(Wait, she's not- who-)

She fades into the shadows to begin her work.

Her Mistress gets to work, too.

(They'll be as ready as they can. (It'll never be enough, no matter how many nightmares rock the world.))

She storms up the slope, her anima streaming gold behind her and the tip of her spear a miniature sun. She lands in front of the killing field with an enormous crash, pushing a crater into the rock with the force of her rage.

"Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

They don't - 

- They never will, never do, no matter how much she'll rail against the past - 

(Time slips. Goes strange, like the weave of fate itself was traumatized.)

She fled, once, to protect what she loved.

She stands strong, now. 

All she has is rage, burning, all-consuming. She splits, merges, splits again, weaving a fabric of violence to smother these insolent children. These ungrateful brats. How dare they do this, machinate against her, bring the perfect order of the world to this chaos? She will cleanse them. She will cleanse them all.

She strikes from the shadows, harassing, harrying, creating openings for her mistress to exploit. They work in unison as the two halves of a whole that they are.

Like two halves of a whole that were never destined to win this fight. 

(Like two thirds of a broken whole, some might say. (Like two fifths of a family that should have existed.))

She's a manipulator, a sorcerer - 

She's never a warrior.

She falters, nearly falls - 

And she was never one to leave an opening overlooked-

She moves, faster than she thought was possible-

Fast enough that the pain of the spear puncturing her midsection almost registers before the idea of what she has to do does.

And she screams - 

(And the weave ripples, and time slips through the cracks, and she whimpers in her sleep somewhere not here - )

That was not true rage, what her enemy felt.

This is rage, enough to burn the world to its foundations.

She's too entirely shocked by the abrupt realization of what she's done to- do anything, really. Her grip on the weapon falls, and she stares, slack-jawed.

They're not dead yet, her heart is panicking and blood is everywhere but they're not yet dead - 

Her rage isn't against her enemy, now. It's against everything, against a world where this can happen, against those who crafted the world with its chains and decreed she would not be on top - against the loom of fate, against the unchangeable laws that death cannot be undone -

(A long time ago, a woman looked upon all the laws of reality, looked upon the chains that needlessly made her mortal, that would erase her and all her goals upon her body failing, recycle her soul and Exaltation. A eternity ago, a strange pattern was woven into fate, a set of two repeating motifs. And they were visible, to those who looked closely enough, and it wasn't immortality but something better - )

(Not very long ago, three young women began binding themselves together. Four of five stages of the working have been done - )

She tries to draw her sister back. 

She fails.

And she innovates.

Sacrifice can speed a working, she knows. 

She reaches out to all the stars, to the cruel warp and weft binding her, to the dark secrets - and she tears - 

The knife that she plunges into her own heart is barely needed - but the order of the world is breaking, and symbolism matters quite a lot to the dark ocean Creation dangles by a thread above, and she gives her life blood to craft a bridge between what has been imagined and what has been ordained - a whisper - 

Her story will never end.  

She-

Her daughters-

She can't-

She-

-can't.

She's in a dungeon. Her wrists are chained, arms pulled up, toes barely scraping the floor. She's bruised, battered, bleeding. She hurts.

She deserves it.

She's crying even as she bites into her neck, even as her claws dig into her side - an angry, blotchy cry, and she presses her against the rough stone wall hard enough to add even more bruises - like this could ever fix anything - 

(It's satisfying, though. She likes being the dominant one, likes giving back as good as she got, likes venting her endless overflowing rage on another body.)

She screams, begs incoherently because she knows that is what her love needs now.

Her rage crests - she shakes a bit, moans - 

???

...This is a weird dream. Hot, though.

Do you dream about this a lot, Sapphire <3?

what

She's still chained, but now she's in a cramped prison cell, cold stone slowly heating from the press of two bodies-