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Chosen

Chapter Nine

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Chirmaya Nashaar

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Tayna leapt, slamming into her mother hind paws first. As if in slow motion, she saw Fayla's eyes glaze over and Tuck scramble for her yet again, determination flaring in his eyes. She wasn't going to give up if they weren't! She ground her teeth together as her heels connected squarely with Lillian's stomach.

It was like hitting the bare rock face and had all the effect of such. Her legs crumpled in and she fell to the ground, landing in a heap at the fox's paws. She howled through the pain of impact, jagged bolts shooting up her legs from where they had been braced, expecting her mother to fly away from her.

"You stupid vixen."

Her mother's words were laced with venom and Tayna flinched from it, anger not enough to shield her from the fox's wrath. The fox threw her head back and laughed wildly. Even the Church, fighting for her, stopped and stared. The polecat took a step back, bow brought before his body as if it could shield him.

Holding Fayla out and away from her body, the vixen wrinkled her nose and dropped her. The Estrel fell lifelessly and landed in a ragged heap, arm thrown back over her head. Tuck crawled to her, his eyes only for her. In the moment, he did not once glance up at the towering Chosen, who could have gained ten feet in height for all the power her stature exuded.

Lillian sneered down at Tuck and Fayla, blinking as air returned to her lungs and consciousness, blessedly, to her mind.

"You are not worth the attention of the Chosen." She spat on the ground, a globule of spit oozing into the dirt. "You have served your purpose."

Raising a paw, Lillian spun, cloak whirling about her body, and sent a spire of rock shooting twenty feet straight up in the air as if from nothing. Fayla shrieked, a strangled noise as her throat began to bruise up, and Tuck dragged her backwards by the shoulders, tail clamped over his buttocks. Her mother scoffed at their fear, turning her back to them.

"Look, Tayna! Look at all the power you can have - that you will have!"

She pointed at the Alliance - though Tayna suspected the gesture was merely for show - and Sellanda yowled as the ground disappeared from beneath her. Earth and rock crumbled away as if it had been worn by the elements over a number of years leaving a rapidly deepening pit in its wake. The feline scrambled at the sides, lips moving in silent curses, trying to gain ground as it disappeared before her. With a chuckle that was almost a purr, Lillian twisted the rock beneath her paws, making it buckle obtusely and hurl her into the air.

The leopard snarled, twisted and landed on all fours on solid ground, clutching her knee as her face contorted. Tayna almost felt sorry for her. Despite the obvious pain, the insides of her ears paler than they had been before, Sellanda staggered to her paws and faced Lillian head on, a weapon in each paw. The vixen had to admire her courage. She didn't think she'd be able to do the same, if it came to that, and tried to still the tremor in her legs, frozen in place.

Her mother eyed her superiorly and folded her arms.

"The Alliance may have locked away your memories of being Chosen but we shall release them again."

Her mother laughed manically, hair stuck to her lower lip, and threw her arm wide, sending herself bolting skyward on a pillar of white rock. Swearing, Tayna pushed herself away, sparing a look for Fayla and Tuck - alive and breathing, for the moment. That was good. For now.

Looking down at Tayna as the rock settled itself into the ground with a flurry of dust, as if it had always been there, Lillian bared her teeth. Behind her, the storm clouds twisted and writhed, a nest of snakes coiling over and under one another until there was no distinguishing one from the mass. The Church retreated all of a sudden, sealing themselves behind a protective barrier of trees as the Alliance made as if to give chase. But they barely were able to take a step before the Chosen was upon them.

The Church nocked their arrows, a flurry flying at the hapless Alliance - too short to achieve any real level of damage. As they appeared to fall to the ground, the Chosen fuelled them with magic, lifting them up over the remaining shields of the Alliance. Reline dove to the side, narrowly missing one as the second horde flew forth. Sellanda screamed as one sank into her shoulder, the barbed head deep into muscle.

