ℝ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟 [Becboc║Ryees]

[Ryees]

 

"So her head is sideways, at this point, her horns are wedged..."

Gaelyn continued on with the story of a baby dragon in an adult body without missing a beat. It ended with Kisa going through the doorway backwards, tail whipping around the hallway and properly jump-scaring a group of passing first-years as a full-sized dragon whipped from a dorm room and started battering about the hallway trying to free its horns from a doorway that did not yield. The imagery had even the cool-headed Nitani and stone-faced Tessa snorting and holding their sides, while Beillahn and Roki had lost their rights to oxygen.

Even without their link, Gaelyn would have noticed Ivy's disappearance. Despite his high spirits, he had never stopped being both aware and wary of her at the table, determined to help her feel like she fit in but cognizant that this was a shift of stark contrast for her that would likely require an adjustment period before it felt right. And so when she disappeared, his eyes flicked to one side to follow her. As they did, he met Nitani's eyes who, as a light drinker, was not nearly far gone enough to not watch her expertly lean backwards out of the limelight and disappear at the peak of a joke.

The two shared a second of eye contact. Nitani nodded, and Gaelyn nodded back.

"...an' o'course they were first years! Would've been too easy if they'd been 'ere more'n a month, but—"

"Slipping for a piss, back in a moment."

"—aye, heard—but a senior wouldn't've peed themselves like that!"

Gaelyn's personal rune, traced on the bottom of the table, had Directed the attention away from him, and so his mention of slipping away was barely registered by those gathered. As he stood, the only eyes that noticed were Nitani's, who had been exempted from the effect of the sigil as it was traced. Kisa did not move—her psychic link with them was fully aware of their mental landscapes, and as such she had known about this incoming outburst before any of them.

He could have found her with his eyes closed, but walking whilst intoxicated was a dangerous pastime so he kept them open as he slipped into the halls and trotted his way up a flight of stairs, circling around the interior of the tower to let himself out in the walkways above the Great Hall. A break in the wall led to an outdoor balcony, and Gaelyn made for the door.

As he passed through the doorway, he touched the wall, tracing a rune into it to shift the Direction of light away from the doorway and guarantee their privacy.

"Colder up here than down there," he murmured from behind her as he loped up to the railing, leaning forward on his elbows and casting his gaze out over the academy. Below them was the central square that had hosted Commencement that morning, stretching as far as the eye could see in the failing light—as far as his eyes could, anyway. He suspected that Ivy's affinity for the dark meant she could see well beyond the edge of the horizon at night. "Hoping you wouldn't be missed?"

She sensed him before she saw or heard his approach, the tickling sensation of their bond snapping back into satisfaction. It was why she did not turn, and only hummed acknowledgement of his initial observation.

It was his question in the end, that drifted a somewhat introspective response from her, "Something like that."

Another beat of contemplative silence passed before she continued, with a little more vulnerability and naturally, gentle tease to counter it; "I didn't expect anyone to follow. It's… colder up here than down there."

Gaelyn looked over to her for a long moment. Without changing his posture, he scooted sideways, sliding along the railing until his hips and flank touched hers. "So what's the deal?" he asked, cocking his head sideways wryly. "You're brilliant and charming and funny and pretty; why did you spend eight years being completely insufferable when you clearly—" he gestured back down towards the hall with one twisting wrist "—could have had proper friends?"

"Brilliant, charming, funny and pretty? How much have you actually drank?" There was an imperceptible lean of her shoulder against his however, despite her teasing, and her smile grew briefly at the first part of his question. "Oh wait, we're back." She wasn't insulted though because she knew he was right; and besides, she'd thought the same about him. It was something that they shared.

She looked back out at the mountains before speaking. "Because… I didn't know any better?" she tried. "Because… that wasn't why I came here. Because…" Then she sighed, deflating at her own avoidance. "Because I wanted to be a rider, even though I always knew I wasn't built for it and… my mother wanted that too, even though she knew the same."

"Mm," Gaelyn grunted from the back of his throat, but the sound was pensive, not dismissive. "Professor Mindya spoke of that mindset once," he announced, drawing to memory the image of the diminutive woman who he had served as their history and world knowledge professor. "Despite it being about you and your dragon, at the end of the day, Kaarm exists because we're all on the same team. Different places, maybe, doing different things, but always to the same end. Same same, but different."

