For Blood and Will; Valushia's Call

[Valushia 16]

 

This is a spar, and as such no permanent character death will entail.

No judge is mandated. I am trusting that any problems or mishaps that may ensue throughout the course of this bout can be resolved at the discretion of both parties, without the need of a third.
 

This is a liberty T1 match, which means that any characters aligned to the four T1 sub-categories are permissible here. ( Moreover, powersets and abilities do not have to be prefaced until they are utilized. )

The setting: a broad marshland.

And above all, let's have fun.

Note: for those of you who may not feel confident in your whole knowledge of  T1, and are thus less likely to partake, I am including a 3-point clause system. To better bring this match to fruition, in the hopes to prevent any loss made on the grounds of mere technical default as opposed to a genuine in-character one, combatants will be given 3 warnings upon T1 violation, after which they will be disqualified.  

Edited September 27, 2019 by Valushia
Spelling Error.

[Valushia 16]

If ever the gods craved anything; cast their vigilant beams from the mountainous balcony of their presiding summits to look upon any one desire or yearning; if ever they brandished their porcelain tusks for the ambrosial dine, wet their supple lips and swooned over any flourish, then rest assured, it was for vermilion. By this, their sacraments very often came in the form of blood; its nectar, its essence, empowered them, gave the golden monuments erected in their image some eternal luster and sheen. And while our sojourner may've lacked the bounty of this red banquet, verily did he vest a similar fondness in the tides of another. The savory vintage never failed to enthrall him, never failed to whet his bottomless appetite for extravagance and indulgence in the midst of idle pastime; its sip was but one among the only few earthly pleasures he deigned to enjoy, and this midday occasion bore no contrast, not for Valushia. While drifting aimlessly about its vitreous prison, a pool of deep satiny vermilion occasionally thrashed against the translucent harbors of that delicate crystalline sanctuary, surely in some ireful protest for deliverance against it. But alas, the only liberation it would ever come to know was the one that saw that glass hoisted high, saw its balmy ruby spillage grace the lifeless blue tincture of its lordship's cold pursed lips to offer him its succulent bliss in turn -- least' afore he finally resigned to lower it again and resumed to stir its life-blood in the cusp of an upturned palm, namely to carry that pool's vinous fragrance to the gracious snout.

But, much as it may've regaled him to partake in these stints of hedonism, what Valushia found in the drink tended to bring more grief than jubilation; for no matter how much he sank in its vermeil, the wine's piquant flush had a funny way of reminding him of what he'd forsook long ago. After all, the "common" senses were not so common to him; he blamed this, namely, on a preternatural distinction between himself and those who were still prostrate to their worldly offices. For you see, Valushia's leisurely jaunts about this plane relinquished any debt to a traditional body or vessel; he had no true liege to biology's accursed susceptibility to substance. In fact, the pleasures derived were solely experiential to him because he desired them so, and for as much as he may have worshiped these carnal pleasures, the realization was always punctual in confronting any euphoria those lusts could ever grant him for long; consequently, the ecstasies he often discovered in these indulgent sprees were frequently chained to subsequent mourn. They compelled him to reminisce upon a time when such sensations were compulsory, and not merely the illusive facets of a vain desire to know them again; a halcyon age in his existence when he could truly call himself real, when the sensations of the flesh were verily certain. Sure, our lonesome warrior could drink and even taste, but he could never truly know its drunken stupor. Natheless, such was the hefty price that damned the caliber of an existence like his. And, apprehending the cause of this forfeiture first called for a particular examination over his extraordinary gift.

Many call it Will.