She tried to rally them, desperately so, yet there was no use. Wavering, the Alliance line broke and ran, leaving them easy pickings for a crazed magic user. Laughing and whooping as if it was the greatest thing to ever happen to her, Lillian picked them off, one by one, letting them think they had escaped before dragging them back into her clutches.

"Look at them flee, Tayna," the Chosen crooned, forcing water from the very stream to wrap itself around a thrashing tiger, mouth gaping as he drowned. "Are they not beautiful? Is it not a wonder to hold power such as this?"

Tayna snarled, the sound ripping the Chosen out of her stream of destruction. Only four members of the Alliance, initially composed of their strongest members, remained.

"No, I do not believe it to be a wonder."

"And you are not my mother!" She howled, apoplectic with rage, fists flying as she gestured. "My mother would never have done this to me! My mother - the mother I knew - would never have taken the life of her mate for some greater power!"

She flung her arm out, taking in the scene of devastation with disgust wrinkling her muzzle. Grief gnawed at her bones at her own mention of her father but she pushed it down, locked it away: she had to keep her mind in the moment. She could mourn him later.

Breath coming in short, sharp pants, Tayna's eyes narrowed, palms hot as if she was gathering essence. Her mother had killed her father. She tossed the older Chosen a glare filled with as much loathing as the young vixen could manage, horror beyond her years seared into her soul. Mourning was for a later time. Now, anger ruled.

"This - this is not glory. This is nothing but death for no meaning. There is no greater good."

Tayna glanced to Tuck and Fayla and the horse nodded, reaffirming her stance as she took strength from the only friends she seemed to have left in the world.

"Maybe you will learn that one day but where is the pride in winning against an opponent who is hopelessly outclassed against you?" Tayna's lips twisted in scorn. "It's cowardly and absolutely nothing more than that and it never will be."

The Chosen smirked and, creating steps from her pillar of stone, she walked down the tower in a spiral, paws clasped behind her back. Tayna stood firm, heart hammering, and raised her jaw defiantly.

Lillian studied her carefully, looking her up and down with a glassy look in her eye as if she was not truly seeing her daughter.

"There is no glory in death, Tayna," Lillian tilted her head to the side, blood spotting her cape. "Only in the causing of it. Do you not wish to unleash yourself as the Church has unleashed me?"

She put her paw on Tayna's shoulder, thrusting her muzzle right up against the younger vixen's. Shuddering back, Tayna tried to jerk herself free, the Chosen's rancid breath washing over her face.

A bowstring twanged and Lillian stiffened, a magical shell - a shield? - forming over her head. The bold arrow bounced off harmlessly and the Chosen slowly turned, releasing Tayna's shoulder, as the wind blew her hood up over her head. Tayna rubbed the spot where Lillian's paw had been, hating the lingering, traitorous warmth.

Reline stood panting with a stolen bow in her paw, quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. As Lillian turned her stare upon her, she hooked the bow on to the quiver and drew a large, heavier sword than the one she had usually practiced with in the Alliance keep, holding it in both paws. The blade tipped towards the ground and it was clear that it was not a blade designed for a warrior of such a light build. Lillian chuckled throatily.

"Oh, little pup, do you really think you can be the saviour of your little band of rebels? That blade is but a _dinner_knife to my power."

Reline howled and charged, using all the muscle she boasted to swing the blade mightily over her head. But before she could bring it down, cleaving the Chosen's skull, Lillian swatted it away with the back of her paw as easily as she would strike off a fly. It sailed off wide and Reline's body jerked along with it, the vixen's magical strength too great for a mere mortal, as it crashed to the grass, the wolf rolling and clutching her stomach as she wheezed for breath.

Lillian stood over her, lips pursed as she tapped her hind paw and shook her head. Reline refused to look up, hair hanging over her eyes as she pushed her torso from the grass, arms shaking.

"It the right paws, it may have served a warrior well," she mused, kicking the blade away. "But in your paws...it is nothing. You are not strong enough to defeat me. This is a fact you should know well enough."

