As Lumikki tried to dart forward, her feathers right along her trail. They crest behind like an arc or halo, piercing the sky as they flew at her side. At first, she heard nothing but the sound of the gale passing by her ears. Cutting the distance back to Ittindi as quick as her spell could allow. When she felt close enough, her feathers would dart past her. Shooting for the man still pinned by her talon. Their icy blue grip glimmering in the passing light. It was dazzling to her eyes, but the gleam would not last much longer.
Ittindi, just as unpredictable as ever, graciously pulled his protective muck of an armor. Receding to a place she could not fathom save for the portion that smothered his head. A gasp left her lips and her face twisted into a bewildered expression that morphed into fear and apprehension. All the while, her heart sprung into overdrive, pumping her blue blood rapidly through her veins.
Lumikki had cut her dash short, seeing there was no reason to close the gap. Rather, she would have to muster a healing spell instead. One far stronger than the one in her arsenal. So as Lumikki hovered in place, her mind raced to sort it all out, only for even that to the be interrupted in an abrupt and manic manner and making her mind go blank.
Lumikki felt a lot of emotions. Not all were particularly hers. What started like green sparks, green embers, green flowers along his body, quickly escalated in a rapid succession. The green flames erupted rapidly, eating the landscape and spreading their death and destruction. The winds up above were heated in mere moments, twisting them in a vortex of death and doom.
Lumikki dumbfounded, did not move when she should have but she was not left entirely vulnerable either. In her failure to act, her sisters would instead. Both slipping from her shadows and springing into life. It was like seeing a page turn at once, the two flat figures peel from the surfaces they were cast. Receding back to their holder and closing the distance that their out stretched forms were in. And then in mere seconds, it was like they were inflating. Their paper thin forms now expand to the mass one would expect of a person, but keeping the stature of their Demoness. Svanvartr stood in front of Lumikki, casting the spell she had just learned in an attempt to shield Lumi from the impending explosion. Her wings were barely interlocking in time before the flames licked her skin. Meanwhile, Hlaðguðr grabbed the Demoness, ushering her out of the disaster and pulling her out of its reach. Using the very dash that Lumi had when closing in. The two worked rather quickly, all while projecting images in Lumi's mind and passing on their feelings and sensations. They could not quite speak, but they still had their way about them. Hlaðguðr Tried to soothe her sister with a sense of serenity, flooding Lumikki with hopes it would sooth the Demon’s infliction. While Svanvartr interjected with flashing images that flickered in Lumikki’s mind of animals moving frantically from pursuers. Conflicting with her sisters attempt to calm with hopes to aspire a sense of agency and survival instead.
Weaving in with the pressure and heat of the combustion before them, Lumikki was fairly overwhelmed and dazed, and in her delusions, she would continue to pour her remaining capacity and efforts into the semblance of a spell. Her sisters understanding the importance of such an earnest desire, even when they both shared a thought amidst them for its delusion, chimed in as well. Though they would not dare focus any of their efforts into it until the Raven was completely out of the blasts clutches or even out of the pangs of heat that wafted toward them.
It was then and only then that they began to join in. Drawing the mana from Lumikki who served as both their anchor and tether in this existence. Siphoning it away from the Demoness who was on the cusp of hysteria from witnessing her mentee explode before her very eyes. In silent work, they pulled as much as they could, pooling it and channeling it among the other as they awaited Lumikki’s idea. Giving the Demoness a moment to sort the intricacies of this new spell while being ready to act the moment she confirmed it.
It took her almost minute to collect herself. In that time, Ittindi’s body had fallen. It was a wonder that anything even remained. ”Go!” Lumikki uttered, she needn’t say more. They knew exacltly what she meant, what she wanted, they shared the same mind now. Both sisters darted in that very moment, soaring in the air so that they may converge above the same topic. Though they started from the same place, they arched in flight, rounding their path while closing the gap to the collapsed butler on the ground.
Before they collided however, life claimed the man once again. At least that was what it seemed to the three in his company. While it did not halter nor slow the action of the sisters, it stunned Lumikki. Though it would not last very long with the anger welling in her very being, yet somehow she would find a calm in the storm as she needed to him alive long enough to get her answers.
Seconds later after he rose, Hlaðguðr and Svanvartr crashed into the other. Not enough to crumble but rather disperse all the mana they had stored. It came down in a soft vortex of black and white feathers. Tumbling down almost in a whimsy manner too playful and cute for the carnage that contrasted them below. The silky downy now caressing Ittindi as they appeared to melt into his skin, converting the condensed mana into a rejuvenation and healing when merged into the man. Though he was somewhat restored on his return, this was only furthered improved upon Lumikki’s intervention.