Funnily enough, the thing about the gods and their insatiable thirst for vermilion is that their quest for its nectar always pointed to the significance of another boon. It was not without reason that they anointed this chalice to be the one true grail at the end of their gloriful pursuits. As ancient Man has testified through stout sacrifice and oblation called forth by worship, blood is the currency of the soul, and blood was the sacrament demanded by the gods precisely because of that innate affluence thereby withheld; precisely because it carried within its abounding tides the thrivance of spiritual wealth; for that bounty, many altars have shed scarlet. And much like its ruby spillage is life's wellspring for those that trot the earth, so is spirit, in a resembling way, a potent fount of existential worth for the unbound. More precisely, whenever the true essence of spirit ( or "consciousness" ) is broached amongst spiritual scholars and the like, one descendant stream of discussion has exhibited a profound and inseparable appurtenance to the confluent subject; its potential. As we know, spirit is energy, boundless in nature, by virtue of its transcendence over the flesh and the physicality for which it revolts, and verily, the bottomless depths of Man's divine wellspring is reflected in its inherent inability to be expressed through those things that are mundane measure and quantification. For spirit is the one fortune he possesses in never-ending abundance, the one inheritance he can never expend, and the one power that roots him to the everlasting, moreover. But more than just abundant, the soul comes with no conceivable price tag either; the worth of Man's most precious gift is priceless after all, and has proved, countless times, by his standards, incalculable therein; as its potential to fruit the seeds of ambition and to make real those things once merely dreamt, verily strokes the gorgeous caliber of godhood itself.

To say so simply, it is with untold debt to the agency of that freedom and liberation, that Man's greatest godsend is subject, exclusively, to the Will of its governor; to the Will of its only lord, proprietor and retainer. Itself. And through this autonomy Man has flourished. But, not to be consigned to oblivion, such a thing deemed "Will" is still paramount in this discussion too; for no conversation could ever be had of Man's painstaking triumphs over mountainous hardship and adversity without Will, that for which spirit is, of course, inextricably related. For what is spirit without purpose, without direction or without enactment? Will subdued the earth; Will conquered the heavens. And if spirit is indeed the breast through which Man has fulsomely breathed life and swelled, then Will most certainly dictates the course of his expulsion, and is furthermore the very reason that compels him to respire at all. And so, it was from the womb of this supernal truth that a specific breed of beings called "Transients" came to be. Beings like Valushia.

Much like his counterpart Perisphere, Valushia was, at his very centrality, a pool of conscious energy, that which he piloted as a machine for universal computation and interaction; the very same vehicle for which the Transient's advanced hyper-dimensionality greatly lent its thanks in turn, alongside the maturation of his earthly incumbency, current. Because, akin to all things in nature, our visitor willed growth. And no desire was more foundational than that, none more ingrained in the bed soil of Man's aspirations than attainment was. It was for growth's sake that men were led to rule; for its sake, that the crown's golden burnish was so irresistibly tantalizing to him; for its sake, that all covetous eyes were drawn to look upon the thrones of their respective provinces; and, at last, for its sake, that a being like Valushia was drawn to look upon this one.

For there was one offspring of that age-old desire that seemed to enrapture the Transient most. Battle. He found that there was something about battle that made him whole; asserted, infallibly, that he was ever truly real at all, and dispelled any suspicion that ever dared to suggest otherwise. There was something about this acquisition and its fulfillment that satiated his abysmal appetite for more, even where his favorite vineyard beverage could not; he could find no better way to imprint his Will upon the world than through the searing fire-brand of subjugation. If nothing else validated his existence, then effectuating that Will did. To that end, it was this nigh restless peregrination for conquest and for sovereignty that eventually led him here, nurtured the contemptible seeds of adventus and rooted him here, by anchorage of desire. It was born of Will's indomitable power, that such an existence naturally fashioned for our conqueror, a corpus to fulfill that longing, and proffered to him a much-needed vehicle for any intimacy he ever longed to have with the flourishing material world again. He did this by wedding ambiguous streams of universal energy-patterns amid; such, was a matrimony that, no doubt, presented his loosely-configured mass presently. After all, a scrutiny aimed towards understanding the nature of our universe reveals that matter is little more than pockets of space occupied by distinctive energy-patterns, and this fundamental blueprint is essential in dictating the design and construction of physical creation; extensively, such a language was one an advanced Transient entity like Valushia was not only adept in interpreting, but also transfiguring via conscious energy of his own, or Will, as we have come to define it. With this mastery in mind, perfecting a physical body like the exceptional one he boasted now was a trifling undertaking; a body that surely bore the suasive semblance of humanity, but that otherwise relinquished any constraints to the form, and one that furthermore expressed the Transient's consistent manipulation and Will, too. Extensively, its brain, as well as any other subsidiary organs made inclusive by composition, were all very much superficial in nature, and existed solely to facilitate the Transient's desired mundane sensory experience on earth. And even still, while they allowed him to know the pleasures antecedent, they were still all but byproducts of his willful design and autonomy over the supernal alchemic language, energy. Hence, as afore noted, while Valushia could, in all technicality, submerge himself in the cardinal sensations that came, he could never quite succumb to their influences. For the body that sanctioned those experiential thrills, was merely one shaped by Transient energy, energy in motion, by synonymous Will, and henceforth sprang Valushia's call as a Transient himself.

