(OO White = DoK, Gold = Az, Orange = Mink)
Mirella's feet trampled grass as she sprinted across the wooded plains leading towards the great city of Emor - the capital and jewel of the Namorian empire. The city was a beacon reaching out of the emerald grass sea around it, with roads criss-crossing from its multiple gates and patchy areas surrounding some of the uninhabited sections of wall where masterful engineers - oft of a Dun Morigan background - had spent time maintaining the colossal, well built walls of the city. Even the haze of smoke that drifted above the city from its hundreds of forges, tanneries and cooking fires looked beautiful in the scattering dusk-light. A slash of amber light bisected the smog, spearing up towards the sky. It looked forebodingly like the beam they had left behind in Combrogia.
But anywhere was safer than out here, now that night was falling.
Mirella looked frantically for a way into the metropolis. Lining the western high road were the mausoleums of the city's worthies, and at the eastern gate dozens of wagons were parked, waiting for the sun to set so they would be allowed into the city without clogging up the bustling daytime streets. A shanty town had built up around the city's walls in some areas, forming a sporadic and fragile medley of brown and grey dwellings around the wall. Of course, these little huts - and even hut was too good a word to describe them - were too distant for Mirella to pick out, but the sun was setting, and she needed hope from somewhere.
The trees of various small wooded areas stretched long and dangerously across the ground, gradually linking with each other and interlocking like a group of small children weaving their arms together to skip - just as she remembered locking arms with her friends and traversing the dark Combrogian woodland in her younger years. The stench of cold flesh lingered within her mouth, joined by the smell of cold, metallic blood - a lingering scent that kept Mirella ever anxious, ever informed of her and her companion's position in this 'hunt'.
The Wolf wasn't accustomed to being prey.
"Come on, we have to keep moving!" Mirella yelled at her two followers as she ran as fast as she could whilst still allowing them to keep up with her. She headed straight for the city. The demon mistress’ brood wouldn't dare attack them in a well populated area, and if they did then at least Mirella and the others would have more of a chance of protection than in the wilderness. She spared only a brief thought for Eoric, Belingat and Straten - Gaius had returned empty-handed after a long search, which meant that the three southerners had abandoned them. or else they were already dead. At best they were too far behind now to help; at worst the Lady of Blood had found them and turned them into more of the things that were pursuing them now.
Time wasn't on the werewolf's side. The sun beamed low, as though bending its knee to the Goddess of Blood as she and her kin stalked the shadows, waiting for the black of night to cloak and embrace the wilderness. Every now and again, Mirella would dart her eyes to the side and see one of her vampiric hunters flitting from one section of shadow to another, keeping pace relentlessly. As the trees grew sparser, some of their pursuers chose to dart across open ground to reach the next patch of shadow - they lived of course, but the smell of their roasting flesh did little more than perfume the air with their presence.
"Keep up!" Mirella shouted, not turning her head as she continued to scan around, ever wary of the Pale Lady’s children.
"We're not going to make it to the gates before sunset!" Gaius returned. The blonde youth was shiny with perspiration, and beginning to stumble on every loose stone. "We need somewhere to make a stand."
He stumbled to a halt, reeled around and panted as he watched the relentless pale men closing in.
"Fuck off!" he yelled at them, drawing in the last of his breath to scream defiance at their pursuers. As Gaius' words echoed across the scrubland, one of the hunters roared back at him, bottom jaw hinging like a snake. The creature's scream was some sort of horrible mixture between a lion's roar and a viper's hiss, but there was a playfulness to it, and as its jaw returned to its original, more human-like position, a smile graced its lips. The Pale Man darted away into the shadows, moving faster than Gaius' eyes could follow.
"Come on!" Mirella screamed, having run backwards to grab a hold of Gaius. "It doesn't matter if we don't make it, the closer we get to the city the more chance we have of bumping into the city watch."
"And get them killed?" Gaius gasped caustically. “If we‘re going to fight them, lets fight them now while we still have breath left!”
