Brought to Light - Sophia, Toustain, Volundr, Harina

[Unter]

As Harina smashed down the door, Sophia clutched her torch. She was ready. She was as ready as she could have possibly been in these circumstances. Blight the fools who thought that Light wasn't necessary here. Light burn away the rot that seethed here. When Harina finished her quick search of the house, Sophia looked at her. The simple resolve on her fellow sister's face was enough to tell her that Toustain wasn't in this. 

Good. She said, in a soft voice :

"I am tired of seeing such insults to Our crusade here. Only one thing can redeem this !"

She approached her torch. The flames licked the thatch roof, and only one thing stopped Sophia's motion. Something that was capable of cooling her own fury. A seeping, icy horror brought forth by the ragged cries of something that didn't deserve to live alongside humanity.
She turned in an instant, and regretted it almost as quickly. Two gigantic winged creatures, with hooked beak and terrifying eyes. It was them. They were those that sought to devour the Light, devour everything it meant to Sophia. 

She froze in fear and disgusts. What could they do against such evil? They had corrupted this town, and had rid the inhabitants of its light. They had turned one of her fellow sisters, Toustain, away from the Light of her Torch. The very appearance of these creatures unsettled her. Sophia hadn't planned for this. She had prepared for hordes of screaming, bloodthirsty cultists. She wanted to fight them, to kill this lowlife scum that dared refuse the Light. But this.... It wasn't the same.

It was only when she heard Harina's cries of defiance that she grasped the situation. The... moths were coming to the field, and wanted nothing more than to feast on their bones. Let them ! LET THEM !

She shouted, and rouse to Harina's cry. 

"The Light shall lead her safely

Through the paths of this world, and into the next.

For she who trusts in the Light, fire is her water !
As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,
She should see fire and go towards Light !"

And as her prayer beckoned it, she threw her torch on the roof of the house. And just as quickly, she drew her other blade. She smiled under her mask, and rushed towards the moth that was directly in front of Harina. The Light behind her was increased tenfold : The very spell of Harina seemed to draw from the soon to be gigantic flames of the house fire, and it boosted Sophia's morale. While charging, she kept chanting a prayer. 

"And she will know no fear of death, for the Light
Shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword !"

She charged with full force at the moth. (Rolled an 8)

[Kidney]

Death. Death, it seemed, clutched at the heart of Volundr and Sophia. While hope and rage clutched at the hearts of Harina and dear Toustain. The flame caught upon the roof of the nearby building, and as the flames atop the smoking home drew higher, the cries of creatures still unseen began to ring from within the town, and from the godforsaken trees. It was a near shrieking cacophony of suffering that fueled the zealous heart of the Judge, Harina. 

As the bolt of thunderous fury grew in strength, she felt sickly-strong flame lick her fingertips, pain clung to them, but good pain. The flames beside her rose to a man's hip in height, and some flitted into her powerful spell.


Sophia's weapon found no purchase upon the creature, stilled instead by the ripping of a delicate, eldritch wing. The ripping's source was found soon, as the upper half of Toustain followed it through, to the dismay of the moth-daemon. The screech it let out was blood-curdling, and boiling to Toustain, and as it lept from the attack, the wing ripped from Toustain's form, glittering dust sticking to her like a cloud of a strange death. 

Volundr found though, success with his attack. Showered in blood was his hammer, as the heavy head found purchase in the middle of the moth's body, its head lurching forward...(A grand 6 is rolled) and finding zero purchase on the Viking's neck. What instead found purchase was the ends of it's four foremost legs, scratching his arms and chest. 

Also, as if called upon by the shining light, and the screeches of its brethren, mouthparts of foul invention ripped a fist-sized filet of Volundr's armskin from him, this one seemingly fluttering down to assail him from the skies. It latched to him now, legs wrapping around his arm, wings flapping grandly, these ones though betraying an image of a city. Burned down.

Another moth flew down from the heavens, though this one careened towards the burning home, and with a roar, it's death was cemented in the party's minds by its foul screech. It seemed as if this one had flown into the roof of the adjacent building, and now threw itself in random directions, and flailed as it roasted itself alive . 

[relentless]

|| Harina ||

The woman trembled, her knees and her body quaked as the magic grew heavier, and heavier. Laboured breathing protested through her mouth. But the pain, it was a sign, a sign from the great one. A sign from Apelion, god of the Sun, god of battle, god of light!  The same energy that had tried to heal the man fully formed from beneath thin air, and the flaming house beside her acting as a catalyst. A great spear, a javelin of intense heat formed into shape between her fingers. It was long yet weightless, and it sparked with such energy to radiate a holy glow onto Harinas face. She breathed heavier, her lips parting to complete the incantation.