And with the grace of that vessel, a contemplative stare dove into the immersive ruby depths once more; a youth's fair reflection plenished his sight of the ruby flourish just before dissipating in its undulation across the drink. Brief as the figment was however, the vision that voyaged across that pool's refulgent red sea had not disappointed in presenting his peerless charm; white locks as pale as the gelid wintry snow crowned him in their shortly-cropped grace, and tawny eyes as fiery and passionate as the summer ray's burning kiss were sure to draw Apollo's jealous glance too. And, if that chateau for which he had resided now, in all of its French grandeur and majesty did not suffice to say for certain, then surely his luxurious array would've succeeded in alluding to some adoration its master held for the elegance that came with regency. A rich and inky floral damask, boldly imprinted unto the velvety scarlet's saturnine expanse starkly jaunted the frontiers of his vesture's most notable piece, a brazen rose tailcoat; and festooning the trappings of its rufescent don, a flourishing black frill persistently blossomed under every cuff and collar about it, additionally. The breach in its ventral anterior also exposed the prominence of a swarthy silk blouse brightly studded with buttons of silver and sterling alike, all of which, in spite of their stunning contrast against the dark backcloth, still retained titivating rank amidst that regalia's devilish gothic flair, and subtracted nothing from its rebellious glamour, moreover. And lastly, donning legs all but wed to the comforts of their idle cross, dark, but otherwise unremarkable britches finally vaunted their well-stitched reign across robust thighs, or at least, as far as black, leather calfhigh boots cared to permit -- a slithering, white luster streaking their inky varnish, all the more; both of which eventually came to finish our sojourner's consummate vesture nicely for the evening. But, more than the traits of his false debonair beauty, in the eye of that pool's reflective red tint, the contents of the grail seemed to divulge the youth's forlorn cast best.

And yet, in spite of it all, something still managed to vivify him, still managed to pry his despondent slits agape, light his crestfallen mien with the stunning fulmination of a sudden alertness; something inspired him to return that glass to its sitting place atop the auburn stand beside, and drew him, urgently, from the comforts of his cushiony enthronement at the heart of that lavish den. But, to no surprise, the vim of this renewed fervor had hardly to do with the vineyard tonic; no, like beasts knew the prospects of their viscous brawls intuitively, smelt the danger and tread cautiously before it, Valushia knew the imminence of battle with striking exactitude. Burdensome as it was at times, the Transient was still occasionally reminded by some prophetic sense of causality and the way the course of worldly events naturally proceeded, that godship did have its few perks, especially when it came to the proverbial schoolyard "fight". The crest of conquest was wrought, like horns, from the head of battle, after all. For Valushia, no purer was there a form of subjugation than the nectarine vanquishment extracted from war, and so by its fruition it was only natural that a fervent ecstasy washed over our battle-freak cynosure; yes, for battle and its occasional blessing, every moment of discontentment without it was more than worth enduring.