"This isn't a fight, son of Apollo." Mirella began to pull Gaius away from where he was standing, using her supernatural strength to do so. "You might be a child of the Lord of Masculinity but there is no winning this hunt."
Gaius might have smiled, though perhaps he was just gritting his teeth. "This isn't about winning."
Tsen was in the worst of conditions. She stumbled behind the demi-gods, keeping some dignity in her steps and barring herself from falling face first. The anxiousness and fear bubbled from Mirella’s screams. Lupinus’ concerns struck her mind from those sounds. Gasping for air, the black-haired woman had to stop. In her pause Emor existed in a controlled and foreboding way, that her eyes never saw among the Eldrani. Emor appeared more forced into place on its landscape. A greater dread layered neatly onto the insecurities she felt already about Apollo. Apollo was to be found perhaps in there? That was if they could even make it.
Tsen turn weary eyes onto Gaius, this son of the god who had unshakeable faith and hope for salvation from Apollo. And yet he faced this journey alone, never meeting his father. Tsen reached out a hand to grab his arm with respect and shared exhaustion. It was beginning to bother her how much her thoughts swirled around the Masculinity god.
“Forward,” she told Gaius. “You heard her.”
Duty-bound to stay with his father's chosen, Gaius relented. They ran.
What felt like hours passed the trio by, like the wind that ran through their hair, the time being drawn away from them slowly, painfully. The vampiric brood made sure to keep watch, always within their sight, constantly following. They flitted from shadow to shadow, occasionally hissing as the three forced themselves to run further and further. It was barbaric - all the Pale Men needed to do was wait for the three of them to collapse with exhaustion, they had no need to even spill blood. Some couldn't control themselves though, reaching out of the shadow when one of the three would accidentally get too close to the dark. Mirella yanked Gaius clear of one just in time, leaving the Pale Man shrieking and pulling back as the fiery, dying sunlight scalded its skin.
"The sun god's power wanes, mortal." the creature hissed, throwing Gaius' earlier words back at him with a ghastly smile.
The hunters' mouths frothed with hunger, like starved hunting dogs watching their next meal die in front of them. The three ran, as fast as they could, taking as few breaks as possible. Tsen collapsed inevitably, leaving responsibility to carry her on Gaius and worsening his struggles twice over.
"Oh no you don't." the blonde man said through clenched teeth, grunting with the effort as he picked Tsen up by the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder. "You're chosen."
But the sun was faster.
Mirella's eyes followed Ra's beacon as it dropped beneath the horizon, its usual grandeur and regality being turned awful and slow now that the dread of the situation had soured the true beauty of the Namorian sunset. The city remained ahead, though still out of reach - as though the three had barely made any progress at all. Against the darkening sky, the lancing beacon of unnatural light now propelled itself upward in a far more vibrant way than it could ever be seen during the day. It was almost beautiful. The city glimmered with its caged light, as though the sun hadn't gone down upon the emperor's seat.
Gaius went down onto one knee, his strength giving out under Tsen's extra weight.
"Come on!" Mirella yelled. "Just a little bit mo-."
The sound of a body smashing against her and the wind being forced from her lungs filled the air, as one of the white-skinned men leaped forwards, sprinting into the sweet-smelling she-wolf. Mirella and the creature thrashed around upon the floor for a moment, before a less-pale hand broke through the back of the monstrosity, fingers gradually shifting into claws. Shrieks came from almost all directions as the vampires circled, playing with their prey - the one that had broken rank was clearly a newly-blooded babe, eager to feast upon such fine delights, and it had paid the price. The others bayed in fury as Mirella ripped it apart.
"Turn around and run, you fucking wretches." Gaius snarled at the circling Pale Men, defiant even when on his knees and trembling with exhaustion. "My father sent me to protect these people and he will not stand down just because the sun has set! The gods do not abandon their children!"
The Pale Men roared in response, but something else howled louder.