A smile tugged at the corner of Reline's lips and she couldn't stop the wicked bubble of laughter that parted them, peering up through the mess of hair. Lillian frowned, expression stormy as the vixen's mouth puckered nastily.

"Does something about your timely demise amuse you, wolf?"

"The sword isn't for me, fool," Reline grinned. "It's for her."

Tayna snatched up the sword by the pommel as Lillian looked back too late, taking it in both paws as Reline had and exhaling slowly, letting her magically strengthened muscles handle the weapon as if it weighed less than a feather on the breeze. The pommel warmed to her touch, metal wrapped in warming leather that gave a better grip than her practice sword ever had in the training arena. It was good to have a blade in her grip once more. As much as she hated to say it, it felt natural. It felt good. Tayna's heart sung and she parted her lips in a smile. It felt right.

"Oh, how wonderful!" Lillian clapped her paws together, drawing a sword magically from the dying grip from one of the fallen Alliance. "I had not expected to have a sword fight on such a tremendous occasion."

She flashed Tayna a grin. The pure joy behind it set her teeth on edge.

"May as well have some entertainment. You are perhaps right in that it is less amusing when my opponents fall so easily."

Tayna focused on drawing essence into her muscles, imagining it making her muscles stronger and more responsive than before. She'd need all the help she could get as she circled her mother.

There was a skip in Lillian's step and the Chosen giggled to herself as she watched her daughter, russet tail flicking. Tayna's gaze hardened. She couldn't think of her as her mother. In the corner of her eye, she saw Reline pick up another sword, worry stirring in her belly. Just what was that damn wolf playing at?

"Tell me - for what purpose did my father die?" She said, as much by way of distraction as she wanted to simply know. "You said it was for your greater good - but what good can desire such death?"

She drove the point of the sword forth as Lillian jumped back, lips parted in an answer she was forced to forestay giving.

"Do you really want to hear the answer to that, daughter?" Lillian sneered, her beautiful muzzle twisted into the grotesque. "Do you want to hear how he lay in agony for weeks on end? For I did not lie to you on that measure."

Tayna's heart beat, a pounded torrent of hooves driving through her eardrums - da-dum da-dum da-DUM. She staggered. Too much - all too much for one fox to handle. But no - she had to focus. The storm clouds spat and she flinched when the spots of rain became a deluge, soaking through clothing and fur so that everything clung to her slim form.

"He suffered, Tayna, for our cause - for the greater good." Lillian raised her voice to be heard above the storm, voice rising as if one with the howling wind. "His strength was mine to take and was a key component in taming and developing my strength after I became one of the Chosen - the very best the Church has to offer."

Lillian drew herself up tall, chest puffing out like rooster.

"The easiest way to feed a Chosen after their ascension is through the life of someone close to them, in the slow draining of their life essence. Drain enough essence from a living being and its defences will evaporate, leaving them easy prey to your slow, steady sapping. He served his purpose well."

She grinned, ears twitching madly back and forth, never still for more than the briefest of seconds.

"It's only a shame that he passed away so swiftly. Imagine how much more strength I may have gained from his love, devotion and life if he had had the will to linger even longer!"

She shook water from her hair.

"Daughter, I will be the strongest of them all!"

Tayna hissed, water dripping off her snout. Lightning arced through the purple-grey sky, thunder rolling in with a tremendous crack that seemed to shake the foundations of the mountains themselves.

"You are not my mother!"

Tayna snarled and slashed wildly. The tip of the blade slid through Lillian's cloak like butter, opening a slice on her side where she did not spin away swiftly enough. Red hairs fluttered to the ground and the Chosen pressed her paw to her side, eyes flashing. The paw did not come away from the cloak soaked with crimson blood, however, and the Chosen sank into a fighting stance, calling a second magical blade of shimmering, seemingly compressed air, to her free paw as she trust her torso forward. Baring her teeth, the vixen shrieked.