At his word, a thought occurred to him sparkling out of the blue like electric snow. "Do you think that is what really stopped you, maybe? Trying to be a lone wolf? Because Fate has a funny way of being a proper bastard sometimes and it would be just like her to tell you that you could be what you wanted to be but only if you didn't do it alone." He let his words hang on the gravity of their connection, glancing up at her curiously.

"I wasn't trying to be a lone wolf," Ivy prickled, just a little, but the claws retracted as quickly as they had appeared in the wake of what Gaelyn was saying to her. "I didn't think about it at all, really. I was too focused to even consider anyone else. I don't know which is more pathetic." Ivy shook her head and sighed again but when a new thought occurred to her she turned to glance down at Gaelyn as he did up to her. Her voice was softer when she spoke again, quieter. "Are you trying to tell me that… I don't have to go it alone, Gaelyn?"

When their eyes met, he let his gaze linger for a drawn out, intimate moment, gold resting on obsidian for two breaths. Then, slowly, quietly, he nodded, bouncing his head and curling his lips into a sentimental smile. "Yeah... Yeah, I am," he said finally, voice almost a whisper. "Tessa's already looking into how to register a bond in triplicate, and if there's no way, she reckons that if we just omit you from the paperwork, I could 'hire' you as an apprentice, and you could just... never graduate." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "It's not glamorous, I know, but it's all legal, and you could ride on-grounds without anyone ever asking questions."

She hadn't realized she was holding her breath until Gaelyn smiled and Ivy blinked, as if released from the moment. She looked away at his confession, though her brow furrowed at the mention of Tessa. "Tessa's looking into that?" She asked quietly, guilt tingling at the back of her neck for her earlier thoughts. "But I thought that she…" Ivy didn't finish that sentence however, as she tried to consider the actual information rather than her stupid, dumb, stupid feelings.

Gaelyn's brows twitched up expectantly, but when she carried on, he let her.

"At this point, I'll take anything," she eventually admitted on an exhale. "Anything that means I get to keep Kisa and y…" A pause. "And our bond." Her cheeks flared a little and she found herself once more, grateful for the darkness. "Turns out being a lone wolf is sort of overrated." Those words at least, were punctuated with a smile and a bump of her shoulder against his before she settled and spoke again, the thing that had been on her mind since she had left the hall. The thing she didn't want to talk about, but the thing she couldn't ignore either.

"So… you and Tessa are pretty close, huh?"

Gaelyn was still a half-gallon of wine deep, but missing the break in her speech would have been impossible unless he had gone deaf and not realized it. He let it slide, for now, but filed that thought away for later examination. Much later. Perhaps never.

"We go all the way back to primary," he answered her with a brisk nod. "Same age, same classes, basically had her as a study buddy and practice partner for some twenty years, now. She got accepted as a Rider two years later than me, so she's a bit behind me on her dragon, and that was really the first time our paths split."

Ivy nodded, realizing she didn't feel any better for asking. "Must have been weird to not have her by your side after all that time. It doesn't seem to have affected either of you too much though. Anyone can see you're both… well, y'know." She waved her hand and then as if she had sobered and suddenly remembered where she was, Ivy swung one leg over the railing and then the other so that she was facing the opposite way, her feet finally back on solid ground. She paused again however, rather than moving any further.

"Before we go back inside… can I ask you something? And will you promise to answer me truthfully?"

Gaelyn tilted his head a fraction, leaning on one arm to peer up at her. "Sure. Promise."

Ivy looked at him again, eyes skittering over his features in the shadows. "Why did you follow me out here?"

"Ghosting away from the table," Gaelyn answered right away, "is rarely a sign that anything good is going on up there." He leaned his head to tap the side of it with one perched arm. "I was concerned. Am, concerned."

He only paused for a moment to consider his following words. "The circumstances that brought us together are what they are. The moment's passed. I could live forever pissed with you and make us both miserable, or we can make the best of it—and really, I could have gotten much, much less lucky with who could have walked around that corner."

Ivy didn't speak for long moments after his answer, contemplating the words, what they meant and how they made her feel. In the end she simply… nodded. "Okay. Thank you for answering honestly." Then she pushed up from the wall and exhaled a breath, before tilting her head back towards the building.