As Mirella rose, the sound of cracking bone and popping ligaments joined the unholy chorus of the Pale Men. The woman's shoulders forced themselves backwards, popping out of place before reforming into a more lupine shape; her ankles and feet seemed to twist and turn as they slowly elongated, before the centre of them cracked backwards to take up a form that would have looked at home upon a dog. The woman's pretty, feral features gradually shifted as her jaw and the rest of her lower face elongated into a vicious snout, canine teeth forcing themselves bloodily through her gums. Mirella, the woman who had brought them her was no more - only the wolf remained, and it howled into the night as another over-eager Pale Man broke ranks and sprinted towards the three.
Stretching out her horribly long arms and her clawed fingers in waiting, the werewolf roared once more. The charging Pale Man grinned with glee as it too adopted a more bestial form, fingers elongating into long talons and face thinning and becoming more alien in appearance by the second. The two creatures met in a savage embrace, though the demon-spawn was clearly poorly matched against the she-wolf, who began to rend its chalky white flesh from its stomach. The Pale Man's talons dragged chunks of fur from the werewolf's neck, but by the time it had drawn blood proper, Mirella had eaten her way through its rancid purple intestines. The bloodsucker dropped to the floor, the organs slowly regenerating before Gaius and Tsen's eyes, only for the she-wolf to force her maw through her opponent's chest and into its heart. The Pale Man spasmed horribly and went still.
Lifting her muzzle from her kill and turning towards her two companions with hungry, monstrous eyes, Mirella had to stop herself for a moment. Whilst some of Lupinus' children could control their primal instincts, others could not - Mirella danced a fine line with her inner savagery, and though she forced such thoughts down into the pit of her mind, she knew the Wolf in her hungered for something more than dead flesh. Roaring towards the two, the werewolf began to approach, but as she got within arms length of the two she continued past, shifting to a more quadrupedal stance as she growled softly under her breath. The two turned around in time to see another group of Pale Men sprinting to reinforce the ones already circling them. As Mirella barrelled into them, Tsen saw Gaius calmly bow his head and press his open hands into the earth.
"Father give me strength." he whispered, seemingly praying. "Your sun is gone but give me strength..."
Tsen could not understand the ways of the gods, the way Apollo behaved. Abandoned his own children, yet gave them salvation enough to live through tragedy. He gave them isolation and now emboldened his son yet again. Tsen was sucked into an ethical quandry and distaste for the holy that Gaius besought.
"You have faith in him even now...?" Tsen whispered into Gaius' ear. The black-haired woman turned her blue eyes to his head wearily.
"I have faith that he wants you to live." Gaius murmured through his gritted teeth. The grass under his hands had begun to darken and give off curls of smoke. "And that he wants these bastards to die!"
Without any warning, a curtain of fire sprang up under the feet of the circling Pale Men. For a moment their shadowed figures were bathed in the incandescent glow, and then the creatures were screeching and tumbling back. The fire swept around Tsen and Gaius in a wide circle, snatching out like a living thing to ensnare the shrieking Pale Men. Gaius was laughing as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes, but the laugh died in his throat as the leaping yellow flames turned a bruised purple, darkening as if infected by the night that had overpowered Apollo's sun. The Pale Men were screaming louder now as the spreading fire closed its fist around them, charring and rotting them to pieces before Tsen's eyes. Gaius had recoiled, his expression now one of horror.
"Apollo..." he stammered.
The sickly-sweet-smelling flames rotted all that came into contact with them, keeping the vampires baying for blood just beyond their reaches. Many of the pale men shrieked loudly, voices lacking all human recognition within them - sounding more like the feeding calls of some feral beast of Combrogia. The night responded with further yelps and screaming, as slowly but surely more of these white-skinned creatures began to flood from the distance, flitting ever closer to the feeding frenzy.
