gives a few inches of space leeway so you can push the dissolved wood litter through, and using a litterbox liner in the bottom bin to collect that.

So maybe it’s cheating because I did it before I pulled the card officially, but this really helps me with my best life.

Drinking a favorite beverage was a bit harder to decide. I really like a lot of things? So what do I declare my favorite? The blueberry Red Bull? The Dr. Pepper? The bottle of water? It seemed that I should treat myself to something special, but I realized that quite belatedly into the week, and instead of dropping by a local boba tea store, I ended up napping my last free day away.

But, I do have boba tea mix and tapioca pearls at home, so it’s simple enough to make.

I use the DeDe instant mixes for boba, and I kind of ignore the directions and use milk instead of water. The only downside is, it’s been so long since I made boba that I think my tapioca is expired. Alas! The tea itself was pretty good though.

And then there was learning a card or magic trick. This is hard in a completely different way in that tricks of these sort require dexterity and sleight of hand, which I lack. Still, there are apparently some card tricks that are more logic than sleight of hand, and a few of them can be found in this video.

The next question is will I actually retain this and ever use it?

The answer is no.

But! I did kind of learn about it.

….

I know, I cheat my way through a lot of these. Bwahahaha.

53. Lucas

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Everything was chaos. I felt useless holding back, summoning vines to help entangle Shadawn whenever I had the chance. Sometimes it worked, but he had learned to watch for my trick and had gotten more adept at moving away from them quickly. It was like being benched during an important game, and I felt frustrated that I couldn’t do more to help. Peyton’s hand was on my shoulder, her fingers digging into my skin, and I knew that she felt exactly the same. The glowing third eye swiveled to watch Shadawn as the battle raged before us.

Raella and Zolambi worked in tandem – she seemed to focus on keeping barriers around the two of them and somehow boosting his abilities, and he lobbed spell after spell at Shadawn’s shifting form. Between him and Lyre, the ethereal echoing of Primordial chanting seemed to fill the cavern. Asterollan seemed to be doing the most damage with his blazing sword, but Shadawn was aware of it and focused on keeping the golden-haired man out of range. Every time his blade bit flesh, I could hear Peyton cry out briefly in victory.

Shadawn also seemed frustrated with Lyre’s massive fire spells. I wasn’t sure if Lyre would have the energy to keep the display up – after the massive wave of fire, he had managed three massive balls of twisting flame, spiraling like an out-of-control vortex of fire, as well as some smaller fireballs. Now he stood back, still glowing with magic and chanting to form the next spell. He was obviously winded and panting hard. Shadawn pulled back several feet to avoid Asterollan’s blade and focused on sending his own dark tendriling magic toward Lyre, sensing the nearing completion of his next spell. Again, the energy dissipated before reaching him, sparking and crackling into the air in a series of blue flashes. A look of anger flashed across Shadawn’s face and I heard him hiss, “T’Keran!”

Lyre loosed another monumental wall of flame, and seeing it, I sent vines to grip at Shadawn’s feet. This time as the wall of flame engulfed him, I could hear Shadawn scream in pain and frustration, and Peyton gave another victory whoop. “Is it time?” I asked her.

She shook her head, but still looked please. “Not yet, but a few more shots like that…”

I glanced over at Lyre. The light of magic had faded around him, and he looked exhausted, his shoulders visibly slumped as he panted. “I don’t think we’re getting any more of those,” I said.

Peyton followed my gaze and cursed slightly under her breath as she saw what I saw. Shadawn emerged from the dwindling spell – despite the scream he looked untouched to my eyes. He rushed forward, straight toward Lyre, his eyes focused angrily on the pale elf. He hit an invisible barrier, but as he came into contact with it, it exuded sparks, and streaks of lightning went skittering and sparkling up a rounded dome that seemed to surround Lyre. Lyre stepped back, his eyes wide as he looked in surprise at the dome, and then he stumbled and fell as it visibly shattered under Shadawn’s push forward.

Shadawn was on him shortly after, physically reaching out to grip at the front of Lyre’s shirt, and pulling back his fist to punch him. He must have been furious to have dropped all pretense of using magic – once, twice, he slammed his fist hard into the elf’s face. Before the third strike, Asterollan came sprinting through and tackled Shadawn bodily, sending him skidding back. Asterollan reached down and helped pull Lyre back up to his feet. “Get closer to Raella,” I heard him say. Lyre nodded and moved away, limping, his nose bloody.