"Do you think you can defeat me?" Lillian growled, eyes flashing as if something lay behind her irises. "You are foolish! Nothing but a scrap of entertainment for me before returning to the city."

She launched herself at Tayna and the vixen only just got her blade up in time to block, steel clashing with the air-blade in an ungodly scrape and scream.

"So give me a fight to entertain me!"

Tayna opened her mouth, the words to say that she wasn't entertainment balanced on the tip of her tongue, but there was no time to speak - only time to move. Her mother bore down on her, dual blades flickering quicker than light and the vixen held her breath as she ducked and wove back and forth, back and forth, forcing magic to do her bidding. It didn't always work and she yelped as the magically sharpened edge sliced viciously into the shoulder of the arm that wasn't holding the sword, blood seeping into her shirt. Tayna backed off, allowing herself space as her breath came in short, increasingly harsh, pants.

The godlike one didn't want her dead, she told herself, forcing calm over her mind as she blocked and dodged, light on her paws. That was her only blessing and the only thing that gave her an edge. Whatever happened, she was sure she would survive. Her brow furrowed as she dodged another of Lillian's attacks, letting the blades glance harmlessly off as she spun away. As much as she never wanted to go back to being one of the Chosen, if she lost, she couldn't see death being a likely outcome to their wary duel. Enslavement and lifelong imprisonment? Most probable. Tayna sucked in a breath that stung like shards of glass in her lungs. Least preferable.

The vixen screamed as the blades flicked out quicker than her eye could catch and she moved sluggishly - far too slowly to have even a hope of evading. The blade seared a hot line of pain into her thigh and Tayna's leg buckled beneath her. She only kept herself upright and moving through sheer force of will, tears streaming down her muzzle to mingle with rainwater as she looked at the grinning demon that had once been her mother

She feinted and struck Lillian's side but was blocked and swatted aside as easily as the vixen would put the annoyance of a fly to rest. Blinking away drops of water - or was it sweat? - from her eyes, the vixen tried to ignore the stinging, blinding pain in her leg, stumbling as the Chosen circled her, the grin never once leaving her muzzle.

Why didn't she attack? Tayna swayed, weakened, and yet her mother still circled, varying their size as she forced the younger fox to keep turning on the spot, blade raised, to keep her in her line of sight. A cold chill settled in the depths of Tayna's stomach, bile rising to the back of her throat.

Lillian was toying with her. And it seemed that she was tiring of her game.

As if she had simply been waiting for the opportunity all along, the Chosen leapt, flinging both of her blades high above her head. Outlined against her storm clouds, her blades shone aquamarine and came down in a flash. Tayna braced her other paw on the flat of her blade, flipping it above her snout as she dug her heels into the ground but she may as well have had a single finger on it for all the good her bloodied shoulder did. The blades collided, flinging Tayna backwards with a howl.

She crashed into the dirt muzzle first, having flipped head over paws in midair, shoulder throbbing. Blood dirtied her clothes and her head spun as she pushed herself to all fours, forcing herself on against all odds. Her jaw set into a tight line and she licked blood from her nose, a slice across her tongue from where her teeth must have caught it, jaw snapping shut when she was hurled away.

Her blade lay a few feet away but it may as well have been a few hundred feet. Lillian beamed triumphantly.

"You put up an admirable fight, Tayna, but it is time to leave the blades and magic wielding to those stronger to you."

Flat on the ground, Tayna clawed for her blade, spitting grit and grass from her mouth. Her mother yawned and casually rested her weight on the blade, increasing the pressure until, with a burst of fizzling, crimson magic, which Tayna sourly thought was purely for show, it shattered into a million shimmering fragments. She gaped as it relinquished its physical hold on its semblance of life, scattered and useless. The only solid part that remained large enough for a paw to grab and hold was the pommel - but what good would that be?