These screams however, were crested by the awful sound of leathery wings beating against the still air of night. Mirella - even with her lupine form and mentality - knew to stay away from the withering flames, but this new sound heralded a worse threat. She looked up quickly, scanning the skies until she spotted a looming figure, beating its wings across the sky as the Lady of Blood followed her brood into the hunt. She was slower than her running children, but she was also far more graceful and beautiful; her mere presence - the silver of her skin glinting within the pale moonlight; her flowing hair and piercing eyes - were almost enough to cow the mortals into standing down, and that was before she had even struck at the three. The Goddess of Blood was the ultimate hunter.
As she loomed ever closer to the three, the goddess reared up and flapped her wings hard in the direction of the purple flame, quickly dissolving a large swath of it to reveal the rotten grass beneath, covered in ash from those who had been afflicted by its cursed touch. Gaius, who was still staring in shock at his own hands, was knocked onto his back by the downwash, landing beside Tsen. As the flames dissipated, the vampires screamed with delight and began to stream forwards. Mirella growled before charging the creatures once more.
“Tsen.” Gaius rasped, pushing himself up onto one knee with a terrible effort. “I don’t know what the dark is doing to my father’s magic…but…if you’ve got any strength left at all, our only way out is through those things.”
Behind them they were hemmed in by the evil purple inferno, and ahead, the Pale Men poured through the gap in the flames that their mistress had created. Mirella was fighting for her life under a swarm of vampires. The Lady of Blood had landed behind her children to slowly, delicately walk towards their quarry. Tsen managed only to stand, a lethargic fire spasmed through her muscles. She felt punished for trying to defy her fate.
“Demon!” Gaius coughed, limping towards the winged woman with his palms held out and forward. “This child isn’t yours to take.”
Pale Men lunged at him from left and right, but bursts of dark flame rotted them apart in mid-leap. Gaius gritted his teeth as he lurched closer to the Lady of Blood, burning a path through her minions.
“Who sent you?” the blonde youth demanded, panting hard. “You’re no ordinary demon of Tartarus! Whose will do you follow!”
The Lady of Blood hissed at Gaius. Her bloodsucking children grew wary of the demigod, avoiding him and attacking his lupine companion. Mirella disappeared under a swarm of them, and it wasn't long before a sound akin to a whimpering dog filled the air.
"I am no demon, god-child." the Lady of Blood hissed, her voice as inhuman as her body.
"So you say." Gaius rasped. Mirella's whimpering had fallen abruptly silent, but Tsen could see that he dared not take his eyes off the enemies in front of him. "But who's side are you on? I hear your brother chose Decius Marcius and his gods. Are you with him, or with the demons who took Odin and Thanatos? The time to choose is running out for all of us."
"I choose to feast!" the Lady of Blood hissed with impatience, her long-toed feet taking two large strides towards Gaius with, before she opened her wings out in an impressive display, roaring at the man loud enough to pop Tsen’s eardrums.
Gaius flinched and staggered back a pace, though his hands stayed raised. "Be careful who you choose to feast on." he croaked. "She belongs to a god much older and more powerful than you. If you touch her, you will face his wrath."
"No.” Tsen broke in. “This isn't worth it. You are his son. How...could I expect you both to pay this sacrifice for me anymore?"
The black haired beauty shied her eyes from the blood goddess threatening to end all their lives. No longer could she be passive, if there was choice left in her then she would become the victim - the sacrifice to spare this abandoned son of Apollo.
The winged woman hissed with joy at the seeming hopelessness Tsen displayed, hoisting her body into the air and using her wings to bring her forwards a few more steps. "You talk too much, prey." The grey-skinned demon prowled ever closer, her rotten breath holding thick in the air as her words fell from her mouth. “Submit to me, and perhaps I shall give both of you everlasting life.”
Something about her offer prompted Gaius to loose an ugly little laugh. The Lady of Blood just cooed as her body came ever closer to the three, the metallic stink of blood washing over them.