"Shall we?"

---

That they had left separately did not change the fact that they returned together. Beillahn, of course, saw them first, and called out, "Oi, 'bout time! A man and woman alone together are rarely saying prayers, what were y'up to?"

"No more than you," Tessa cut in smoothly, gesturing with her flute, now empty, at Beillahn. "You didn't even notice until the server came by to pour you more wine."

"I cer'ainly did notice!" the artificer retorted, but then Nitani spoke up.

"You noticed an empty cup," he corrected. "You noticed that your cup was empty, and that there was an empty cup on the table, and then you realized that Gaelyn had gone."

"Well I—"

"I swear, you're a lighter weight every year, Lahny."

"I am not a light—"

"We should maybe put her back in white," Nitani proclaimed, alluding to the white robes worn by novices their first years at primary.

Aghast, Beillahn slammed her hand on the table and leaned forward on it, a virulent grin breaking her cherubic face in half. "You think I'm goin' back into whites you're mental," she spat, and off her tirade went, Gaelyn and Ivy's absence now long forgotten as she pulled Roki into the drinking contest of honor that was to ensue. Nitani and Tessa both exchanged self-satisfied nods and winks with the returning Riders, and Gaelyn offered an appreciative tilt of his head in return. Having politicians for friends was worthwhile, sometimes.

Barely another hour passed before the Great Hall started to clear out. The torches were dim in their sconces, the food long since removed for sweet and pastries that had themselves now gone cold. Nearly every table had a stack of empty decanters at its heel that was being steadily collected by the pages and whites and carted off to the kitchens for washing. Laughs had become yawns, and limbs started to stretch stiffly, connected to full bellies and weary bodies.

As Gaelyn wandered into the hall, he lagged behind the rest of his cohort, spinning a message and sending it through the proverbial tube through his bond with Ivy. He had left ahead of her to dislodge any further accusations or comments, but she was the first and foremost thing on his mind as he plodded into the dim torchlight of the corridors. "I'll leave my door unlocked for another half hour. Tessa will be sleeping in the eyries, now I—"

Even as the message composed itself his mind, he felt the third tug on the bond take offense to those words. A skittering came from behind him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin as something scaly and sharp darted up his leg. When Kisa's tiny head poked over his shoulder and leveled her eyes with him, he would have fallen over if not for the hand he lurched out with to grab the wall.

As he recovered and trudged off towards his dorm, he sent an addendum. "Never mind, I guess. Kisa's small again."​

 

[Becboc]

Ivy had been fully expecting some acknowledgement of the fact that she and Gaelyn returned to the group together, but what she hadn't been expecting was the expertise of Tessa and Nitani in redirecting Lahny's suspicions.

Law types, she considered with her own subtle hint of a smirk, before settling back into the flow of Gaelyn's group once more.

It soon became apparent that the festivities were winding down, as wine stopped flowing and chatter began to fade to odd chirrups of laughter and the hushed tones of the weary. Ivy stayed with her newfound friends up until the very end and when it was time for them to depart, she was scooped into an array of goodbyes, from hugs to kisses and even a curtsy from Roki that she returned with a flourish and a bow.

Certainly, the night had not been one that she had expected, but for the first time ever she found herself reluctant to leave and return to the solemnity of her own dorm. Her and Gaelyn's conversation had lingered in the back of her mind since it had happened and those were the words she began to replay to herself as she meandered her way back to more familiar ground. She had just begun up the spiralling stairs when she felt a tug upon his end of the bond, shortly followed by... words.

"I'll leave my door unlocked for another half hour. Tessa will be sleeping in the eyries, now I—"

Ivy's footsteps slowed to a stop, her heart stuttering in a way that she wished she could deny. Was he... offering to spend the night with her? Another frown creased onto her brow; he hadn't exactly denied what she thought she had implied of he and Tessa earlier on the balcony yet his invitation... Was he... booty calling her? Through their bond?

It was possible, yet when Ivy considered the night properly; how Gaelyn had followed her outside because he was concerned about her, how he had wanted to check that she was okay, how he had invited her to spend the night with his friends--

"Never mind, I guess. Kisa's small again."