Struggling to her paws, she faced her mother, ears defiantly set back. The older vixen's teeth flashed as heavy dread settled in the pit of her stomach. What more could she do? Her legs trembled and the thought of taking one more step set her head reeling, dizziness sashaying between her ears.

"Do not worry, Tayna," Lillian crooned, cupping her muzzle even as the vixen strove to jerk her head away, lips wrinkled up in disgust at her touch. "I will make this as swift as I may. Pain to unleash your power and bring back the true vixen, the Chosen locked inside."

Thrusting Tayna away, Lillian barked a laugh and leapt at her, paws crashing into her shoulders and bowling her over backwards. She twisted her fingers into her daughter's hair and dragged her head back, exposing her bare throat to the flat of the one magical blade that remained in her paw. Her free paw curled around her injured shoulder, the blade vanished, as her fingers bit into bleeding flesh. Tayna ground her teeth, barely managing not to squeal like a cub for the vicious stab of pain.

Hold it...

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Lillian pressed her nose to Tayna's and the vixen tried not to remember the mother who had given her bristly goodnight kisses in another lifetime.

"Or perhaps it will be more entertaining to make you writhe in pain. It's not as if you shall remember it afterwards."

The vixen pushed her muzzle into her daughter's, holding her head still. Tayna's breath hitched. Was that a flicker of grey behind her mother? She blinked away water and dragged in a sore breath.

"Why would I not remember it, Lillian?" Tayna forced out, lungs straining against an unnatural tightness in her chest, the only thought in her head to keep the vixen talking. "Anything you do to me is going to be locked into my mind forever, branded there. If only so I may have my revenge for the death you've caused."

Her eyes burned.

"For my father's death."

Shooting backwards from the vixen, Lillian flipped her paw and rolled her eyes, straightening to brush off her cloak as Tayna lay panting on the ground.

"His life was inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Church."

Tayna's eyes narrowed even as she watched Reline worm across the grass on her belly to one of the fallen Alliance, taking his sword in paw. The wolf didn't wait to close his still open eyes.

Rolling over on to her front, the vixen dug her elbows into the ground and forced her muscles to comply, yet the touch of essence - so malleable when accessible - slipped from her hold like water through parted fingers. Tayna hissed, put weight on her injured leg, and slipped muzzle first back into the mud, eyes half-closed. The ground tilted sickeningly. She only had one hope left now.

Tayna held her breath, attention reverting to the Chosen as Lillian's booted hind paws and legs filled her vision, cloak flapping about her calves. Her lungs burned.

Quickly, quickly, Reline...

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"You would not remember as that is the lot of the Chosen," Lillian murmured breathily as she hauled Tayna upright, forcing her to face her. "As you become one of the Chosen, your life before ceases to mean anything. You remember nothing. Once you are of the Chosen again, you shall know nothing of me but my glory and all that your power may be used for."

Tayna smiled. She had bided her time long enough.

Reline howled, sword slicing through the air and into the Chosen's cloak. Blood splattered and she put the full weight of her body behind the strike, driving it all the way through with renewed force, the wolf's ears pinned back to her skull. The Chosen screeched, a blood-curdling note wrenching itself from the air and wrapping itself around its owners throat. The wolf snarled, blood staining her blade as she spun away, yanking it free of flesh and bone as her chest heaved.

She may as well have not attacked in the first place.

Lillian looked down dispassionately at the blood running down her front and pressed her paw to the cut. Although it did not seal itself back together, fur and flesh stuck together at her whisper of magic enough to quell the bleeding. Reline stumbled back, muzzle agape, sword hanging loosely at her side. Tayna's heart dropped.

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"Foolish wolf."

Lillian grabbed her by the scruff and held her high, Reline kicking much as the Estrel had, clawing and snarling with all the ferocity of a wildcat. The Chosen laughed and hoisted her higher, her weight nothing to her unnatural strength. Reline scowled and spat, spit drooling down the front of Lillian's cloak. The Chosen glared at it, turning her venomous gaze upon the wolf who had dared scorn her.