Before the Lady of Blood had another opportunity to open her fanged mouth, there was a multitude of explosive cracks that came from above - sonic booms echoing through the night-sky as something fell extraordinarily fast, shattering down through the sound barrier. The winged woman shrieked and crabbed backwards in an attempt to get a better view of whatever was hurtling towards them. As the noise got closer and closer, the sky seemed to become brighter, flashing with sunlight each time a fresh sonic boom kissed the air. It was only once the falling object had smashed hard into the ground that the booming stopped, leaving the air silent and dark once more, though the air around the fallen thing glowed with power.
Shielding her eyes and hissing, the Lady of Blood descended from her wing tips back onto her feet and began to shy backwards away from the thing that had fallen from the sky. As the dust and debris settled, Tsen had a clear view upon the cause of the crashing bangs in the sky. It looked to be a young man. His hair was bright, sandy blonde, seemingly combed over and held in place by some strange, glossy substance. The young man’s eyes were bright gold and seemed to burn with an intensity that Tsen had never seen before; his skin meanwhile was a deep tan, as though he had been working out in the sun for weeks on end with no clothes on - not that such an explanation would surprise Tsen either, as the man’s muscles were incredibly well defined, not only looking good but also clearly holding ample strength within them. The rest of the man’s face followed a similar pattern, his nose was angular, sharp and attractive; his cheekbones were high and well pronounced, as was his jawline, which held no facial hair, not even a shadow. On his person he wore only a set of shorts, leaving his muscular chest bare and his heavily-tattooed arms open to the cold air.
Without a word, he turned to the two humans and winked, flashing a winning smile at the pair of them before turning back to the winged woman and resting his large hands upon his hips.
“Well well well, what do we have here then?” the young man mused, moving his glowing body a step towards the winged goddess, watching as she scuttled back an equal amount of space, ever watchful of the shining aura he possessed. “What’s one of you new gods up to, picking on my friends and family?”
“These are our prey.” The Lady of Blood cooed with anger, voice trembling because of her fury. “You cannot claim them now after ignoring them before - they are forfeit!” The creature spat the final word in her sentence. “A Sun God has no right to the shadow - this, is our hunting ground.”
“Ignoring them?” the Sun God - Tsen gathering now that it was Apollo - replied, voice getting louder with seeming disbelief and anger. “Come now Attaxia, I wasn’t ignoring them. It just happened that when these two called I was right in the middle of a couple hundred ales with Vulcan, trying to calm him down after his son Vagrund died; I was just a little bit late.” Apollo shrugged, face settling into a relaxed expression. “No harm done, right?"
Apollo’s body was nostalgic to Tsen. Those lines of chiselled flesh, between muscles taunt to the body, she knew them. A lusty string of vague recollections wracked Tsen’s mind. Attacked with a myriad of hints, glimpses of a variety of alien locations and romantic bodily exchanges. She was poked hot with desire, and shocked with disapproval that there was no way she could deny the arousal, coursing so strong it brought her legs to shake even as a certain other area of her body stiffened. Apollo, a bond she couldn’t explain, a bond she could now guess and couldn’t resist. A terrible fate unveiled before her, and she knew the trappings of love only after they clamped onto her soul without warning.
Her joints went numb and she collapsed to her knees, before falling to her backside. The handsomeness of Apollo’s body sucked the wind out of her. Her time aware and conscious had been short, but she felt resentment and embarrassment, turning her head away. No, she didn’t want him – or rather she shouldn’t.
“You…left a son without a father.” were Tsen’s first words to the walking god, forced through her shady memories.
"What can I say, beautiful." Apollo shrugged slightly, his smile turning into a more belated, cheeky smirk. "Us gods do what us gods have to do - we can't just up and leave our domains to look after our children."
"The new gods do." the creature he had called Attaxia rebuked him.
Tsen looked upon the Lady of Blood, and though she was as monstrous as a 'new god' could be, there was something ironic in her statement. However horrific and terrifying these Pale Men might have been, Attaxia's brood and her presence among them was a directly conflicting statement to Apollo's excuse. The Lady of Blood kept her 'children' close at all times. Tsen had no idea how close she was with them, but it was a margin above Apollo's attempt at an excuse.