"et da... mihi virtutem tuam hasta! In nomine meo... in tuum honorem..."

She whispered quietly, her breath taken, but valor remaining. The light sparked around the mud from where she stood, arcing like lightning, it seared the ground, with tiny pyres of flame left from where they struck. The sound of great thunder cracked as the spear had fully taken form into its glorious shape, a spear that could slay giants, a weapon to execute the unholy! The vestals white head of hair would snap up, re-energized to face the moth as she stood proud once again, her eyes once a calm blue, replaced with a burning orange! The same hue as the sun, with the waft of its glow seemingly leaking from her eyes! She stared into the creature, panting heavily, before her face cringed in fury and hate.

"APELION! GIVE ME YOUR CINDER!"

Her voice boomed with zealous hate, more so than any beast could ever muster, a battle cry of arrogance to blast through shadow and dark alike. Her breath was misty and sparking with light, and with no more theatrics, the battle priest stepped forth and threw the spear with faithful motivation. It would whip through the air, much like a lightning strike, with its burning hate metabolizing in the air, ready to strike down the creature and leave it smouldering in a pile of ash. The spear was sent hurdling past both Sophia and Toast in a glorious manner, to pierce the beasts hide, and let it wither. As soon as Harina threw the spear, the energy dissipated from her, and her eyes fell back to a normal colour, but the energy itself was given to the spear upon being thrown.

(she rolled an 11)

[EloHim]

The pain... That was a little too much. They were supposed to fight bloody cultists. Volund will definitely extort every penny from the bastards that sent this group on such a thing without proper reconnaissance. No matter what anyone say. Even if he would be put in jail. That was not what they signed up for. Not even fucking close.
"Chew on this, ya blot!"
He sends the metal edge of his shield into the head/face of the moth grasping for his other arm, forcing the thing to reconsider its life's choices.(Rolled D20 - got 16)
Next time he gonna wear plate...or at least leather. Cause it was not fucking great getting yourself teared apart by giant moths. Not great at all.Once the flesh eating bastard let go and even if it didn't he did a full spin on the place, his arm stretched out, hurling the hammer's head into the unlucky moth in front of him.
(i leave that roll up to you, Kidney.)

[rosallora]

She lands back on the ground, covered head to toe in dark mothwing-dust. She feels baptized by it, and she emerges from it strange and... wild, maybe. She's angry. Angry, focused, and ready. A moth swoops down and starts attacking Volundr, ripping the flesh from his arm, and her eyes snap to it. She reclasps her mace, adjusting her grip on it, and she feels the compulsion to reach down to her waist, touching the mask at her hip.

No more of this. Whatever it was, no more.

She rushes forward, striking at the moth with the metal club, fire in her eyes and dark dust scattering from her clothing. (9)

[Unter]

Sophia missed. Blast it. Her sword flew right under the moth's wing, and with it, the momentum brought her behind it. But as she began to spin around, aiming her steel thorns at the beast's flank, she saw a picture of righteous violence. Toustain smashed into the moth's wing, and began pummeling it with sure, yet weak blows. 

The Light of the burning house was the only thing between irrationnal panic and infinite resolve for Sophia. She would see it through the end, but the darkness would dampen her strength and determination. She assumed it did the same for Harina, for her Sister was unleashing a crackling bolt of Retribution. The air around them crackled with sheer power, and the only thing that Sophia could do was back away after her unsuccessful attack.

Her eyes freed of the shimmering after-image of the moth frantic wings, she saw the horrific capabilities of these beasts. The one that Volundr was fighting flung outward, and ripped the flesh from Volundr's arm. She heard the warrior cry out in pain, but he continued the fight.

He was worthy. Worthy of everything she could do to ease his pain. A scent of ozone, a product of Harina's casting, bristled through the air. Sophia knew that the moth behind her was as good as dead, but even if it survived, Toustain would be enough. Volundr needed her immediate attention.

She planted one of her sword in the ground, and with a quick move she opened the leather pouch and touched her holy book. Her prayer would touch all of her team mates, but her efforts would be focused on Volundr. She said the prayer, as quickly as she could without mangling the holy words. (I rolled an 11)

"O Light ! 

I have faced armies

with You as my Shield,

And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing 

Can break me except Your absence."