Even now, it pushed him erectly from the seat of his idle lay and assuredly beckoned for the necessity of an adequate weapon. It was not at all auspicious, though, that one laid in wait for him either; ornate as it was, in all of its seductively sleek, ebony allure, the sizable brass-hilted 17th-century model Schiavona broadsword that rested against his sinistral armrest was no decorous showing for company. With preternatural reckoning, he'd kept that sword at his side with a fanatical oath and devotion to readiness, namely in the trust that some fateful encounter would inevitably call for its enforcement, and such a time was most certainly now. And so, fair digits braved the steel scabbard and seized the length of its black neck with a quiet, metallic "clink"; thereon, it was swift ascension that brought the gracious warrior to his full height in lineage to the restful enthronement he deposed to answer battle's call, and a terse but powerful lion's stride across the vestibule that successively brought him through the manor's Titan doors to usher him into world beyond it with the solitary strength of a push, all the more. The marshland's verdurous tract was the first to welcome his Aurelian gaze, and the broadsword's resonant iron gospel heralded its subsequent brandish all throughout the battlefield to be, consigning its brass sheath unto the marsh beside him, in turn. And like an omen for what was to come, an exquisite smirk carved its toothy streak unto the pale canvas of our phantom-warrior's marvelous countenance; only this time, he drew his porcelain fangs for the god's favorite delight.

"..."

Edited October 25, 2019 by Valushia
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[Mickey Flash 5895]

Lorial stood in the middle of the field, unsure why she felt the instinct to look around her.  Her long onyx black hair blew in the wind, and her eyes turned light pink with appreciation.  The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, and she felt the threat in her surroundings.  She hadn’t lived this long without paying attention to nature’s warnings.  The grass blew harshly, and the treetops seemed to be talking to her.  They were telling her not to go any further.  She froze for a moment, then took the time to bend down to dig her fingers in the soil of the earth.  There was danger here.  There was power.  The plants were telling her so.  If she were smart, she would leave.  She would turn around and never come this way again.  She was about to listen to Mother Nature, sure that her life was in danger.  But then she saw him, and it was too late to leave without being noticed.  She stood up again in alarm.

He was standing there with fangs showing, and a big broadsword in his hand.  He looked gleeful, like he was just offered a delicious dessert after three days of not eating.  His white hair was the opposite of her dark strands, and so was his clothing.  He was wearing frilly man clothes, with shiny buttons, and calf boots on his feet.  She looked down at her simple clothing.  It was the emerald green pants with the matching hoodie.  She knew this looked plain and did nothing at all for her petite and curvy figure, but it wasn’t the way the clothes looked that was important.  It was the purpose of the enchanted outfit.  It was made to withstand the heat of a dragon, and the intense pressure of one too.  She didn’t think there was going to be a dragon out today, waiting to tear her apart, but that sometimes didn’t matter.  She wore the outfit when she was in the wild, away from society, where the dangerous animals liked to roam.  She wore her black boots along with them.  To walk in heeled boots for such a long period of time would hurt a human, but she was no human.

Lorial was a vampire, wood nymph hybrid.  This was not a common combination, and it was hard for her to find anyone close to what she was.  She used powers from each side, but only wanted to claim one side for herself.  She hated her vampire side.  If she could do away with it, she would.  She was appreciative of the extra strength, speed, and healing that being a vampire granted her.  She wouldn’t balk at that.  But the blood lust…. It was too much for her to endure.  She hated being out of control, and she had no control over that aspect of herself.  The wood nymph side was the side closest to nature.  She had control over the plants, with more strength than most wood nymphs did.  She assumed it was the mix of the two species together.  Also, the sun didn’t hurt her, though it usually did vampires.  Again, the mix of the two species. 