Ivy's frown deepened if that were even possible, for just a moment before a shake of her head followed and then... a smile. A slow but genuine, incredulous smile as she once more started back up the stairs to her bedroom door.

Perhaps it didn't matter why Gaelyn had wanted to leave his door unlocked for her. Perhaps what truly mattered was that he had wanted to and it only wasn't happening because Kisa apparently, had other ideas. As Ivy flicked her wrist to unlock her own door, she began to mentally prepare a message to push back, the smile in her first question still evident.

"We really need to get to the bottom of that personal rune, don't we?" A pause. "... Another time, maybe?"

Once she was inside and the door had been closed behind her, Ivy let the question linger while she took a moment to simply rest her back against the cool wooden surface. In the silence of her room, she took in her space, the night and the strange warmth flowing through her body.

"Goodnight Gaelyn," she eventually added, seemingly bringing their brief conversation to a close. "And thank you." Though despite the physical space between them and the end to their brief conversation, Ivy let her side of their connection remain open, tangible and present as she finally clambered into bed; let it remain open in a way that she perhaps hadn't before.

---

She had been deep within the throes of sleep when the first explosions began, distant and muffled, followed by voices and eventually, a clanging, urgent ring of a large, metal bell.

It would have been easy to convince herself that she was dreaming, had it not been for the closer blast that hurtled into the centre of the quad and reverberated along the walls of the school, shuddering the structure in a way that saw dust spill from the rooves and furniture detach from the walls. Ivy jerked upwards in her bed, waking to the sounds of... war, outside of her window.

Her heart was already thundering as she leapt from the sheets and ran to it, only to see black smoke and the brief flash of shouting bodies, the crackle of magic already palpable in the air. On the horizon though... the clamouring, hissing screeches of dragons could not be denied.

"WAKE UP! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! WAKE UP!" A loud hammering on the wood of her door jumped Ivy away from the glass and finally into a slow but at least moving, action. She scrabbled around her room, heart pounding, blood thundering, yanking on her dragon scale uniform and sheathing dagger after dagger across her chest, attaching them to her thighs, her boots. It was like muscle memory, what all Lohia Kaarm students had been trained for... but Ivy's mind was not in the same room as she reached for Gaelyn and Kisa in her mind, trying and failing to claw at the link that tethered them together.

For whatever reason, silence was the only response that gaped back at her pleas for them to answer, and while Ivy knew that she needed to rally with her classmates... it was also a need for her to warn Kisa and Gaelyn, to know that they were okay, that they weren't in danger. Because as long as she didn't know that? She would be fit for very little, let alone joining a counterattack to whatever force was upon the School.

There was no hesitation in the runes that Ivy drew. Her hands moved quickly, first Shadow and then Door. The portal was before her in seconds, and just like she might have stepped through her bedroom door, she did so into the portal, and back out in front of Gaelyn's. His wards would not allow her to portal directly into his room, so this? This had to do, and to be honest, Ivy was somewhat relieved that there was still the tower standing for her to emerge in.

She moved quickly then, launching herself at the bedroom door before her, her palms slamming into the wood.

"Kisa! Gaelyn! Are you in there?" Her voice was loud, pitched and panicked and when an immediate answer did not respond, it only seemed to climb octaves. "GAELYN! KISA! The school, it's... there's.... fuck," Ivy leaned her forehead onto the surface momentarily as her voice cracked. She inhaled deeply, once, twice, before the slamming resumed. "PLEASE! OPEN THE DOOR!"

 

[Ryees]

 

The pounding on the door wasn't what woke him.

It was the smell—smoke, thick and bitter, curling in from somewhere unseen. Gaelyn stirred, eyes crusted, head full of thudding cotton. It wasn't the slow, luxurious waking of the morning after, but the bleary, head-splitting disorientation of a man who had won too many toasts and was now paying the debt.

Then the door shook on its hinges, Ivy's voice cracked against the wood, and the bond snapped taut in his chest like a drawn bowstring.

"Kisa—"

He staggered to the door and flung it open just as Ivy's palm struck it again. She nearly bowled into him, and for a heartbeat all he could do was stare at her wild eyes, breathless panic—

"Inside," he snapped, pulling her in, slamming the door shut. Kisa, still small from the regression hours before, stood on the desk like a curious statue, tail twitching.