She knew her hurry in saying the prayer dampened the power of the prayer, but everyone around her would feel a sharp decrease in pain. Especially Volundr. She knew that the warrior could survive his wound, but the pain could kill him with its very presence. 

And as Harina unleashed her bolt, she took her sword and charged right at the moth. The blinding light erupting behind her filled her determination to the brim. (I rolled a 12)

[Kidney]

Screams. They filled the air. A fiery bolt of god-fearing zealous energy ripped the very air it flew through, a blink's length of time before it impacted the cowering moth. The bolt entered it's face first, tearing through its rigid exoskeleton before vaporizing its bubbly insides. A horrid squelch followed by a wet hiss drifted to Harina as she now looked upon her handiwork. A hole the size of a plate was burned through the entire moth before it's rigid form cracked and crumbled to black dust. 

A similar noise sounded out, pretexted by a gruesome crack as Volundr's mighty hammer cracked the brainpan of the moth before him open. The creature that now bit upon his shield-edge screeched, and attempted to flutter away from the monstrous viking. But, as it spread its mighty black wings, a sword sliced apart the right wing of it, and it screeched a bright shining crusader ended it's flying career. It slammed onto the ground, gross, scrabbling legs taking it away from the pair, but as it fled maybe a foot, Toustain's swinging mace busted its mouthparts. It made a deathly gargling noise, immobilized and stunned, kicking with strange hooked legs at the group. 

As the mouthparts stretched, blood spurting from the broken edges, a sound too human to mistake for animalistic noises. "DARKNESS!"

[relentless]

|| Harina ||
The hand that held the reckoning of evil produced small wafts of smoke from her fingertips, her hand blackened with that of ash, staring in bitterness at the beast she had just slain in such righteous fashion. One down and… another one, confirming it as she looked over to see the moth flailing.

Darkness?

For a moment, her head cocked, and she turned toward the inferno of the house, eyeing the smouldering corpse of the moth that had flown in, only to burn to a cinder. Something. The flint strikes against the mind, casting sparks to enlighten her. So the skinned man, he was right afterall. She was fit to scold Toast for her cowardice, for a sister, when faced with strong adversary, should not back down. The order were wolves blessed with the holiest of water, when faced with the pagan bear, or the heretic feathers of the vulture, one must not cow down. One must fight.

Her head whipped back, the ever glowering look on her face, her eyebrows tensed in anger and her eyes intense. She had some notion of an idea, one that could hopefully get them away from these nightmares. In reality they were painfully outnumbered, where the simplest misstep in the darkest corner, could lead to their demise, similar to the skinned man. As Harina strode forth to the downed moth, she shuddered ever so slightly, shaking off that brief moment of stress, focusing on the task.
“Warriors!”
Harina called forth, holding her mace up in the air in stoic fashion, arm straight as a whistle, whilst the other would hold up an open palm, as if signifying prayer. A light glow flowed from her hand lightning-esque sparks forming again, but much faster.
“The evil spews forth from every crevice, every hole in this ground! The evil wishes us dead! But we must move forward, and to do so-“
Suddenly a bolt of light erupted from her hand into the shape of a spear. It was lighter, more translucent, not as luminescent as the spear that carved a fairly decent sized hole through the other moth. In that moment, she gripped it hard with her ash covered hand, and with gritted teeth, followed along with a hateful expression so tense she could’ve carved the mountains in two with her vitriolic glare,
“WE MUST FIGHT!"
Harina spat, giving an almighty cry as the spear was lobbed hard from her hand. The spear would careen forth, splitting the air like an arrow, half the size and half the glow from the previous spear, as it passed by Toast and Volundyr once again. Its heat was not as intense, but it could definitely be felt, before it struck the moth in its ‘abdomen’ region. The impact wound would be similar to that of a pointblank blast from a flintlock, causing its innards to be turned to mush, and fried to a cinder. A small fragment of the creatures guts was reduced to a smear of pate, along with its putrid blood. The smell of cooked insect would be apparent in the air, and the smoke from Harinas hand floated again as well, before she clenched her fist, and lowered her hand. With a hard stomp into the ground, her body swerved rigidly, almost like a statue. The mace was raised at a 45 degree angle down the road, away from the burning house, the fire burning in her eyes, the scowl apparent. Again, she stomped twice, and blew hard through her nose.
“Forward! For the sun, we fight! By the sword, we die!”
Harina announced in a manner that defeated any perception of fear, whether it was blind courage or foolish ignorance, it was hard to say. Nevertheless, the battlemage marched on, bedecked her in gear as she moved as if within a formation.