She was standing there, surrounded by the grass and trees, wind blowing her hair around, facing this giant male with fancy clothes.  His clothes didn’t make him seem less intimidating, but more so.  There was power here, though she wasn’t sure what kind.  She was intuitive with nature, but she wasn’t psychic.  She didn’t really know what she was dealing with.  She didn’t even have her bag of weapons.  He was standing there with a broadsword.  Was he planning to attack her?  She sensed he might be about to, so she crouched low and her eyes grew a darker pink.  Her fangs protruded from her lips.  And she could feel the poisoned wooden darts traveling in her skin, moving to her palms, ready to be thrown. 

[Valushia 16]

To sting even Apollo’s pristine cheeks with the roseate blush of flustering self-doubt; to earn the petulant wrench of that bounteous face of fire and fury, to shatter the unbroken placidity of sterling poise and equanimity said to prevail in the tempers of all noble gods; it was, unmistakably, a feat that none but a creature as gorgeously superb as Valushia could ever fulfill, truly.

 

Envy.

 

In all ways, the word merely flunked the means to encapsulate the snarling portrait of Apollo's jaded mien, or his bow, blackened and twisted, now, by the wretches of prejudice and detest; far too simple was it a word to ascribe his ire, too drab to ever assign its supernal ugliness. And surely, if an infantile mankind could wholly witness the terror of such a thing, see the hideous arrows aligned to that jealous bow’s godly silk and golden twine, drawn with such divine spite, then they would recognize one Valushia as their journey's scornful end, and shudder before the prospects. For each time the bounteous warrior shed his blade to usher its symphony of steel unto the battlefield and that vengeful god hearkened its serene trill, he vied that sabotage was the only way to prove his beauty paramount, still; to posit, verily, that no such being as he could walk this earth so miraculously without leaving behind some equally marvelous calamity in its wake.

Natural waning cessation never tailored the fate of that sword’s symphonic steel brandish; just the opposite, the ambient propagation of its sonorous ring wed itself to an alien spike in amplitude and intensity. Transient Will bent the resonant hum of that blade’s iron serenade; transformed its sweet, mellifluous tune into a piercing metallic shriek surely no human instrument could ever take credit. 

 

But, to properly understand the phenomena at hand, let us recall, momentarily, the subject formerly defined; the universe; specifically, the relevance of its highest governing aspect, energy. We call it “governing” because it is energy that ultimately dictates the defining characteristics of physical reality. Matter, at its most basic, rudimentary and intimately observed level, is, after all the construct of ubiquitous energy-pattern configuration. If we look upon the nature of Creation, and most pertinently matter itself, which we know to be the fundamental building-block and integral constituent of our material world, we can aptly deduce that it is invariably defined by the decree of this governing aspect; physical reality, as we have come to understand it, is merely the byproduct of unique and complex assortments of energy-patterns permeating throughout otherwise empty pockets of space. These flourishing streams of energy and the worldly features their matrimony is responsible for giving birth, proffers directive, and most importantly, concretion, to the idiosyncratic nature of the subject in question; for this, it can be said that the Creation and its design, is intrinsically realized here, in the bosom of this intricacy.

 

More germanely, such monumental tapestries of intrinsic foundation and design are transcribed by a unique spatial signature called frequency, which signifies the instructive blueprint for physicality. This was how the advanced hyper-dimensional interpreted their reality, with consciousness functioning as a transcendent “machine” for ambiguous universal computation. Despite the charm of their marigold shine, he had absolutely no need for optics, because his gander was existential; and he recognized the Nymph the very instant she stepped foot on the verdurous battlefield, meandered into the iron serenade of his sword’s resounding battle cry and into the web of this arachnid’s grand ensnarement. It was worthy to note, moreover, that because the Transient's existential consciousness was not anchored to physicality, the celerity of this calibration was superluminal. It was important to remember that Valushia’s physical body was a preternatural gestation of autonomous Transient energy; every facet about him, down to resplendent sheen on that broadsword's noble iron surface, was kept and shaped by Will ( energy in motion ), or consciousness; and again, it was this autonomy that facilitated his interaction with pervasive energy-pattern schematic, and by extension, an abounding physical plane. Thanking that aptitude, all respects belonged to that malleable assemblage some might’ve called a “body”, thereby reflected the Transient’s realm of dominion, that being energy-pattern fabrication and arrangement; and as a byproduct of this sophistication, so too did his blade’s sinister call and screech personify the spread of his Will. 