Shadawn was standing, brushing his robes off, glaring at Asterollan. “Of course, Cenastrum chooses a human – he always favored your festering race. Surprising, though, that his Chosen is a man that murders on the orders of his superiors.” Shadawn smirked slightly. “But then, he always did love unquestioning obeisance.” Asterollan narrowed his eyes slightly, shifting back into a more defensive position with his sword, but otherwise did not appear bated by the words. Shadawn sighed. “I do not prefer playing this way,” he said as he summoned a sword of his own into his hands – it was dark and dripping with shifting shadows.

He rushed forward, and the swords clashed together, the sound more a hum of energy and the faint sounds of screams than the clang of metal. The tendriling darkness of Shadawn’s sword seemed to creep over Asterollan’s blade, causing the light to flicker. I could see Asterollan’s expression falter in the light of his sword as the darkness moved to wrap around his wrist. He disengaged and jumped back, studying Shadawn with a deep frown as he shook the hand, almost as though the darkness had numbed it.

Shadawn pulled himself up to his full height with a satisfied smirk, then shifted suddenly out of the way of one of Zolambi’s spells. As he reappeared, Shadawn glared over in the direction of Zolambi, Raella, and Lyre. Then, with seemingly no need to prepare for it at all, he released a massive wall of shadow on par with one of Lyre’s previous walls of flame.

As it released, Asterollan dashed forward to slide his blade down across Shadawn’s back. Shadawn cried out in pain and rage, and turned to swipe at Asterollan with his own sword. The spell had already loosed though, and continued to roar off towards the others.

Raella and Zolambi both focused on erecting barriers – but when the first barrier shattered easily under the force of the dark energy, Raella gasped and turned to focus instead on shoving with her magic, sending Lyre and Zolambi out of the path of the spell. They cried out in surprise as they unexpectantly went sliding away, so forcefully that both hit the wall of the cavern and fell to the ground, alarmingly still.

I watched the massive wave of shadow in shock, my mouth gaping wide, the immense size of it taking me by surprise. As I watched the second barrier shatter, I finally roused myself and grasped forward with my vines, intending to pull Raella out of the way of the oncoming spell. I did manage, but almost too late – it was a glancing blow that caught her just as she was pulled off her feet by my vines, but it must have been bad – she let out an inhumanly pained shriek. She lay on the ground where my vines had carried her, not immediately getting up, whimpering and writhing on the ground.

“This isn’t good,” Peyton noted grimly, watching Asterollan and Shadawn fight one on one. The third eye shifted, looking at each of our companions briefly, and then focusing back toward the main battle. “Lucas.” Her grip on my shoulder tightened briefly. I glanced over at her, frowning. “Go check on them. I’m going to help Asterollan.”

“Are we even close at all?” I wondered.

She shook her head. “No. We’re only halfway there.” And then she sprinted forward, summoning massive shards of ice in the air to hurtle at Shadawn.

“Oh. Well shit,” I grumbled to myself, then sprinted over to check on the person nearest to me, which was Raella. As I reached her, I could see that she had curled up into a ball and was sobbing. I gripped her shoulder, shaking her briefly. “Are you okay?” I asked, feeling a bit stupid to ask since she obviously wasn’t. Another wracking sob shook her body. I focused on the healing magic I had learned, and while there were some physical injuries, she wasn’t badly hurt – the dark energy must have done something to her mentally. I healed her anyway.

After a few moments, her sobs quieted and her eyes flashed open to look at me. She sat up, wiping at the uncharacteristic tears that wet her face. “That was…” she gasped, and shook her head. “That was… intense. He chose fear as his domain, I believe you said?” I nodded, and she sniffed. “I see.” She glanced around to see what was occurring – Asterollan and Peyton were fighting Shadawn, and Lyre and Zolambi still lay still close to the wall. She nodded to them. “I’m fine. Go attend to them.”

I nodded and got up to jog over. I checked on Lyre first – he was unconscious. Even after I healed him, he remained passed out, and I wondered if the massive spells he had used had completely drained him. I could hear Raella approach me from behind as I checked on Zolambi as well, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I found that he was also only unconscious. His eyes fluttered open as I healed him. Raella sat with a sigh next to Zolambi, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not sure how much more we can do,” she admitted.

I nodded, understanding, and turned to watch the battle. “I… should I join?” I asked, uncertain.

“We need you fresh for the end of this thing. Wait a bit longer,” Raella said. I grimaced, watching as Shadawn’s form seemed to enlarge and he viciously backhanded Asterollan into a nearby wall.

“How much energy could the stupid spell use anyway?” I asked.

