Whatever haven she had acquired in finding her sister was short-lived, ruination and damnation on the horizon that they'd never really deemed safe. At least, Asch had never felt safe within the Basin. Not when she'd been stolen away from her lands so easily, submitted to the torture of her captors for half a season before she'd managed to run with Arwen, her mother's triumph a lapse of attention that they had all taken into hand and run with. She bore the scars of her herd's lack of care, of attention. She would never really feel safe, not even with countless warriors mere feet away in the borders of their home.

Long before words of response could touch Arwen's lips, a bellow came across the snows, lifting the hairs on the base of the child's neck. Body tensed, instinct that she should never have had warming and preparing muscles against an opponent she could never hope to win against.

Spinning on delicate heels, she whirled to face their attacker, faltering to see her Papa screaming and charging for them. "Papa? Talbot?" she called, voice wavering uncertainly. What were they doing? Her father's words were muddled and confusing for the slight child, white noise in her ears that drowned out the potential for real alarm. Only when Crowley advanced on long adult legs, never pausing, did she begin to react. Too slow, too late.

"Arwen, move!" She screamed, reaching for her magic and keeping an eye on her father as he approached. She unleashed it all at once, feeling sick to have to use her magic on her Papa, and tried to sidestep and use her magic all at once. His hooves kicked out at her and she threw herself away from it, seeing the crazed glint in his eyes as he swung his mighty horned head towards her sister, standing so very close to her. Her sister who wasn't moving.

There was an odd moment of peace, of suspended time, in which Asch realized that she was likely going to die. It was never really a question. When it came to sparing herself or her twin sister, it would have always been Arwen. It always was Arwen. Asch loved her sister beyond reason and doubt, beyond mortality and logic. She had saved her sister once, when they were mere babes lonely and afraid beneath the World Eater's claws. Asch had done nothing but protect Arwen her entire life, shielding her with love, with power and her own physical body. And in that long moment between movement and connection, she wondered if that had always been her fated downfall. Perhaps she had loved Arwen too much, regarded herself too little, for her to make it out of this alive.

"Arwen!" No time for endearments.

Oh if only Asch had more time.

Lunging forward, she slammed her shoulder into Arwen, shoving her abruptly out of the way of their deranged father's attack. For a second she felt no pain, just the horrific jolt of Crowley's head slowing, an attack hitting. Then her world exploded, in red and gruesome pains of agony that shredded her insides as effectively as the spiraled horn that would be her end. Her throat ripped on a scream, like razor blades and blackberry needles, magic exploding in a violent surge to encompass as much as it possibly could. Superheating all the blood in the nearest vicinity, sparing none of the trio who had come to rest around her, not even Talbot.

The horn was ripped from her, tormenting her with every filament that freed itself from her too tiny body. Her blood stained it, blooming carmine on the spiral of her sire's horn. Her insides felt churned and burning, as if burning coals had been dumped into the newly created wound. Asch's hooves failed to hold her the moment she was dropped from her father's horn, and she crumbled to the snow on deadened limbs, eyes wide and breathing in shaky gasps that stuttered out of her lungs wet and fast. Shock took over, and her eyes rolled slowly to gaze at Arwen, praying her Papa would turn and run away from her instead of turning to face her twin. "W-Wennie," her voice cracked, a mere whisper, begging her to run. Dying alone would be a torment she could face if it meant her twin lived. Blood pumped and gushed along her side, between her lower ribs where her father had struck her. Thin legs kicked and twitched idly beneath the pain, golden strands painting the snow and blood melting the surface of the snow. Gold and cocoa and crimson, as beautiful on the verge of mortality as she had been the moment she'd taken her first breath.

"Run," she croaked, tears budding and slipping down her face as the pain rattled and consumed her, cackling like a hyena and ripping her to pieces. Arwen had always called her brave, but she cried beneath the crushing weight of her own desperation. Blood bubbled to her lips, staining them and choking her, forcing her to convulse and cough beneath the liquid she needed so badly to live and yet was killing her slowly. She wanted so badly to live. She wanted to experience life. She wanted to love, she wanted to make up with her mother, she wanted to greet her Papa when he was sane and welcome him back into the open arms of their family. I want to live, she sobbed, the words trapped within the metal cage of her own mind even as her frame shook with the force of her agonized crying. But such a wish was too late for her to make.