 

Henceforth, when that reverberation rang out, pierced the quietude about that wet marshland as it did, the preternatural began masterfully tailoring its resounding frequency to the signal of the newly arrived precisely upon assessing her; this explained the immediate bend of that hum's pitch and amplitude when she rendezvou'd there. Its drastic transfiguration represented the Transient entity's swift alteration of the singsong’s vibrational signature, and its desired resolution would mold itself after one inspiring blueprint: Lorial. Yes, to match what he’d received from his assimilation of the girl, he aspired to affix the frequency of that sonorous ring to that of her own. The purpose behind this identical energy-web formation was to, no doubt, effectuate a very simple phenomena — resonance. Like Opera singers attuning their hymns to the wine glass, the same shattering implications rang preeminent here; the only distinction was scale. No two things interacting could emanate parallel frequency autographs without culminating in the parlous breadth of that annihilation, and this synchronous weave was intended to bring about exactly that, only this time, the aim of this destructive synth wave was none other than the emerald-draped, ebon haired beauty before him. If all things went accordingly, in the instance that blade’s wailing requiem was unleashed, this enactment would obliterate her; break the totality of her body, and shatter the very plinth responsible for sustaining physicality. However, such an outcome was solely predicated on the presumption that the warrioress lacked the sufficiency of design to prevail against the might of that entailing ruination. This was her chance to defy those odds. 
 

Though as it was said, Valushia was never wrong in his prognosis of battle's prospects, nor of their ends, the Vampire-Nymph halfling was all but testimony of that, and further outspread of that tenuous coil blessing supple blue lips, boasted the vain satisfaction he gained from knowing it. But, equally, the spectral swordsman lusted for some revelation of that verdict's flaw; some baleful reckoning that fell from the unbosom of this one's true merit. It was before this bright orison, that ivory canines were evermore drawn to fashion the superlative beam of battle's bliss; fervent, gluttonous marbles of golden exquisitry, once unmarried to form or profile, resolutely set themselves upon the prophesied Vampire youngling midst her curious amble unto the marsh and into the serenade of iron brandish; fair lids only retracted behind their respective orbs to denote the phantom-warrior’s fanatic worship of her femme temple. He prayed that this was the shrine that would set him free. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Valushia
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[Mickey Flash 5895]

As Lorial crouched low it seemed her present rival hadn't moved. It seemed he hadn't changed. He just kept standing there, showing his fangs in a strange macabre grin. Something changed for her in that moment. She had used her instincts when she'd entered the clearing, and they had told her to turn around and run. They had told her there was danger. Those instincts were still saying the same thing, only stronger now. This was not normal. He wasn't in a protective stance, or saying anything, or making a move. He was just standing there, with his weapon, grinning.

 

This something that changed inside her told her that she might not live through this. This was not a common feeling for her. She was a vampire, which were powerful in their own right, but she was also a wood nymph, which also had a long life span and power. She knew she wasn't infallible, but she also knew she was young for either species. She should live many more years. That is if she kept her nose clean, and stayed away from fighting and killing. She was a mercenary, so there was always a risk she could die. She was a good mercenary though, and held back her killing instincts more than used them. She was a good fighter, a good killer. She should be feeling like everything was going to be fine. This was just another battle. But she didn't feel that way.

 

These feelings and thoughts raced through her mind in the split second it took her to recognize that he wasn't even feeling the need to protect his body from attack. And she crouched lower, saying a quick prayer to Mother Nature. She rarely worshiped, and was angry with Mother Nature at the moment, but if she was going to be dying soon she needed to make a few things right with her. In her quick prayer, as quick as a blink, she let these thoughts and feelings go through to Mother Nature.