Harpy Feather Duster Learned (1008/1000 75% due to max int)
The Demoness was not done however, it was not only the sisters who had been working on a heal. Lumikki too was still holding onto some of her mana in hopes of throwing out a simple spell to top the prior one off. So as Hlaðguðr and Svanvartr flew off first, Lumi lingered for a bit longer. Seizing the remainder of her capacity and welling it all into another spell.
Her mana, usually calm and sleek from its properties of frost and darkness, was uncharacteristically erratic. It manifested in a state the jittered and shook, constantly shifting its form and size—looking more like a flame than frost and ice. An occurrence that was hardly new, coming from a creature that often fought her nature in ways that one could argue, made her more volatile than if she were to succumb as the Ice Demon she was intended to be. Freezing over her emotions and letting the excess pour like the chill of the tundra, running over her surroundings like a fine cold mist that the freezes all around her. She longed for that release, the peace to just dip into her natural tendencies. Accepting her cold and frigid, hostile, deadly nature; but Lumikki was striving to be human. Clutching at all her capacities in hopes she remembers to be humane.
And so, as Lumikki channeled her mana, she began to condense it into her hand. Not yet privy of the form, she darted forward right after her sisters. Both of which were a little more than half way to the man who rose from the floor by then. Seeing him rise however, also made her blood rise.
”ᛁᛟᚢ ᛁᛞᛟᛏ!”(“You idiot!”) She screech, the sound of her voice not only closed the distance faster than she ever could but far extended it. Its echos now fringed at the edges of her range.
Carried by rage, the Demoness propelled forward. Her flight that was unsteady before now honed itself upon a straighter path. And while she flew, a black feather with an icy streak of condensed mana formed in her hand. Where her sisters curved in their approach, she flew as precise as a dagger. Cutting through the air to ready her feather and fling it toward him.
It slipped her finger like a shard of ice, sliding through the air until it hit her target. As the feathers from her sisters rained down, hers would shoot for him and burst with mana all at once. Unraveling into a darkness that smothered his frame for a moment and coated his skin, healing of him of some more of his remaining wounds before pulling away like falling snow.
Lumikki then plunged to the ground, touching down with a thump the moment her feet crashed with the earth. It caused her no harm however, nor did it slow her stride as she walked the rest of her way over to her pupil. ”Ye wretched thing! Ye had me worried with that!” Her arm came up with her hand knocking at his chest. Her talon-like pointer finger was being moved so fast that her entire hand seemed a blur. All while her face was pulled in a snarl that hid back her tears frozen by her anger and left hidden.
Harpy Rise Learned (545/500 75% wcr due to max int)
”Ye bod ceann cretin! Ya daft intrepid fool! Ye could have done better to warn me!” The small statured mage stopped right in front of him, her piercing bright eyes with golden irises now glaring right at him. And though she was looking up, she was no less menacing in her anger with the visage of a lioness waiting for any sudden move before they strike.
Meanwhile, as she spoke Hlaðguðr and Svanvartr swiftly but gracefully dropped down themselves, both making sure to smack the back of Ittindi’s head rather hard before touching ground and approaching Lumi. The two clearly glared at him before melting back into her shadow, recoiling into their flatter appearances.
”I don’t care about the cacan explosion, but the fact ye took daggers by choice to make it! Had me thinking ya were dying and going up in flames while yer at it! Gòrach pìos de cac, falbh dàirich fhèin! I care for ye, ya know that? Do I have to make it more clear? Was it not obvious?” Her anger became even more apparent as her form morphed by the second. Feathers no specking her skin and wings protruding from her head was making it clear that she was losing grasp on her human image, further emphasized by her skin fading into the shade of a nightly black. What more, her mana was also being affected by her mood. Wafting off her body and growing into a gigantic raven-like mirage. It faced Ittindi, almost looking as if it too were glaring at him. Though the thing had no will of its own, simply the manifestation of the mage’s swelling anger wishing to cause devastation. The swell of mana lacked a bite however or any malice. For all the destruction Lumikki wanted to inflict, the brewing spell was more akin to a hex of her miasmic emotions than an outward attack.
While Lumikki was shifting to a more harpy-like appearance, her shadows appeared to do the same. Growing wings and feathers much like their anchor. And like before Hlaðguðr was trying to soothe Lumi’s feelings in an emotion plain, however Svanvartr was sending images in her mind of weapons clashing. All the while Hlaðguðr was trying hard to hold back Svanvartr who was on the cusp of rising again from shadow to stab Ittindi with her talon-like pointer in anger.
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