"But now I'm here." Apollo spoke once more. "Coming to protect you both!"
Next to Tsen, Gaius had pulled himself up onto one knee. The blonde youth was smiling grimly.
"This is the part where you run, Attaxia." he croaked, panting as he directed his manic grimace towards the Lady of Blood.
Attaxia bared her teeth in response, but her wings still shuffled uncertainly, the furled claws pawing at the ground. Perhaps sensing the hesitation, the other Pale Men began to slink back to stand and hiss behind their mother as she continued to shift ever so slowly away from Apollo. As they withdrew from the swarming heap that had surrounded Mirella, Tsen was greeted by a metallic pang to her nose. Gaius smelled it too, and Tsen heard him swear quietly under his breath as Mirella was revealed - or what was left of her.
The Hunter's daughter had fallen out of her lupine state and was writhing weakly upon the warm, blood-matted grass in an attempt to pull herself towards the two of them. Her hair was largely ripped out, or else stuck to her head by fast-drying blood, and her face was a mess of cuts and scratches. All over her nude body lay the bites and claw marks of the bloodsuckers as they dug for new veins to draw from. Her neck was completely destroyed, her throat open to the cool night breeze. Tsen could see her wind pipe, destroyed beyond recognition, and every time the young woman tried to speak, nothing but strangled gurgles came bubbling from her ruined trachea. She should already have been dead, but there was no doubt that her affliction was keeping her alive; that or her determination.
"She won't make it." Gaius warned Tsen in a murmur. The son of Apollo's face had turned grim and hard.
"No..." Tsen replied grimly, eyes shut, knees squirming together. Enthralled by the radiant god, the woman felt her heart was going to beat faster than it could endure. "Apollo, please." she begged - for what exactly, could not be answered. The guilt, she wanted to get up and help Mirella but Tsen was taken too tightly.
"Help!" Tsen screamed, daresay, moaned at Apollo.
"Alright alright..." Apollo shrugged his shoulders, blind to the destroyed woman standing behind Gaius and Tsen. "I can help out, don't you worry - have I let you down before?"
The incredibly muscular, tanned god cracked his neck and flexed slightly as he spun around towards the Lady of Blood, the new god. As he turned around, the goddess leapt forwards, her wingtips propelling her - the speed making her appear as more beast than goddess, more anger than calculated hunger. As she approached, Apollo finally turned face, swinging his right arm to perfectly crack against her jaw. Attaxia flew backwards rapidly, smashing into a lone tree in the middle of the plains. Her hungering children looked wildly between the fight and the two mortals, just as frozen as they were, as Apollo cracked his knuckles and began to continue forwards, walking with unprecedented swagger.
"I'll just be a minute,” he told Tsen and Gaius glibly. “Make sure you two are ready to leave by the time I get back."
The Pale Men, still attempting to make up their mind, eventually choose to help their mother as Apollo hefted her off of the ground by her throat before smashing at her face. The vampiric goddess was young still, and whilst Apollo didn't hold the domain of the sun anymore, he still held great strength. Not letting herself be defeated so easily however, Attaxia moved her wingtips to rake at the god's sides, drawing bright, golden nectar from his skin and causing Apollo to curse, throwing Attaxia back down upon the floor and allowing her to return to her standing position, albeit more shakily, and with a golden nectar leaking from her own nose to match Apollo‘s wounds.
On the ground Mirella croaked, bloody and naked, dragging herself on one outstretched hand towards Tsen and Gaius. As she reached him, Gaius wordlessly sank to one knee and took hold of the she-wolf’s bloodied fingers.