"For that, you shall watch your friend revert, become what she should always have been if not for your Alliance interfering."

The Chosen cast the wolf a dark look, mischief twinkling in the corner of her eye.

"And then your life will also come to an end." She kissed Reline's cheek, giggling as she squirmed away, legs flailing. "Do not worry. I shall not hasten your end. It shall be as slow and tedious and sharp as your pitiful life has been."

Flipping her magical blade from paw to paw, Lillian held it before her, eyeing the edge as if to visually verify its sharpness. She spun and danced with the sword, handling it as easily as she had, in a past life, handling her newborn cub, feinting and parrying against an invisible opponent. Quicker and quicker, her blade whirled, until she and the sword were but one being. On her paws, Tayna swayed and looked to Reline.

I'm sorry.

_ _

The Chosen laughed and whipped about - driving her sword into Tayna's gut.

The vixen's jaw dropped, a gurgle of sound that could have been a scream rising and catching. The blade protruded through her back, a clean exit, dripping with blood. Tayna's vision spun, flickering and greying around the edges, as she dropped to her knees, pawing at the blade as if she could undo what had been done. Dimly, she was aware of Reline screaming her name.

Tayna closed her eyes.

Is this what death feels like?

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If it was, it wasn't like any death Tayna had ever thought she'd experience. The vixen's breath came easily, lungs filling with fresher, cleaner air. She inhaled deeply, senses on high alert. It was as if everything in the world around her had suddenly become sharper and more vibrant, every detail in the falling raindrops visible to her naked eye. A cloak had been stripped back and Tayna gasped softly, lips tingling at the touch of rain, a refreshing blessing to cool the heat.

Fresh flowers tickled her nostrils and the Chosen reared her head back, paws wrenching the pommel of the sword from Lillian's hold. Heat seared her palms and she stood tall, dragged her heels beneath her with what seemed like too little force for what occurred.

"Yes, yes!" Lillian shrieked, throwing her paws high as she danced in a circle, magical blades vanished. "Come, my daughter! Become the Chosen we created!"

Tayna's lips parted in a smirk and, for a moment, she saw the life she had had as one of the Chosen. Through what must have been her own eyes, she saw a town square, liquid lightning arcing through the air under her control. She played with the force of nature, sending it spinning into the sky with a crack and timely played out roll of thunder, the crowd shrieking. Faces blended into one and she saw the inside of a Church with a high, rolling roof formed from pure, white stone. Hers? The vixen bit her lip, the tiny flicker of pain bursting and fading.

Yet the vision was fleeting - the mere memory of a dream - and reality hauled her back by the throat, the ripping pain in her gut suddenly nothing in comparison to the burn. She stared at her paw, turning it over to examine the palm and the back, expecting to see her fur singed and worn. Yet it was as perfect and untouched as ever, if mussed from fighting. That could hardly be avoided.

The air around her shimmered with heat, grass curling as it became shrivelled, browned and then black, scorched flat to the bare earth below. Reline yelped and scrambled away as the circle of heat around Tayna expanded, claiming more for its hungry hold, power expanding beyond what the vixen could have ever dreamed of. The barrier that had held the essence within her, the little store that Tuck had told her how to add to, had disappeared entirely, the full volume of it seeping through every vein and inch of skin as if her entire being was permeable.

She hissed through the pain, excitement at the power battling with fear and hurt. Injury flashed through the forefront. Her mother yipped and clapped her paws, cloak whirling about her legs as she spun and celebrated, muzzle parted in a smile that made even her face momentarily beautiful. Tayna could almost remember the vixen she had been.

Her mother grinned and held out her paw. Tayna stared at it. This was it. The moment that she would rejoin the Church and become one of them. She would not even remember anything of her life as one. Reline stood at the boundary of the burning barrier of heat surrounding the vixen, as close as she could stand without being burned to a crisp. Tayna's jaw set.

As Chosen, she had something very important in her grasp.

Choice.

