thoughtsofvorfreude | An Ebb and Flow

Had she thought things through, perhaps things may have gone differently. The people were already terrified of the Red Dragon that Gareth had drawn from his imagination to distract them and help the others; but now, swooping into the same area was a silver dragon. She wasn't fully matured in her dragon form yet, white and blue, icy and silvery, but with the small hints of purple that indicated she had not truly developed all the way yet. She was still learning.

Of course, those nuances would be lost in the fire, and to most who did not know a great deal about dragons. To them, a large beast was swooping in to cause more havoc. And perhaps that would be Gareth's first impression, lest his eye caught the passengers saddled upon the Dragon's back. His companions. Most of them.

Lowering down they eased off of the chilly looking beast, though the mood seemed more somber than celebratory. Orek holding Zelly in his arms and Gorman nowhere to be found. The great beast bowed it's head, jaw touching the floor and there was no mistaking the way it watched Zelly. Puffs of misty breath caressing the dirty ground.

Gareth was sitting when the Dragon flew over him, circling once before settling down on the ground near the crater created from Gorman's supposed self-sabotage, and it was clear evidence of just how drained he was that even such an incredible display--not to mention his fascination with dragons!--couldn't rouse him from his seat. All around him were new marks from whatever kind of encounter he'd been forced to endure: scorch marks here, broken arrow shafts there, and a good amount of rubble to boot. How the marks had been made was another question, given the inability for his illusions to wreak actual havok.
Right?

"A Dragon," he breathed in obvious reverence. He fought to stand but failed, wincing clearly as the effort cost him. "Not my fault, I hope? Maybe I shouldn't have picked a Red to portray." He frowned in thought. "Are you a relative of Winter's?" He turned his eyes to his companions as they dismounted, and his alarm grew with each new figure. "Where's Gorman?" he asked first, then abandoned the question and staggered to his feet. "Is Zelly alright? What happened?!"
But the greatest shock was yet to come.

Gareth stood rigid as a pole, his breath catching in his throat. His heart nearly stopping. His exhaustion temporarily forgotten.
"...Where's Winter."

They were all questions she didn't want to answer, anguish filling her. None of them were pleasant answers. Once they were all down she moved toward Gareth slowly, allowing herself to stop just a foot away. Bright yellow eyes peering at him for a long moment as she tried to think of the right words. "Gorman did not make it." A glance back to Zelly, as she felt her eyes well up, feeling an ache in her stomach. It was guilt, and it weighed on her more than the people she had been carrying. "Zelly was hurt..."

After a few seconds, a pained sound managed to slip free, leaving her looking away. It was hard to confess, yet all the same, she should. She didn't know what had happened to her, what had finally let her make the change but...

"It's me Gareth."

Gareth winced, too emotionally torn up to contemplate the fact that a Dragon was talking to him or that its voice sounded oddly, strangely familiar. Like he'd known it for a very long time. "I can't believe it," he breathed, but callous as it was his mind didn't linger on Gorman's passing for long. Not when there were two other, closer relationships he was desperate to nurture, and their potential loss shook him to the core.

"Zelly," he choked out, and stumbled over to her as Orek stood motionless, carrying her shivering body. Gareth gently reached out and brushed her hair back from her sweating, scrunched-up face.
"I'm so sorry," he managed to choke out, and tears likely would have stood out on his face if that came naturally to him. But it was clear that Winter--

Winter...

He turned slowly back to the Dragon and slowly, cautiously laid a hand on its giant snout. The scales were cool, almost icy, and smooth as glass.
"It is you, isn't it?" and his voice was all a mix, too complex to nail down to just one emotion. But if any had dominated, it would have been cool clear relief.

"Yeah..." She wasn't sure what else to say, as if she could explain anything of what was happening to her. Why she could do this when she had struggled before. It hadn't come as naturally to her as her older brother, or even the younger one. Her mother had always teased it was because she had more of her father in her, but Winter honestly didn't know. Everything that had happened put her at a loss and more than that she was exhausted. She had used everything in her power, and now she was struggling.

"Zelly was hurt I..." She paused and shrugged helplessly-- though the action was much larger on this new form. Her head lowering down to make eye contact with him, cold puffs of air rolling out as she watched him; exhausted, but unwilling to let herself rest. "I had to protect her."