"There's smoke—screaming—explosions outside the quad. Dragons." She said it all in a rush, but he'd already started moving, tugging on his harness, buckling it over bare skin, then dragging on the uniform shirt in shaking hands. He didn't ask if she was sure. The reek in the air confirmed it.

"Water," Ivy said, thrusting his flask into his chest. "I need you clear."

He blinked at her, then nodded, pulling the flask and turning it up.

Kisa, watching them begin to prepare, leapt from the desk—and changed.

˙ɹǝƃɹɐl ʇou 'ɹǝplo sɐʍ ǝɥS ˙ǝƃɐ sɐʍ sᴉɥ┴ ˙ɥʇʍoɹƃ ʇ,usɐʍ sᴉɥ┴ ˙pǝuǝdɹɐɥs suɹoɥ ɹǝH ˙ɹǝʞɔᴉɥʇ ʍǝɹƃ sʍɐlɔ ɹǝH ˙ʎpoq ɹǝɥ ssoɹɔɐ pǝlddᴉɹ—ǝuoʇs ɹǝʌo sǝʌɐʍ ʇɐǝɥ ǝʞᴉl 'ƃuᴉlddᴉɹ ʇnq 'ƃuᴉʍolƃ ʇou—ʇɥƃᴉl ɟo ɹǝɯɯᴉɥs ∀ ˙pǝɥɔɹɐ ǝuᴉdS ˙pǝuǝɥʇƃuǝl sqɯᴉl ɹǝH ˙ᴉɯɐƃᴉɹo ƃuᴉploɟun ǝʞᴉl pɐǝɹds puɐ pǝʇɟᴉɥs ǝlɐɔs ɟo sǝʇɐld ǝɥʇ ǝɹǝɥʍ 'sɹǝplnoɥs ɹǝɥ uᴉ pǝʇɹɐʇs ʇI The eye twisted as she jumped. Like a salmon breaching the white water, she seemed to hit a space in the air where, after passing through, her body swelled to its full, regal size.

Gaelyn, eyes failing to properly catch the spectacle even as it unfolded in his won bedroom, stood agape. The baby mind still echoed in the back of his head—excited, uncertain, frightened—but the body that paced toward the door now was coiled with adult strength.

There was no time to try and unpack the moment. "We're going," he growled, slinging his cloak and grabbing the spare blade from beneath his bed. "To the courtyard."

They slipped through the first levels without incident, save the red haze of torchlight and the rising sound of panic from deeper inside. The main corridor toward the courtyard yawned ahead. Gaelyn staggered slightly as they rounded the corner—but muscle memory did what sobriety could not.

Two soldiers in leather and chain rounded the opposite turn at speed, not expecting resistance. Gaelyn's rune flared across the back of his hand as he dropped low, pivoting off his left foot in a tight half-circle that brought his shoulder up beneath the first man's sword arm. The strike to the ribs with the pommel was clean, sword still in sheath and jerked forward, the same one he'd practiced against sandbags since he was thirteen. The breath left the soldier in a single stunned grunt. Gaelyn's second step lifted him forward and up; he carried the first man's collapsing weight with one shoulder as he whipped his sword free and thrust up beneath the second man's breastplate in a short, brutal jab. The spear he carried clattered against the wall.

Gaelyn let the first body drop and, in the same motion, followed his throat down with the tip of his sword. He turned to Ivy, breath catching against the tightness in his chest... and then stopped.

Down the hall, barely twenty feet beyond where the men had come from, were more. Half-armored shadows in the torchlight numbering ten, maybe twenty. A small unit of shields, short blades, and at least one pike.

"They're in already," he said flatly, "courtyard's a death trap."

Kisa's head pressed between them, long body winding through the corridor like a climbing vine with her eyes cast upwards. Her nostrils flared, her suggestion clear.

"Up," Gaelyn said. "To the walls. Now."

The halls narrowed as they climbed, stone passageways giving way to sharp-angled stairs and low ceilings. The school had been built for beauty and defense, though the latter rarely came up in memory. Now, Gaelyn's boots scraped stone with every upward lunge, heart pounding harder from the drink still souring his gut than from fear.

Ivy was behind him. Kisa brought up the rear, winding through the space like a specter of coral and stormlight, her form now fully matured but still, unmistakably hers. The weight of her presence in the bond was constant, if not quite focused.