 

'I am so angry with you. You allowed my son to be taken from me. You allowed me to feel this pain inside from losing him.' She sniffed the air, wondering what type of being she was facing across the clearing. She smelled nothing. This did not make her feel better. Usually all species give off a scent to portray what they are. He was not giving off any. This meant he wasn't a species. He was more powerful. She didn't know what she was facing, but she knew she couldn't handle it alone. 'You owe me,' she thought to Mother Nature.

 

She was touching the grass now, and the grass got her message. They sent the message straight to Mother Nature. SHE now had the message, and the grasp of the empty hole that was in Lorial's heart where her son had been taken. Mother Nature was the epitome of creation. If anyone knew what it was to be a mother, she did. She understood Lorial's love and her pain and loss. She knew the creature Lorial faced. She knew how much more powerful he was than Lorial. She knew that he was planning to destroy Lorial, was about to be destroyed by sheer will, and usually she didn't interfere. A big part of nature was that there was a balance and the stronger survive while the weak perish. Yet... this one was praying straight to Mother Nature. She had a straight line to her through the plants. She had also lost her child. Mother Nature decided to help this time.

 

Mother Nature did not add anything new to Lorial. She just accentuated what Lorial already had. The vines wound through Lorial, and they came from the ground. Power came with it. Lorial already had her own form of “Will.” She was able to Will the plants to do what she wanted. She was also able to sometimes Will other people around her. More often times than not. It was so strong she wasn't able to stop controlling people, even if she wanted to. Mother Nature took that Will, and increased it.

 

The vines were from all over nature, and they had their own frequencies, different than Lorial's. They mixed with her blood, her skin, her organs, even in her bones. Grass blades started to grow from her dark hair, making her strands turn to long flowing blades of green grass. Her eyes, which had naturally been green when she was not burdened with the blood lust of the vampire, became bright neon green now. Green with the power of Mother Nature. It wasn't a surprise that SHE leaned more toward the creation side of Lorial's gifts and allowed the Will to grown increasingly more from that area. Vines decorated her skin. Long claws grew from her fingertips, and her fangs grew longer than they ever had. Lorial was starting to see things differently. She could see power. She could see everything. She began to float higher into the air, and the roots from the ground were keeping her rooted, like she was a tree growing increasingly taller. She looked over at the other being, and she understood she would have not been able to survive before. She was no longer the same creature as before. She was Lorial, mixed with power borrowed from Mother Nature.

[Valushia 16]

When the golden thread of divinity quivered at the vengeful pluck of its jaded caster, cruel and twisted arrows of heinous misfortune were alas united with their star-crossed longing. Bountiful, was a vindictive god’s jealous ray of petty sabotage and vandal, delivered at the thrum. Shone through the spleen of bright sanguine flourish and vermilion lost, a sacrifice was, indeed, the inevitable offspring of this supernal indignation. When it was reconciled, hubris was the tenor of that god’s lustful satisfaction, just as it always was. Apollo had succeeded. ‘Course, while the fetching subject of his heavenly aim may’ve been the revolting beauty of his ivory-crowned contender, the only real sufferer would be the revenant swordsman’s most present enemy, the true audience of his blade’s ungodly requiem for calamity besought. And it was every bit as “ugly” as Apollo thirstily quested it be.

The idea was clever; superbly stellar for its conception, but bleakly lacking for its application. Since it was ultimately her design the advance Transient entity targeted with the energy he produced from his broadsword’s reverberate iron brandish, tweaking her own energy-pattern design might’ve sufficed to momentarily prolong her life; after all, a signature changed had to be reforged, but her efforts were scarce of two things: speed and initiative. The source-phenomena from which this synchronous weave sprang was vibration, sound — the sword’s iron hum resounding; hence, it was salient to surmise that the celerity of that gospel, only matched this. The instant that sword’s symphony of steel rang out about the battlefield upon being brandished by its magnificent wielder, the Transient entity’s Will had long since been disseminated throughout, and at this very velocity, no less. 