It was a strange sight, the giant Dragon lowering her head to the exhausted Sorcerer. The cold puffs of air from her breath blew his hair back and rippled his clothes, leaving small ice crystals here and there before they slowly melted. The thought of someone as dwarfed as he was trying to comfort something so much larger than him was laughable, perhaps even ridiculous--but that was what he was nonetheless trying to do.

"That's alright," he swallowed. "I know you did the best you could. I know you would do anything, everything to help Zelly and to protect her." He looked over at her, clearly agonized himself by the soft noises of pain she was making, and the unfocused expression she wore.

"Can you... turn back?" he asked Winter carefully, his hand still resting on her snout.

The truth was she didn't know; she hoped so, of course, her brothers could. But she had begun to wonder if she could really change like them. The touch was welcome, even if it felt odd like it was her body but not her body. Letting out a long, slow, breath before she began focusing on her body. Dragging it down, pouting all her energy into her magic. It takes a while, and a bit of pain, but she manages it.

IT's quite a change, the crystals shrinking, her soft groans, a fluttering of dust to hide some of it till she was her own, small, form. It was far different in size, and left her there, kneeling on the ground and panting. She looked worse for wear. That braid frayed burns still red and littering her body from where the light had burned against her scales, a few bruises and aches littering her as she rested back on her haunches; sucking in a few pathetic breaths before looking up at him.

"I failed..."

He held his breath, watching Winter intently as she tried for the first time to reverse her transformation. The truth was, he didn't know whether she'd be able to return either: there were many stories he'd heard about magicians overreaching themselves and creating a magic that was irreversible. One way or another, they tapped into something beyond their capabilities and did something that just couldn't be taken back.
And if Winter had done the same...
he didn't know. He didn't want to think about it.

But as he watched her form shrank, smoothed, retracted its wings. In the end she was a much, much smaller figure made even tinier by her fallen posture, and like this he could easily see the wounds she'd suffered, made invisible previously by her greater bulk and protective scales. It made him let out a gasp, his face full of pain for her.

Gareth reached out to her, but thought better of it: he didn't know where to touch her that wouldn't cause her pain. Instead, his strength flagging, he simply sat down beside her.
"We both did."
"But it's not over yet. Zelly's been like this before. We just need to save her once more."
"Right?"

She couldn't raise her head, feared letting him see the shame written upon her features. Twisted in anguish, pulled with pain, it was unlike her normal demeanor in almost every way. Hid the wetness on her features as her nails dug into her knees, held tight as she could not stop thinking of her failings, of how she had not done everything she promised him-- and herself, and Zelly she would do.

"I don't know..." She whispered, hunching over more, curling in on herself as the various burns stung and stretched against her skin, flesh hot and blackened, so much warmer than she was comfortable being. She panted through the burns, the muscles of her back visibly tensing and rolling as she fought back the urge to scream in anguish. Zelly was hurt, Gorman was... Her hair fell around her face as she bowed down, stomach twisting tight and painful.

"I can't heal her, I can't--- she isn't--" And that was as far as she got before her forehead hit the ground, completely bowing down under the weight of the suffocating emotions drowning her.

He thought at first she was cold, somehow chilled by the soft wind blowing acrid smoke from the many fires within the city. It was a stupid idea. Winter's beautiful silver-blue scales were more than enough to protect her from the cold--despite the numerous scorch marks she now sported--and he wasn't sure he'd ever heard her so much as mention it. But that was the only explanation he could find for the spasmodic shivers passing through Winter's body.

"Winter?" he asked, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten as he recognized something was wrong. His voice was soft and worried. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide as the girl he--she broke down in front of him.
Then he slid close, as close as they'd been all those times they'd stood shoulder to shoulder resting from the last struggle, and wrapped his arms around her.
It wasn't something he was used to. Wasn't something he would have done half a year ago, and maybe never would have learned to do if it wasn't for Winter. But he wanted to give her the same comfort she'd showed him so often.

"Shh, shh," he breathed, his eyes flicking over at Zelly once, then returning to stay focused on Winter. "You did your best. It's alright, it's alright." He did his utmost to hold her without grazing the blackened patches of her skin, but it was difficult. He almost managed. "Zelly will pull through. She always has."
"You did all you could."

