i am the vanguard of your destruction

He shouldn't have been surprised, but somewhere deep inside, he always was.

It came hurtling out of the fog, lighting up the strange semi-darkness of a world stripped of all its intensity and passion—a blast of light streaking for the dark-star heart of the Moon, but hitting a block of ice instead. It found a gap between all the bodies and all the rage, found a path through the swaying chaos, found a soul already plagued by its light and haunted by its touch—

Not again, he had the time to think as the fireball sized him up—but even his fear had lost its edge, quiet resignation the only thing slipping through his veins as it touched him; lightly at first, during the second of confusion and shock.

Then, it bit, sharp and hot all at once, nipping, nibbling, sinking its poisoned fangs in deep, shredding veins and preying on memory—

(He can feel it slipping down his throat; can hear it crackling in his ears; feel it lick along the rims of his eyes—breathing in its low roar.)

A shriek echoed through the muddled soundscape of the battle, torn from his lungs now that the dark fog had dulled his sense of pride.

Hair burned, skin cracked, flesh sizzled; his right shoulder became a charred and raw mess where the blast had collided with him. His breath came punching out in near-panicked gasps, blurred images of Maren and Tembovu crumbling spinning before his eyes as he staggered away from the moon goddess.

Fat lot of good that had done him—no one had fucking acknowledged what he said and everyone was scrambling and the Moon couldn't care less someone had taken blows for her and there were tiny wolves everywhere as his most trusted herd mate was trapped beneath the agony of having had a god fucking melt on him.

Trapped beneath a horde of its legacy.

Tembovu's cries added an echoing boom in the aftermath of Mauja's shriller shriek—and the Queen latched on to his pain with all the focus he had left.

It was all he could do to keep himself from falling apart.

"No you don't—" he snarled as he began to hitch his way through the press of bodies, leaning dangerously to the left, eyes glazed over and his seared flesh weeping blood and water as he packed his veins with ice. "No you fucking don't—" And birds of flame heralded his coming, sweeping through the throng of blackness and the mayhem of bodies, as Mauja sought to reach Tembovu and scour the earth clean of tiny, tiny wolves with tiny, tiny teeth.

He'd see them all burn.

(But in the haze of his pain he doesn't realize that blasting them with fire is going to blast Tembovu, too.)

[ TEAM MOON ]
Mentions: @Tembovu & @Maren
Takes damage from Aithniel's fire attack, and staggers out of Maren's fog/the dark mist created by someone's cerndyr last round and towards Tembovu, sending out fire-birds to clear him a path to his friend and to try and blast the wolves off of him.

How he saw Tembovu is up for debate! But my best bet is an owl. ;)