[rosallora]

The heat of Harina's spear is only cut but the smell of burnt flesh, the words of the moth, whatever they might've been, were cut short by its (in her opinion) timely death. She has no interest in hearing the screams of such a creature, awful and mangled, gnawing on her ear like its mouth might've if given the chance. Harina's eyes burn as Toast sees them; it's almost as if they glowed unto themselves, and she wonders, briefly, if she looks anywhere near as holy as her. Probably not. Harina screams death and destruction, but Toustain, looking to the carcasses of the moths, thinks very much otherwise about their next course of action. The woman of faith was passionate in her cry to battle, but - what enemy was there left that they did not call to them by light and sound? The skinned man was right - she knows herself, little insects of the night are drawn towards flame. Moths flocked to torches, singing their wings, rendering themselves immolated by their own curiosity. Such was the fate of these.

"Sister Harina...!" She dashes forward, sparing a glance to Volundr and Sophia. "Sister Harina, please - I took temporary shelter in a house. A strange house, definitely a cursed house, but now, much better than it was before." She doesn't have time to explain in detail. Her eyes again look to the others, and she finds herself wanting more resolve. She sets her mouth, taking a breath. "I said before we should go without the torch. These beings act like their smaller counterparts, one ran itself straight into the burning hellfire of a house lit alight! We need be smart, we need be patient. Who knows how many more there are, and what awful things they might be capable of?"

She looks fully to the other two now, thinking Harina might be too hard to convince. She might have to force some sort of vote. "We need to regroup and rethink our strategy now that we've encountered something so horrific... and we've been able to. Evaluate it? I suppose." She forces herself to slow, wanting to looked calmer, more collected, than she was. "I've seen something as well. You all might want to know about what I witnessed within the house." She touches the witch's bridle, now at her hip, its features illuminated in the flickering light of the house-turned-bonfire. "There is more to this place than skinned men and giant creatures of darkness."

[relentless]

|| Harina ||

"Hold!"
Harina stamped the mud again as she was stopped by the sister Toast. She turned around, half face,eyeing her with suspicious intent. The squint was fiery, for behind those eyes, held the power of the sun itself.

"-Your... Tongue." Each word was emphasized very slowly, very critically, as the mace was lowered, her hair held down to her head as she now spoke to Toast, nose upturned, her tone somewhat fierce, "You propose planning. Yet, you fled? Even when your safety was assured? Coward, deserter. Never again."

Harina spoke slow, but her tone slowly grew more spiteful, more cold as she listed off Toasts faults. The woman turned away from her, her expression unflinching.

"In the glow of the sun, you cannot run away. To withstand his glow, one must face him. One must stand. Not. Run."
Harina bit sharply near the end, her tone hard and heavy, before a long pause took her, the grip on her mace tightened. Was it fear? Or anger? Hard to say. Eventually, she cranked her neck from side to side, the release of stressed muscle could be heard, and she sucked on her lower lip in thought.

"The enemy... it surrounds us. We have no time to study. We only have time to burn. And purge. The beasts demand the light. So we will give them the house. And then another. That way, evil wont stand in our path, and we may get the job done.
Harina explained shortly, caring not for the optional transgressions of this witches house, shaking her head.
"We are Apelions fist. Do not, forget. Or he will lose a finger."
Harina nodded at that last sentence, before her mace raised forward again at a 45 degree angle, continuing her stoic march, into the damnable darkness.

[EloHim]

"Shite..."
Volundr, now free from the torment of the moths, quickly put the hammer and shield away. He was pained and bleeding. The bastard almost cleaned his arm of skin. Thank gods that didn't happen. When it happened - the pain was hard. Now, with his adrenaline kicking in - it was more bearable.
He tears away now useless sleeve of the shirt and ties it up around the arm, covering the wound up, and staunching the bleeding. He will have to visit the doctor later...If he lives.
As to Sophia's prayer, he didn't felt a bloody thing. Nor did he hear her pray, really. Viking was not concerning himself with all the pray-talk about the Light during battle. That's what he gets for signing up with a bunch of nuns, he guessed.And then there were more...more of the bullshit. More questions, more banter...more "Apelion this, Light that". Volundr couldn't be asked to give a fuck. They all were deviating from initial plan - burn the whole thing to the ground. And that, frankly, pissed him off. He puts his shield back on his hand.