"It wasn't enough." And that's all she could think. In all their fights, challenges, she had had faith in her strength; in their strength and a group-- and at the very least her ability to keep Zelly safe. But she had lost it, had lost Zelly in the fight, and Gorman had been through worse... She may have brought the girl back, but she had failed her main mission. Keeping her safe; her promise to the Queen, to Garth, to them all that she would do at least that was lost. She had failed to keep her safe-- Zelly had paid the price for Winter being so foolish as to take her with.

She cried against him, on him, sucked in breaths as hard as she could and hissed at the burns littered across her body. She didn't even seem to care about the physical pain as much as she did the anguish of her failure.

"We can't heal her-- nothing so far-- nothing--" She shook her head as her nails dug into her flesh, thwarted by the thickness of it and the weakness she now felt in her exhausted grip. "I can't wake her up."

Gareth's eyes flicked up from Winter's prone form as he remembered the others in their group existed. Some looked on, expressions mixed, but most were already looking away. Winter crying was something that none of them were really prepared for--especially when they couldn't offer her any easy answers. Would Zelly be alright? Had they made the best choices they could have? Would everything solve itself in the end?
Gareth didn't know. None of them did. But he hoped it was all true.

He held her tight, not knowing much else to do with himself. He hated it. "Shh, shh," he breathed, one of his hands caressing her bright red hair. Whole chunks of it had been burned away by whatever she'd come up against fighting Percival, filling the air with traces of acrid smoke.

"We'll fix it," he promised her. It wasn't anything like he was lying to make her feel better: he couldn't conceive of a world in which Zelly didn't exist. In which she'd died because of-- because of--

"She's a Vampire, remember?" he tried to soothe her. "She'll be fine. She'll recover, just like she did months ago in the rain. Remember?"
"She'll be alright."

More than anything she wanted him to be right, she wanted to believe what he was saying simply so she didn't have to suffer through the thought of losing her. Zelly wasn't her child, no, but she was as close as Winter got. She was part of her brood the same as the others in the group so the thought of losing any of them pained her, but perhaps it was fair to say Zelly and Gareth the most. They had bonded in a way she hadn't been aware of before she came to live amongst the humans. Gareth was a different kind of affection; warm, soft, something deep in her chest. And Zelly... Zelly brought about a strength of her heart she did not know she had, a sort of bravery to keep the girl sheltered, happy, warm. To offer her the things that Winter knew she could have. Should have.

She understood so much more of her Father being with them than she ever had at home.

It takes a bit too long for her to stop crying, to stop feeling the guilt-- but there's no doubt she could have cried for hours over Zelly, over Gorman. Could probably keep crying as long as she was allowed; but she stopped herself. There was nothing to be done by her tears. Cring would not help Zelly.

Lifting her head there's a redness to her eyes, a dark sort of circle under it, tinting her bright blue skin. She looked weary and broken, but Gareth was right, in some ways. She couldn't bear the thought of a world without Zelly, and refused to sink into a pit that would keep her from saving the girl because she was too busy already mourning her.

"I'm so sorry..."

For a moment or two, the others continued to stand around as if there was something they could do to help. But as Winter's tears continued Orek, Dink, Victor--they all quietly drew away, checking on Zelly, beginning their own low-toned conversations with their heads turned aside. Gareth, for his part, simply crouched there, his arms wrapped around the distraught half-dragon. He waited, and he held her, and he said whatever came to his mind. Whatever he thought would be the most soothing, although little of it was well-worded or even made too much sense: just a lot of "it's alright"s and "I know, I know"s.

And gradually, her crying ceased. Gareth stifled a sigh of relief: he'd never seen Winter and certainly never heard such raw hurt and grief in her voice, and at least a part of him had been trying not to think about what he'd do if she never did stop.
He gave her a squeeze and stared into her eyes as her head slowly raised. She looked like she'd flown a million miles and never rested once--some of the strain of their endless quest was clearly beginning to take its toll. It was an expression that wasn't all that far from homesick, come to think of it.
Homesick...
Something important was buried in that thought. But he set it aside to germinate until he could fully understand it.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," he told her a little more forcefully than perhaps he needed to. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. And I'm sure we're all sorry we didn't do more. But we had no way of knowing."

"We just have to protect her right now, and get her back to normal.
"Right?"