She was confused. So was Gaelyn.

The stairwell opened at last into the outer cloister, where decorative archways overlooked the academy's outer wall. Gaelyn shoved the last door open with his shoulder and stumbled onto the parapet, sucking in cold air like a drowned man breaching surf. The rooftop stones were slick with dew and something darker—ash, maybe—and the wind tore at his cloak like it meant to take him with it.

Below them, the main courtyard was chaos: figures ran between buildings, fires had broken out along the eastern dormitories, and a number of dragons spiraled high overhead, shrieking like crows over a battlefield. These weren't training mounts. These were war beasts. Combat-bonded.

"Shit," he muttered, dragging the hair from his face. "They're already on the walls."

Kisa rose beside him, neck arching to survey the sky. She didn't growl, didn't posture. But every scale on her body began to shift tone, just faintly—soft pink and pearl fading to a harder, steelier, darker silver edged in pink.

"Here," he said, pointing to an overhang near the main bell tower. "We cut across there, drop down the ladder to the west stairwell. That'll take us to the inner wards, where—"

Steel on stone.

He turned just as the shadow detached itself from the arch ahead—followed by two more. Three figures emerged from the darkness, not foot soldiers, not children of conscription. A man and two dragons. It was clear by the way they moved that they were bonded, footsteps in time and eyes never overlapping the same space as they leveled sword and claw at their quarry.

The air behind the man shimmered with heat, and a massive orange pearlescent pulled itself up behind, jaws smoldering. Another thick-bodied gray landed on the opposite end of the parapet, scales the color of ashen broken glass.

Gaelyn didn't need to glance back at Ivy to speak his next words. "Run!"

Kisa twisted, coiling around them both like a falling banner of scale and muscle, and they turned heel and sprinted the opposite way down the wall. Behind them, there was no roar, and no warning, just the hard thrum of dragons alighting behind their enemies, and the shriek of stone under claw.

Their boots rang off the ramparts. The night wind slapped their faces like open palms, and below, the school screamed.

Ahead on the wall were soldiers. A half dozen at least, between them and the next archway. Gaelyn's steps faltered for only a heartbeat.

"Ivy—left side!"

Intention rolling through the bond well ahead of his commands, she was already moving.

Gaelyn veered right, drawing his sword as he went. The first soldier came at him too confidently, shield up and spear forward—good posture, poor reflexes. Gaelyn's foot caught the edge of a crenelation, Redirecting his weight just enough to dip under the spearhead. His arm snapped up and his wrist curled, swinging his sword in a smooth arc with his hand high to vector his sword to slip behind the man's shield. The blade caught the back of the man's ear, ripping half his jaw off his head and sending him to the stone screaming.

A second came in swinging, but the angle was off, with too much horizontal commitment in close quarters. Gaelyn stepped into it, pushing the blade wide with his off arm and pulling his off hand up to half-sword the tip of his blade into the soldier's chest. Capturing the arm he had blocked, Gaelyn drove in, then up, slicing a six-inch gap in the man's chest cavity.

On the other side, Ivy moved like shadow made flesh. Her fingers dipped into the holster at her hip and came out already in throwing postuer, one knife, two, then three so quickly the glint of the blades blurred into streaks of moonlight. They found the gaps in armor: shoulder, throat, knee. One soldier pitched forward with a scream, clutching his neck. Another took a knife to the eye before he could even level his sword.

The duo moved like they'd trained it. They hadn't.

A final soldier tried to slip past Ivy to flank Gaelyn, but she whirled, a short blade now drawn in her hand, and slashed his hamstring with perfect form before jamming the point up through his ribs when he dropped. Gaelyn, having retrieved the shield of the first man he had downed, slammed the flat steel against the man's forehead with a satisfying, sickening crunch.

Their boots splashed through blood as they pushed onward. The gatehouse loomed ahead—shelter, maybe, or at least the promise of cover. But as they neared the archway, another presence made itself known.

She stepped through. The air changed.

It was subtle, like the silence before a storm. Her boots rang sharp on the stone, deliberate, clean. She stood framed in the arch, her slim-fit plate shining like cut glass under the moon. Blonde hair swept back from a high, aristocratic face. Her eyes, ice-pale and piercing, found Gaelyn, then Ivy. Then Kisa, who reared up behind them with a low growl.