"Less bloody pep talk, more fucking burning! We have enough torches to send this whole thing to Surtr! And I've yet to see the reason not to just fucking do it!" - he takes a torch from his backpack - there's the bloody bonus of being a sodden pack mule of the group - and shoves it into the burning building, lighting the torch aflame. No need to waste a flint when you have a source of open fire right behind your back.
And as he runs to the next building near the road to the church - the end goal, he brushes the torch along the roof of another sod-house, starting another fire. He going to do what is necessary even if he’s the only one doing it. 

[Unter]

The moth's dieing scream brought comfort to Sophia's mind. It was a feeble thing, but they could be felled. They could be beaten. The first sight of them, and their awful ability to be attracted by the Light was disturbing. But they bled, and could be squashed as surely an ant could be. 

Harina was a powerful weapon for that. The sister was born for this. Bred into the Fires of battle! Forged unto the Anvil of War! She was Wrath incarnate. She could hear that in her Sister's voice. But Sophia couldn't quite understand what Harina was saying to Toustain. For something else entirely disturbed her. It disturbed her more than anything this forsaken place could throw at her. 

As her prayer was cast, and her power thrown at Volundr to help his wound, she saw something that shocked her beyond belief. The strands of the Light's embrace avoided the man like poison, and he remained unnaffected by her benevolent Light. Why ? How could this man ignore her Blessings ? How could the Light fail in this way ? How ?! When he spoke of burning the houses down, she clenched her fist around her sword. It wasn't the time for this. But behind her steel helmet, her eyes were daggers. She felt like she could kill him with a stare. Her voice seethed with confusion and blind anger, produced only by the anathema that was this man. But she whispered, for what she said was new and unrelated to the moment.

"You. I will find what you are, and why you hide in this sorry flesh, Daemon."

Her anger sparked her voice, and gave her purpose anew. She wanted to finish this, here and now. Those moths could wait. She could come back with friends, and burn this place to the ground.

"Harina, wait. Toustain is right. We need to think, think about why those beasts are after our Light. What are they hiding here ? We came here to purify the altars. Maybe the corruption in this place originates from our objective. If we do that first, we may weaken them. We cannot go and burn as we please, for we are heavily outnumbered."

She turned her head at Toustain, and hurried after Harina. She put her hand on her Sister's shoulders, the tension born of knowing what Volundr was made her fingers clench inside her gauntlets.

"Sister. I know that Toustain is a coward who abandonned her comrades, but we must heed her advice. Volundr already ran away like a madman, for I know he is more than he claims to be. Let him be a distraction. Let him wreak havoc and death if he craves it. We must do the Light's work, and bludgeoning through this with brute force won't help us."

[Kidney]

As the withered corpse of the moth sat motionless upon the cold ground, words and zealous fury threw themselves about like the thunderous steps of cloud giants. These bitter sounds, so very sincere in their delivery, bounded from the mouths of those who dared to speak them, and out into the night. 

Tinglings erupted across the forms of those who sat bathed in light. Though, the pervasive, molesting force that originally clung to the bodies of all those present was seemingly gone (or bored). Replaced now by an angry, hot force. If felt as if some of the sweat collecting in patches upon the party's forms had become hotter, so hot as to irritate, but not harm directly. 

To Toustain, strangeness purveyed her mind. Where the mask so eerily ushered her movements before, it fell silent, and in the agreement of Sophia with Toustain's advice, there was a seemingly content aura about the Witch's Bridle. 

What content feeling may have fought against the muggy forces of magic pressing themselves upon Toustain did not exist for those around her. This force had no challenge, none. No place was this most apparent then the realm of Volundr, now aflame. After the second home caught fire, the heating force accompanied the heat from the homes, and now, as Volundr looked upon his own testaments to arson, suddenly, a voice entered his tribal mind. 

"Where does your luminescence lie?

Where the light was, it was now not. Toustain, Harina, Sophia and Volundr now sat in darkness. True darkness. Where once light barely whisked across the world around them, now none appeared. Darkness smothered their eyes, and where the burning homes once flared brightly, now they sat motionless and smoldering. In the blink of a single pair of eyes, now light had been taken from them. 

Then, as if gifted from the stars, a light danced across the dark, clouded sky, and flitted towards the church. In this pitch-like darkness, the church emblazoned itself against the dark backdrop. But, as the external lights of all but the fleeting spots of luminescence on the sky were snuffed to nothing, and silence dominated for a few moments, the sounds of wings touched the ears of all who had once wielded the light. 