As if galvanised by the movement, the Pale Men shook off their own stupor and charged - not towards the helpless mortals, but towards the sun god threatening their mother. The goddess' brood leapt forwards, wrapping their arms around Apollo’s body and attempting to dig their teeth into him. Some almost pierced through his skin, but with a burst of radiant energy, the Pale Men were flung away from him, some burned to ash by the concentrated power of the sun he had released. The action wore on the god though, and Tsen saw him shake slightly with exhaustion. Catching his breath, Apollo didn't notice Attaxia - who was equally shaky after the initial beating Apollo had gifted her - charging towards him. Impacting him like a cannonball, the goddess sent him careening towards the floor, uprooting a large amount of soil upon his impact. Before he could rise, the vampire goddess was upon him, tearing at him with her wings as he tried to push her off. Finally gaining purchase, the god shoved her away and over his head with his feet before getting up and continuing to beat her. Attaxia’s children attempted to restrain him, forcing Apollo to temporarily cease his assault on their mother and turn on them.
Flinging himself around to intercept a few of the horribly disfigured Pale Men, Apollo drew his arm through the air to backhand two of them, knocking them effortlessly away. The two creatures were both burned across the sides of their faces where they were struck, the intense energy of the sun blazing from Apollo's skin and filling all he touched with pure sunlight. At this show of strength, some of the goddess' children stepped backwards, hissing and growling quietly like wolves turned at bay by a lit torch. As Apollo stepped towards them, many of them slunk away into the trees, nursing raw, steaming wounds from their previous attempts to attack the god. Others looked past Apollo and onto their mother, who lay on the ground slowly healing her scorched body. She wasn't down for good - it was impossible to kill a god permanently - but she would need a few minutes to heal the severe burns upon her alabaster skin.
Rushing forwards towards Tsen and Gaius - causing the line of Pale Men around him to split as they avoided his searingly bright body - Apollo grimaced as he heard the Lady of Blood rising once more, shrieking with inhuman rage before rushing after him. The sun god was tired, that much was obvious - his skirmish with the goddess and her children had exhausted him, and his golden body now flickered, seemingly soon to lose its glimmer. Seeing this, the horde of Pale Men regained their courage and shrieked along with their mother.
Reaching the two mortals just barely, Apollo held out his hands desperately, his masculine visage breaking just slightly to show a hint of weakness and fear beneath his show of strength. "Take my hands!" the god yelled, holding both of his flickering palms out towards the two mortals, before closing his eyes and looking up into the sky.
Tsen looked at Gaius. Gaius was looking at Mirella, twitching weakly as she held his hand in a vice grip. The young demigod’s face was as stone.
“I‘m sorry.” Tsen heard him whisper. “I can’t heal you. But I can make you sleep.”
He brushed his other hand over Mirella’s face, as if to close her eyes, and the spasming daughter of Lupinus went limp. Blood pulsed weakly from her neck, staining the grass. In a deliriously feisty state of mind, Tsen watched with hot tears containing the worst series of emotions since her birth. Mirella's corpse was impossible to look away from, locked with grief. And yet the heart in her chest beat so quickly with love and wanting, even as she kept eyes on her fallen friend her vision was stained by enamor. Was Mirella's life worth the passions pulsing in her groin, and across her flushed face?
"You helped her." Tsen sobbed, guilt reminding her of her ineptitude through this journey. Gaius showed more greatness in her eyes than his father could muster. Tears rained easily down the desire-crippled female's face. "Thank you, Gaius."
Gaius pulled his bloodstained hand from Mirella’s, and stood.
Seeing the rushing horde of Pale Men closing in, Tsen and Gaius looked at each other for only a second before grasping Apollo's hands with a fierce, desperate grip. As they did so, the world around them seemed to light up as though the sun had risen once more, and many of the closer Attaxians shrieked and burned to a crisp. Attaxia herself remained behind, her left wing receiving the brunt of the damage as she raised it to shield her face. Tsen heard the Lady of Blood shriek in frustrated rage.
Apollo looked down calmly at the two mortals, opening his eyes at last to reveal a golden shimmer within them. Smiling, the god spoke. "Look to the sun, it will take us home."
Very slowly, the two mortals followed the god's wishes, and as the golden light that fell from the sky graced their eyes, everything around them disappeared into bright white as they were drawn from this realm into another.
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