The woman didn't flinch. She tilted her head slightly. Curious. Measuring.

Two dragons flanked her as if summoned from shadow: one broad and brown like carved granite, the other lean and serpentine, scales green and slick as wet leaves. Their runes glimmered in the air like floating script, the magic bound to them so dense it distorted the light.

Gaelyn didn't reach for Ivy's hand. But he thought about it.

"Stay behind me," he said quietly. Not because she was weaker.

Because someone had to live.​

 

[Becboc]

This wasn't real, it couldn't be happening.

And yet it was.

From the moment that Gaelyn opened the door to them trying to get to higher ground, all of it passed by in a blur of adrenaline and instinct. Their small unit moved as one in a way that was beyond practice or conscious thought. There was little time for anything other than attack, then move, attack then move. Even Kisa's display in Gaelyn's room did not receive the attention that it deserved, simply because there was no time. Their lives, the School, everything they had ever known; it could all depend on the actions they took in the vital minutes that followed.

Attack, move, attack, move.

The gatehouse came into view and finally, finally they appeared to have a clear run... until they didn't anymore.

All three of them sensed the change in the air simultaneously, like the oxygen itself was being charged with something insurmountable. It was enough to freeze them in place as a figure emerged, not one that any of them recognised but one that they knew from the armour she wore, was not a friend but an enemy. Perhaps the enemy. She was strikingly beautiful in her own way, yet the terror that Ivy felt seeping into her chest like ice did little to allow her to admire the stranger's feline grace.

Even Kisa recognised the threat, a growl rumbling from her throat which seemed to trigger the appearance of not one... but two other dragons. Two other dragons who moved and coiled around the woman, in a way that only bonded creatures would.

"Stay behind me," Gaelyn said and for once, Ivy couldn't find the words to argue. Instead, she she held out her arm to signify that Kisa should do the same, while her other hand... it found comfort in gripping Gaelyn's upper arm, as though she needed the contact to ground herself, to reassure herself that for now, they were together. They were in this together.

The stranger's lips seemed to twitch then, as if she had read Ivy's mind and planned on wravelling all of it. The look was enough that Ivy couldn't hold back any longer, the fear evident amongst the anger in her voice.

"Who are you?!" She shouted, but the stranger's smile only grew. Knowing. Satisfied. "Why are you doing this?!"

A verbal answer was not given however, Ivy noticed the air shift again, as if gaining traction, the static generated prickling along her skin. Her grip upon Gaelyn tightened and she had just opened her mouth to speak again when--

"Ivy!" The failiar voice pierced through the tension and she whipped her head, looking for the source.

In the end, nothing could have prepared her for what was to follow... for Dale appearing beside the stranger and her dragons, neither of whom even attempted to stop him.

"Ivy," he said again breathlessly, giving her a chance to take him in. The blood spattered across his face, his dishevelled dark hair, the sword in his hand. "Stop," he gasped out. "You... you don't have to do this."

Ivy's brow furrowed.

"Dale?" Her voice sounded weak, distant.

"If you surrender now, you won't get hurt. Either of you." His brown eyes flickered briefly to Gaelyn and then back to Ivy's own that flooded with confusion.

"Surrender?"

It didn't take long however, for the penny to drop, not when Kisa growled again, lowering her head in reaction to the pain that had begun to constrict around one of her rider's like a vice in realisation of what was happening here. In realisation of what Dale, her friend Dale, was saying to her.

"Please, it's not what it looks like," he continued, one of his hands outstretched as if waiting for her to take it. "This is... it's for the greater good, Ivy! Your bond, the two of you? You know Kaarm will never accept it, will never accept you. This is the only way!"

The pieces began to click into place with those words, slowly, one by one. What she had told Dale that night, what she had trusted him with. Was he... was he the reason for all of this? Was she?

"You... You betrayed us?"

"I'm trying to help you!" Dale exploded. "When you told me about you and him, I had to do something--"

"I trusted you!" Ivy screamed the words, the anguish in her voice richocheting off the stone archways, the walls.