Scrabblings then, nearly endless in their capacity, could be heard, exoskeletons and wiry insectivorous hairs scraped on sod house roofs, and words clicked from their hollow mouthparts, marred by thick, globulous spittle. Slow, quiet drips of watery saliva impacted soft earth near where Volundr stood, followed by scraping, scathing, nail-on-chalkboard-like words, "You. I will find what you are, and why you hide in this sorry flesh, Daemon."

Drips, at this same time, clapped the stony earth where Harina, Soph and Toustain stood. "Your luminescence, where does it lie?"

Next, a voice spoke over the others, and brought attention to the church. "Brothers and Sisters, The Burning Place alerts my oculars once more." Another spoke, but first hissed and growled, mouthparts snapping together with such force, they drew comparison to a beartrap snapping shut. "Hush. Find the lovers of light, Singed Brother. Lest you return to the Burning Place and immolate yourself for your negligence." 

The scrabblings returned, though in less number, and hooked feetparts tore into the poor soils behind and in between homes. "The prayer-speakers have not spoken. Listen for the pleas to their dead gods, Brothers and Sisters." 

[EloHim]

As quickly the flames on the torch appeared...they were gone. The darkness came out of nowhere. And the realm of Muspelheim slipped into the city, consuming it.
As soon as Volundr heard the voices in the dark, his jaw clenched, as he silenced any noise, any scream that wanted to escape his bloody throat. The light was gone,so the bastards were waiting for noise. Anything to give away their position.
That was it. They were fucked. Not because the bastards would hear them eventually. But because the whole mission was probably a set up. He gonna kill whoever's paying them for this. He will do it. With great pleasure. Even if it means that he's gonna leave the Hamlet afterwards...which sounded like a good idea right now.
Why? By Volundr's conclusion - moths were not just monsters that were friends with the cultists. They were the cultists...Transformed, abandoned their human flesh in favor of...this. To Volundr that was a sign that he needed to get the fuck out. But he did not saw the road back. Only forward. Towards the bloody church. The torch was useless... So he threw it as far as he could, away from himself, away from the voice, hoping that the noise of the fall will attract...something... Anything to get those moths away from him. 
Then he proceeded to move towards the church, in complete silence. The cold sweat ruled on the vikings spine, as he walked. He silently thanked the gods for luring him away from decision to t wear any metal on his body, else the clanging would've already alerted the moths.
He didn't gave two shits about the rest of the group. Those backstabbing bitches may burn with their bloody Light. He probably would not miss them at all. Considering how fast they branded him a demon. 

[rosallora]

She feels the mask more than she does anything else in those few passing moments of comfort. It feels alive in her hands - or at least, at her side. It should have been and is in fact terrifying, but instead it felt like a silent ally. Perhaps it was. She sets a hand upon it then as Sophia talks to Harina, even as Volundr runs- and then, all of the light is taken from the world. In one puff, everything was made into nothing, the lights in the sky swirling towards the distant church, and fear runs cold, cold as metal. She realizes where her hands touch the mask, they feel it. Almost a trembling.

The clicks and clacks are heard, scrapings and then, a voice. Asking, demanding, and she opens her mouth mutely for a moment. Her eyes go to the one illuminated spot. The church. Where does your luminescence lie?

The man, his eyes torn out and his voice harsh, echoes in her mind. Put out the light. Put out the light. She tightens her fingers around the edges of the bridle. If it felt fear... as she felt fear, and she must believe that, as it was, as this was, strange and horrible and new and altogether impossible... perhaps it could understand her. A plea, a silent thought. If she could feel its fear, perhaps it could feel hers.

She breathes. She forces herself to breathe. She had been in the dark before. She had known the dark, had she not? They had all known the dark. She settles, slowly, to her knees, silent. Waiting had served her well before. She focuses her attention in her mind upon the bridle, attempting not to let the fear of whatever was beyond muddy her thoughts. Her lumincscence was within. It was in her soul. She knows that it was in her soul, Vesta put it there, and kindled it, a secret flame that could not be sought out by any creature of darkness.

In the silence, she thinks to the bridle, as nonsensical as it was, as silly as it was. But it seemed more a partner at least than Harina, or Volundr, wherever in the dark he was. She thinks to it, for help. For assistance, for a voice, for anything. It had silenced, had it not? It was an instrument of sadness, or torture, but now... it did not seem so cruel here in the dark, scared like her, alone like her.

Help, she thinks. Help. Tell me what I must do.