Chapter 67: While the Cocoon Weeps
"Selene? You good?"
"...no..."
On a street drifting of gargolytes’ dusts, a shared glance by Adrei and the witch, the former’s eyes blinking while the latter merely sighing in disappointment, as the young daughter of Adil the Elder gasped her burning lungs, curling up to the sword in fetal position Yasen would give a thumbs-up for, her face blushed black dusts for all the gargolytes she has killed, suffocating on the muddy blackness of the last stones yielded to her blade.
The fog barriers held, and the last of the gargolytes’ heads were casually flamed off by Adrei. The streets were muddled with tars from the dragon flames and glitters of frost, blackened by the corpse dusts of their enemies, yet the glowiness remained untainted as the street was set alit, a merciless and casual defiance against the gargolytes. Each gasp from Selene spouted hesitation of the inevitable confrontation between her meat shield and her mother, her worry for her mother’s safety and her semi-friend-not-friend’s betrayal souring her amateurish focus. Really, she would have rushed to the mansion and slapped both of them to stop fighting right now, but the throated bile of ashes she accidentally swallowed even denied even that strength.
Demond’s bare foot tapped a twitching stone head with a groan, as her raised finger sprinkled a small icicle to the ground to lotch into its stoney skull. Sighing as she glanced at Adrei, who smiled and pecked at her cheek, murmuring slight comforts for her grumbled protest, before the Dragon Queen turned as her voice boomed the streets with commands for the knights. Raise the debris for the child, tend to the wounded waist, and restructure frontline troops for injured instead of combats, orders given with a stern lightness that demands respect, as a rare admiration flared from the Witch’s icy eyes, as children clutching debris was lifted and a wounded knight spouted a brief thanks before returning to his duty.
The Witch gazed down the familiar white stone pavement, past the runed roads that pulsed of malice and vengance, to the gate five streets away from here. The gargoyles seemed to structure their attack away from the mansion, the more they get further from it, the more black masks wept and drummed the air. The witch’s tingly sense is numb, her connection with her bird she sent to the mission is nothing but coily gels and smells of irons, the bird chirp choking not of suffocation but of fears towards the unknown, and a tear of redness has soured the white canvas of the moonlight.
There is no time. La Llorona is awakening. The witch scowled as she turned to Adrei, who immediately swung her head to meet her gaze. "Adrei. Leave the relief work to me. I need a side activity to focus on while maintaining my barrier. You...go help Adil. Make sure she’s alright."
The slight stutter of worry belying her wife’s voice, as the Peacekeeper’s eyes glanced to the knight wavering, yet with a salute from a knight, a child’s cheering to reunite with her parents and a commander screaming orders in a distance, a relieved smile curled up on Adrei’s lips even if it tasted its own ashes after the forlorn battles. Adrei, however, didn’t smile as she nodded to the Witch, the authority of promise weighing between her brows and the glimmering icy eyes, before her legs dashed away with a thud on the ground, cracking the rune like a holy word meant nothing before the Queen.
Showoff. Her narrowed, exasperated eyes followed the scaled back before turning to Selene who was staggering her wobbly clumsy steps up to chase Adrei. Groaning, Demond’s own bare, steady steps forwarded before smacking the knees, as Selene fell again with a yelp on her bums.