More than anything she wanted to believe they would get her back to normal; and under any other circumstances that was the sort of woman Winter was. Endlessly hopeful, especially when it came to those close to them-- but this was the first time she had seen the power of a god brought down. The weight of that strength pushed against a child and it made her angry in ways she did not know how to express, and sad in even more ways. She wanted to know the answers with the same surety she did before, but it did not come.

"Of course." She offered plainly, but it lacked the warm optimism that she usually offered to him. She couldn't muster the energy for it, even if it wasn't for everything else rolling around in her gut. Threatening to boil over in the same way the marks on her skin threatened to bubble to the surface and show just how deeply her flesh had been marred.

"I don't know what to do..." She finally admitted quietly, trying to pull herself up but giving up soon after, puffing out a few angry, pained breaths. Brows knitting tightly over golden eyes as she felt that anger strain her muscles to the breaking point once more. It felt like the muscles of her back were threatening to burst free of her skin and tear her body to shreds. She had never felt an emotion so strongly, never something so fueled by anger and loathing. "What are we meant to do against Gods, Gareth?" Her tone was broken, a little pleading-- she didn't want to give up, but she didn't know what to do.

If they could do anything at all.

"It can only get worse."

It was a sobering thought. What could they do against the Gods? A poignant question, to be sure, but more so even for Gareth. He caught his breath for a moment and held it, willing the roiling swell of emotions boiling in his gut to calm down. He didn't need to get angry at Winter, not right now, not when she needed comfort so badly. But at the same time he wanted to scream, tear his hair, cry...
why hadn't he been chosen?
What could he do against the Gods when he wasn't even worthy of notice?

But as the anger, hurt and more, self-hatred passed, he found the words he hoped would comfort her. "Evidently, we can do a lot." He grinned at her, then pointed in the vague direction of the temple. "The whole world stood to be changed by this. Imagine, every temple on the continent! And every cult quashed, every magician imprisoned."

"But you did something about it. We did. And now-- now--" he hesitated for a moment, cursing himself for his lapse in memory. Why couldn't he remember the God's name? "The sun-God, he's gone. We did that. You did that."

"We're finally strong enough to fight against everything going so wrong in the world. And we're only going to get stronger."

Maybe he was right; she wanted to believe he was. that they could do something about all this crime and injustice. The idea of imprisoning mages simply because they existed was the sort of talk she'd expect from Red Dragons; not humans. Not with the kindness, they could show, should they choose to. After all, Gareth showed her such kindness time and again once he had become comfortable with all of them.

A breath escaped as she felt exhaustion take hold-- at least that was a reprieve from the feeling of her muscles threatening to tear her apart. Eyes closing she sucked it back in, held it to let her body settle before nodding firmly. "You're right." She couldn't muster conviction, but if she could not trust in her own beliefs she could trust in Gareths. She could trust in his knowledge and beliefs. Could trust that he believed this, that they would find a way-- if she couldn't believe in herself because of her failings she could trust in his word to help her get past that point.

"Can we rest, please?" It was an odd request; and in that moment perhaps he'd know she would continue fighting this very moment if they needed it of her, that she would break to make that happen. Perhaps her body could do it better than some, but her heart could not. She wanted a moment to settle, to breathe, to tend to her wounds. She wanted a bath, she wanted ice, she wanted quiet; and perhaps time to cry when she did not feel like she would be a burden to all those around her.

"I know we have travel to do."

He breathed out a quiet sigh of relief as all the tension left Winter's body, bit by bit, inch by inch. She stopped just at the edge of limp, reserving just enough strength so that she could still make it to wherever they were headed next. And Gareth thought a bed was a perfect destination.
"Rest," he agreed, and it was clear looking at all of them it was a sorely-needed reprieve. All of them, even Dink, looked like they'd been through Hell. "It'll give Zelly some time to recover too, before we go wherever they went next. And it would give Gareth an opportunity to decide where exactly that would be.

"Let's pay our old haunt, the Silver Swan, a visit. Silver Phoenix," he corrected himself. "Maybe the gods are telling us something with a coincidence like that: rising from the ashes."

The group stood unsteadily, nursing wounds and pains, hurting on the inside and the out.
But they were standing.

Gareth offered the ice-blue dragon a hand and smiled, his lips meeting the edge of the burn mark that marred half of one side of his face.
"Let's go."

An Ebb and Flow

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