"Ivy, please--"

Any words he had intended to speak however, were cut off by a clamouring of footsteps and shouting voices behind them that had been gradually growing in volume the closer they got. Ivy whipped around to see soldiers, more and more beginning towards them. She still clung to Gaelyn but her back was to him now, while Kisa coiled around the two of them as if trying to shield them from all of it. They were completely surrounded but she knew, she knew through their bond and beyond that surrendering wasn't an option, no matter Dale's warped sense of heroism. They would do everything they could to find a way out of this.

Even if they died trying.

Ivy took in a breath and briefly closed her eyes against the roaring in her ears, the pain; all of it.

"If we go," she pushed through their bond. "We go together." Her hand began to move to the pouch at her hip in preparation, the activation rune glimmering as her fingers curled around the first blade. The plan was clear. Ivy would hold off the soldiers for as long as she could while Gaelyn? Gaelyn would go straight for the throat.

"Kisa, if this all goes to shit, you run, do you hear me?"

A soft clicking was all that came in response before Ivy reopened her eyes again to see the first of the soldiers detaching from the group, sword glinting in raised hand. She counted down the seconds in her mind; 3, 2, 1...

"No!" Dale's voice rang out when he realised what she planned, just as Ivy raised her elbow and backhanded her first dagger. The blade sung through the air, slicing true as it buried into the soldier's throat, crimson spurting like an overzealous fountain. The body went down, the few behind their comrade faltering for just a moment. And then?

Then, all hell broke loose.

 

[Ryees]

 

The moment Ivy's blade found the first soldier's throat, the rampart exploded into motion.

Gaelyn didn't hesitate. The second Ivy moved, so did he, launching forward with Kisa's shadow keeping pace just behind. The walkway was narrow, bordered on one side by a sheer drop to the courtyard and on the other by jagged teeth of parapet stone. Enemies spilled toward them like floodwater. There were too many. But Gaelyn moved like a man possessed.

The first blade came high, a wide cut meant for fear more than precision. Gaelyn ducked under it, letting the momentum pass over his shoulder, and jammed his sword up and under the armpit of the man's breastplate. It sprouted out the top of his shoulder and Gaelyn ripped down, severing half the man's shoulder and sending him spilling to the stone.

To his left, Ivy was a blur, one hand drawing from the rune-sewn holster, the other sending daggers in wicked arcs. Steel bloomed in necks and chests. The enemy formation faltered. Kisa snapped her tail forward like a whip, catching a spear and cracking it in half. Her body surged between the two Riders, their serpentine overwatch, curling back just enough to protect their backs from attacks outside their vision.

But they were being hemmed in. For every one they felled, two more pushed forward. The dragons behind the mirror-armored woman made no move to advance, watching, measuring, holding their line. Something was wrong.

Gaelyn moved to close the space between him and Ivy, taking one soldier through the knee with a precise downward thrust, then slamming the man's shield into his own comrade to open breathing room. His heart was hammering, but his movements were sharp. Focused.

And still, too many.

"Fall back." he urged through the bond. "They're not trying to kill us, just drive us."

Too late. One of the Riders, mounted atop the slick green, had slunk around the edge of the rampart, talons clinging to the crenellations to allow its Rider to peek up over the edge. What caught Gaelyn's attention was the rune glowing in his palm, drawn in bright white and humming with kinetic promise.

Push. The disciple drove his palm forward, the rune flaring like a second sun. Air compressed with a thunderclap. Gaelyn felt his feet leave the stone.

For a split second, the world hung still, just long enough to see the man who had cast the rune turn, expecting a clean end.

But the mirror was already moving. Her sword flashed once in the torchlight, and the disciple barely had time to gasp before her blade passed cleanly through his collarbone, down and through his chest. He collapsed without a sound, falling into the courtyard below and landing with an unceremonious thud. "Idiot," she hissed, low and cold. "I said alive." The green, its Rider suddenly eviscerated, darted downwards towards the body, panic in its movements. With a jerk of her head, one of the sentinels behind the mirror dove off the edge after it. Turning her attention back to the matter at hand, the woman clicked her tongue in irritation.

Gaelyn was already gone. The rampart dropped away beneath him. Cold wind howled in his ears. He twisted, tried to right himself, but his sword was gone, pulled from his grasp in the blast. His back struck something—hard stone, maybe a buttress—then air again. No thought. Only instinct and the bond, still faint, still open, still there.​