The true depravity, the harsh insurgency, and the callous contortion of battle rattled against the Songbird in a flurry of movement. While their assault had been marginally successful (and she didn’t want to careen into enthusiasm at such a result), the collision thereafter was a devastating blow. No sooner had she reached for Sialia’s barrel, intending for only a light touch, a small, meager nip, did she find herself thrown off her intended path. Like a battering ram, the other femme launched into her left hip, her slightly larger mass unwinding the fairy into a series of stumbling motions.

You can’t fall she uttered in a mindless trance, over and over, back and forth, while her legs tripped and tumbled over themselves. The sylph found herself reeling, sidestepping in a panicked, convoluted fashion; no grace, no finesse, no elegance, attempting to right her body in a quick, swift motion. She stumbled at first, felt the dirt, the tundra floor, grind into her front limbs, then haggardly, drunkenly, swayed upward, breathless, apprehensive, and body pounding with the aches, the pains, of an augured bruise. Nerves shook through her system, and she was suddenly back in the Edge, thoughts clouded like the overwhelming fog, billowing in and all around her, and her lungs seized, terror, horror, and perturbation possessing her frame: where was the golden mare gliding through the trees?

She blinked, and her eyes instantly rounded to a widened, frightened stance (too haunted, too choked by things left long ago), and she felt so utterly stupid, so fragile, so weak and pathetic, drenched and dwindled to nothing in the valley of their strong, secure Basin, incapable of taking a hit without alarm or agitation. Is this what she’d wanted, to break and fall apart at the seams, to be a victim of violence and vigilance when she’d been ready, fervent, capable moments earlier? What was wrong with her? Was she so flighty? Was she so inconsistent? Was she so mercurial that in one second she could be flattened into a trembling mouse, a shivering sheep? Why had she bothered to participate in this skirmish, in this practice, if she couldn’t take the foreshadowed siege?

Imogen snapped like a whip, a diligent, fighting force in her mind. Get it together. Can’t be like this. Lena is strong. Lena is determined. The fey took one chiseled, tremulous breath, and glanced towards Sialia, an honored soldier, standing yards away. Did Sialia think she was weak too, a fragile little creature, incapable of protecting the things she coveted and loved?

Bound perhaps only by sheer tenacity, Lena began again, clenching her jaw, ivories digging into the sides of her maw, limbs quivering, columns shaking, but following orders. She wasn’t as fast, she wasn’t as swift, the soreness in her left side and front limbs was enough to keep the keen, rapid endeavors away (flickering once or twice in a burning, scalding tone, laced with a vivid, rampant potency) – but for the current idea, she didn’t need to be. She’d begun to close the distance, face to face with her sable opponent, Imogen rambling to her right side, when the femme started to sing.

The tunes didn’t carry her bright tones, didn’t carry her wholesome sentiments, didn’t offer or bestow assuaging moments. Instead, they were dark, dangerous, and bursting with molten shards, painful, fleeting rivulets of a treacherous beauty, launching, unwinding, unfurling with hints of their devastating power. A vivid, tangible enchantment, for no sooner had her maw parted, then the embers curled and coiled within the summer vestiges, enlightened, emboldened, becoming a molten, burning shower, intending to cascade over Sialia’s back, drench along her spine, singe across her hips. Though wicked, though disastrous, they were light, few and far between, specks and flakes of potential, still utterly incapable of truly damaging a member of her brethren.

[641 words. 3/3. @[Sialia]
Lena’s surprised at Sialia’s battering force, and sidesteps away due to the ram, left side bruised and aching. She nearly falls, stumbling down to her front limbs, but raises herself quickly. She attempts to close the distance, slowly due to the aching limbs, a few yards away from Sialia (face to face), when she begins to use her fire singing magic, attempting to have it lightly rain down on Sialia from above (along her spine, across her hips).]