When its frequency sought this piercing modulation of pitch and amplitude upon Lorial’s sauntering discovery of the plane, which sonically tailgated itself to Valushia’s calibration of her energy-pattern blueprint, this was likewise the very instant that destructive synth wave aspired to break her. Any hope to flee back into the wild brush upon beholding him then; to say her faithful prayer, ensuing; to establish the synergy she even desired to achieve with the fauna-flora of her surroundings through an impressive nature dominion, so as to parent some incredible transformation of her being, were all exactly that — “hopes” unfulfilled, visions of the neverafter; each, grossly consuming of the infinitesimal time she truly had at her leisure. The Vampire-Nymph would’ve been blessed to have a single thought pass through her brain before the revenant swordsman coiled the synchronous weave of this profound ruination, let alone flee anywhere. The girl would’ve had to’ve been exponentially faster than the speed of sound to react in time and somehow illude this broadcast, and she expressed no withheld tenement of mastery to do such.

Initiative, was her second lacking attribute. No matter how adept her intuitive sense of imminent danger may’ve been, how she possessed the means to appropriately apprehend what the Transient entity was evoking, was still a facility without its just foreground. Her wariness of the circumstance, unfortunately, did not lend her the faculty to assimilate, or process, the nature of the events that transpired; this being, the hyper-dimensional’s advance transfiguration of the blade’s symphonic bane. And neither did such caution ever gift her the preemption to avoid it.

Blood was the only penance for the blessedly flawed. The god’s sacred banquet was met. One instant, she was there; a humanoid assemblage, fixed to the gracious infrastructure for which flesh and bone thankfully provided; a corpus, with robust shape and lovely anatomy at its disposal. The next, a simple waver, a simple, anxious quake of that femme temple in the wake of his sword’s inauspicious screech, inspired a grotesque eruption of her parts; a torrential rain of unassorted fats, marrows, organs and filaments wetly beat the marsh just as soon as they were freed from their bondage, alongside the downpour of a favored ruby dine once vitally contained. Briefly, had the skies traded sapphire for ruby then. When it hearkened that sword’s wailing steel requiem, even the Elysian fields of a great blue yonder sobbed remorsefully for the bygone. And the marsh welcomed this descent, heralding its heavy deluge with countless sopping thuds from on high afore drinking in the tasteful crimson, abreast to the gods. What remained gave no indication that there ever was a “Lorial”, just a mess. 

This was the gods' scorn.

A slow quell of the preternatural screech brought the singsong to its end, as well the “fight”, and empty quietude returned to the marsh, at last. 

And yet, it was revulsion; the deepest, most abject disgust that sharply filed the revenant swordsman’s cutting marigold stare to a squint when he witnessed it in full; balled the marvelous countenance of ethereal perfection with the wrench of self-hate when his golden beam befell the piteous aftermath of decimation. Unlike his jealous surveyor, Valushia was not contented. The meandering carve of any former fondness once had for battle’s excellent prospects ebbed from the specter's pale lips with the realization that none would ever come, and signified the poignant spirit’s gaping dissatisfaction with the enmity of a beautifully crafted vessel.

Swirling gold rings of vision aversely strayed from the sight and were drawn to the blade in his grasp now. And, like the ruby ambrosia once pleasantly sipped, its steel reflection betrayed a seraphic comeliness detested for its perfection, and reminded the specter of what was forfeited, of what was lost with this office. He longed for the worthy, and cursed the affliction of infallibility with a sudden careless toss of his sword — and of himself, moreover, afore embarking on the slow trot back to the estate. 

Strangely, when it was sky borne, it did not obey gravity’s weighted ball and chain of inevitable befall; it simply shattered, broke despairingly into a million glittering flecks of lambent silver at its master’s crushing disapproval and abandonment, all to be whisked into the wild by the sympathetic of gales of Zephyrus. 

What this strange fracture meant, no one could say for sure.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Valushia
grammar, typos