She wasn't going back.

Pulling the sword slowly from her stomach, the vixen wrinkled her nose at the brief, stomach-wrenching odour of intestines. Blood spilled down her front but she barely noticed it, power thrumming through her veins as the force within her built and built, pushing her up on to her toes as if she would rise from the ground itself.

With a cocky flick of one ear, the vixen locked her gaze with her mother's. Lillian smiled, teeth bared and flashing.

"I may be Chosen but I will never be you."

Vision warping, Tayna screamed and threw her head back, arms and fingers outstretched to their full extent. Her eyes watered. Too much! She rolled her head from side to side, neck throbbing, and threw herself past her mother. One push of her hind paw against the burned earth was all it took to send her flying effortlessly through the air, as light on her paws as a bird. Even in her pain, Tayna laughed and opened her arms for Reline, eyes on her friend as her mother snarled behind, claws scraping the air where her thigh had been a moment ago.

Reline yelped, heat signing her fur but Tayna drew her in close, wrapping her arms around her friend. Her embrace secured her in power, protecting her from the heat, and the wolf buried her head beneath Tayna's chin, shuddering from the rippling air as if it would leap up and bite her. The sword's pommel jutted into the wolf's ribs and she hissed, eyes wide, barely even aware that Tayna was still clutching it like a lifeline, tucked in close to her side as her power thrummed.

Tayna put her head close to Reline's, eyes alight and brimming over with joy. A tear spilled down her cheek and dropped on to Reline's nose as the wolf gaped.

"Thanks for coming back for me," Tayna whispered.

"Tayna, what -"

The wolf cut off mid-sentence, snarling as the second Chosen bounded towards them, forepaws digging into the dirt as she propelled herself through the air like a spear flung from a warrior's paw. Tayna pushed off the ground, cradling Reline against her chest, as she spun harmlessly out of Lillian's reach. The Chosen shrieked, eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as she hit rock and whipped about for a second attack.

Peering out of the tree line, Sellanda hung from a branch, claws digging into the bark as she took in the scene with a comically slack jaw. At any other time, Tayna would have shot a snide comment her way but, times as they were, she satisfied herself with a wink that she knew the leopard would catch.

The air crackled around Tayna and she held her friend tighter, as much to protect her as to ward off the fear rising and rising like bile in the back of her throat - a fiercely vicious taste. Lillian froze, eyes bulging, and screamed as the air distorted around the duo with such force that it obscured them completely from view. The rock beneath their paws bubbled and boiled, reverting to a liquid form as it hissed and spat.

The pain rose to a crescendo, the pain in her gut rising sickeningly, the weight of the sword nearly too much and yet she still tightened her grip on it as if it was the only thing that would save her - but her mind was not working as it should have been, darting from pain to action with the ferocity of a fox down a hole. Holding the dripping, trembling blade high above her head, Tayna screamed. Reline crushed her snout into Tayna's neck, breath hot against her fur, and yipped softly as warm drops of blood - Tayna's blood spattered over her shoulders.

Breath raking its way through her lungs, Tayna dropped the blade and hugged Reline close, pressure released. Emptiness thrummed through her midriff and the Chosen shrieked if but for some way to release the building, burning energy. One flash of her last life told her what would happen next, with so much magic imploding, and sent equal amounts of fear and excited anticipation into the pit of her stomach.

She cast Lillian a look, lips triumphantly quirked.

Now or never.

"Goodbye, mother."

And, with a snap of magic crumpling in on itself, they disappeared. They left no trace or suggestion that they had ever been there bar the perfect circle of charred grass and cooling rock, twisted into shapes only a great force of nature could concur. The last traces of the vixen and wolf's scent flittered away on the breeze as the Alliance - what remained - whispered and gasped from the trees. Flora, however, would prove little protection from a force they did not understand.

Only Lillian was left howling on the open side of the valley, slamming her fists into the earth again and again to create fissures that would never reach her victims fleeing paws.