A pair of silver-blue eyes flash open, red hair stained nearly black with a deep violet hue in the unearthly dawn
light of a blue sun, a signal flare used by one of the militias traversing the swamp. Nestled against her a dark-haired girl moans
softly, nuzzling and nibbling on her ear. The girl is hungry this morning, like she was the first night. The scent of blood on the wind stirs the wolf inside, but there's something else. A hint of fear. "Mistress..." the she-wolf whispers, begging her blue-eyed companion, but they both know what the signal means.
Trees and earth both splintered alike before as the cracking landscape bathes in black and blue shadows; the ground drinking deeply from a violet river. Among the broken limbs and branches black droplets continue to fall in a short summer shower, pooling to feed into that dark stream. A wisp of a boy as slight as any girl wades through the carnage. His knuckles whiten as he clutches a chipped cutlass. His eyes search the slow flowing river. The blue sun blinks out as twilight paints the river red with the dawn of true daylight.
Shaking fingers draw a cross in the air, then he speaks, each word ringing like silver and infusing his being with golden light, growing brighter with each syllable as the incantation nears completion. "May the tide be turned in my favor and your grace protect this hu- humble servant from harm. Grant my f- faith the s- strength t- t- to c-" Drowning out his last words, the ground roils, muddy shadows surrounding the boy as his eyes widen and some emotion chokes out all the fastness of his belief, however silent his prayer may end.
Claws and teeth rake and grasp seeking to part flesh from bone, unable to find purchase upon the boy's golden body. The boy flails his blade around, finding eye and fang and matted fur. Rage fills the river, whipping it into a frothing bloody mess. Again and again, steel meets flesh but claw finds naught but bloodied mud until the ground itself opened its maw to swallow him whole.
The weight of his legs buckle into the soft earth ankle deep. The next step carries him down to his knees. As his pupils constrict in fear his light wavers. May she who dances with wolves protect me and lead me through the dance that is life. May her silver fangs find home in my unworthy hands and the light of the sun be as her fire to extinguish evil. As he lift his foot his legs sink in deeper under the weight. His faith keeps his clothes unsoiled, but the thin cushion of air around him does nothing to ballast the weight of his armor. the mud repelling from him with a cushion of air as he slides deeper still.
Then silence as the fury stills and the red mist settles to the ground. Around the boy circle a pair of wolf-headed hydra, claws cracked and severed,
each nursing two or three heads with bleeding cuts and severed claws as
the wounds slowly close shut, each watching him hungrily with several
grinning faces as yet unmarred. The boy's eyes grow wide and his faith pops like a bubble. The mud rushing in hungrily around his body holding his shivering form in a tight vice, staining his garments even as warmth trickles down his thigh to join the soiled mess, his face speckled red with blood. As the boy opens his mouth and empties his lungs, gnashing teeth silence his screams with bloody gurgles.
The voice echos across the swamp. A whirlwind of fur and flesh replies in kind as, the she-wolf strikes. The hydra is reluctant to release its prize, even in the face of such fury. Nine heads hiss as the tenth, clutches the boy closer. At least one lung has been pierced and his life is ebbing away. She hesitates glancing back, and meets the stone-eyed glare of her Mistress, gleaming silver blade in hand as she erupts forward, each step a measure through the dance that is life, fire, and so much more. The she-wolf watches in awe as the blood-haired beauty dispatches the first hydra with one slash and eleven perfectly placed penetrations, and utters a now familiar incantation, "Vegeo."
The hydra bursts into flames as tendrils of magic wrapping around it ignite, excited by the final word of the incantation that lives in the silvery blade of blood that the blood-haired girl wields. With a flick of her wrist she splits the head open that's holding the boy, freeing him, then frowns at her vulpine companion. "The other is yours. Now to it."
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