Zolambi and Raella exchanged looks, but said nothing. I frowned, watching Peyton help Asterollan up. They both looked winded, though the light of magic still burned around them. Shadawn moved in on them, still enlarged.

I moved forward, ignoring Raella’s shouted warning, and focused on summoning an entire area of thorned vines. They shot up, gripping at Shadawn. I don’t know how I understood that I could do it, but I did understand naturally that it was possible – the flowers shifted, growing fangs, and latched onto Shadawn’s flesh, pumping him full of venom. He screamed angrily. I considered pulling upon the power of death that was at my hands, not with the kill spell but perhaps something weaker, but hesitated at the thought of draining myself of any magic I might need later.

Shadawn screamed and pulsed with dark energy again, the way he had before, blasting the vines away and causing them to wither and fade to dust. He turned to glare at me angrily, and raised a hand in my direction. I heard Peyton yell something, but didn’t quite catch the words. I watched as the tendrils of darkness seemed to swirl around his hand, almost moving in slow motion as I focused on that point…

There was a sudden deafening screech from above, almost like a musical bird call. Near the top of the cavern where the platform had descended initially, I could see a bright light. A figure of flame with outstretched wings like some sort of magnificent bird descended quickly through the air. It wasn’t long before it swooped down, landing between me and Shadawn. The shadow turned to stare at the figure impassively as it shrunk down to a smaller size.

Shadawn studied the flaming figure. “And what are you?” he asked.

The flames coalesced and the wings drew in, but she was still lit brightly, a beacon of raw magical energy. Lexie.  “I’M. FUCKING. PISSED!”

She wasn’t looking at Shadawn though. She was looking at me.

“LUCAS! I can’t believe you did that!” she screeched.

I held up both hands in surrender. “I’m sorry?” The firey aura around her grew, compounded in her rage, and I shifted my hands up protectively in front of myself. But instead of focusing the flames on me, she turned and blasted Shadawn, who cried out in shock and anger. After a few tentative moments, I moved closer to where she stood. “Ah, I thought you were going to attack me,” I admitted under my breath.

“Later,” she promised gruffly, her eyes focused on the whirling flames. I grimaced and nodded. Shadawn emerged, looking angrier than before – and he was actually starting to look winded. My gaze shifted to Peyton as I wondered if he was damaged enough yet, but she shook her head as she heard my thoughts.

Shadawn released another massive wall of black energy. I gasped, but in response, Lexie released a massive wall of flame, larger and more intensely hot than the ones Lyre had been producing before. The energies collied, the fire burning through the shadow with ease, and Shadawn let out an angry yell. He began to send wave after wave – similar, but smaller than his previous attacks. Lexie released another massive blast of fire, but it didn’t burn through all of them, and the darkness shifted, focusing on attacking her. I shoved Lexie out of the way of one of the smaller waves of dark energy, and felt it strike me.

First there was pain. It was intense, like someone had taken several bricks and lined them with needles and then slammed them into one side of my body, the side where the dark wave had physically touched me. And then something else took over completely, that made me understand why Raella had been left a sobbing mess.

Terror.

It was instant and overwhelming and in every nerve ending: pure terror. I felt how truly insignificant I was for several long seconds, like every cell in my body had been reminded that I was nothing but a bag of meat and blood that could be easily torn apart by chance or whim. It was like being dumped into a pool of spiders and feeling a million tiny skittering feet run across my skin and into my open and screaming mouth, and feeling them bite and hearing them skitter into my ear canal, and feeling myself grow numb and cold with death. It was like hearing a single overwhelming note hum incessantly, and realizing it was the sound of a heart flatlining, and…

“Lucas! Lucas!” I could feel hands shaking me hard. Coppery brown hair floated around my face and I looked up into blue eyes.

“That was shit,” I said groggily, gripping Peyton’s arms tightly as she helped me sit up. “That was so much shit.”

She frowned, worried, and brushed tears off my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I’d been crying. I shifted slightly on the ground and breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t shit my pants, and she chuckled, having read my thoughts. I looked up to see that there was fire everywhere – the cavern was an absolute inferno. “Yeah, Lexie doesn’t really hold back,” Peyton said, reading my thoughts. And as she read my next one, her frown returned and she shook her head. “No. It’s not time – not yet. But it’s close.”

As she spoke, she stood and offered a hand to me. I allowed her to help me up. I realized I couldn’t see Asterollan anywhere, and Peyton gestured, though I couldn’t see what she had gestured toward. “He got knocked out coming to help you. I think he’s fine… I dragged him off to the side and tried healing him of the worst of it…”