Canine lips sink and peel back over feral fangs, the foaming green and yellow-stained enamel of a black mien. It is a hasty promise of savagery, and it does not go unnoticed. Fear is struck unto Nymeria—fear of that acidic mouth, a white slash scribbled with green—that which reminds her so tediously of her mother, gone and disappeared like ash in the wind. Would it always haunt her? This failure, as a daughter, to ignore Confutatis' fate? And yet—it seemed to her, in that foolish moment, that this was what she had been working towards: the omnipresent threat of violence, the idea of desolation and destruction, warfare, not jailbreaks. Would her mother not be proud of her for inciting passion, even if only in a broken man? Dangerous thoughts, these were. She knew, for all her fanfare, she was small and young and frail, and those canines were sharp, and that acid was potent. Were that crude threat to follow through on its promise, she would not be on the winning side.

Time slows to a halt and she is suspended in her disbelief, in her shock, that she was here, in this moment, and that this was her reality: that she might be destroyed. That she could become another set of bones on the forest floor. That flowers would spring up beneath her ribcage and would bloom in her eye sockets, that decay and life would strive for claim over her body.

Poetic as it was, she did not want that.

Nymeria arches her neck, and Lilómiel beats his wings, coming to hover beside her head. Their eyes are glowing sets of coals, embers pulsating red, grimy with their exhaustion and their traveling but bright with something falsely named as hope and faith. Together, they are young and invincible, and they cannot yet feel the tightening noose of mortality around their necks—and tonight, even after a moment of clarity, it is so easy to slither back into a safe state of mind, one where Nymeria could not be touched, let alone harmed. Conviction repeats in a feedback loop between the bonded pairing, throbbing confidence and arrogance—the kind that would get them killed, the kind that would allow them to end up with cut throats.

They are unprepared for Crowley's charge.

There is no warning, only the thunder of black hooves on wet soil. Panic like a caged bird springs into life in Nym's chest. For all of Confutatis' teachings, for all of her warnings, she hasn't the faintest clue what to do when confronted with reality. Everything, all her knowledge, evades her, evicting house when she needs it most; her instincts scramble, bite, but she doesn't feel them beyond the shiver in her limbs. She cannot tear her eyes away from the stallion; as his huge horns lower down, conjuring up further terror and wild fear, all her screams cling behind her teeth, hunting for a way out but not given the opportunity. Nymeria stands, frozen, paralyzed—

Fast as a striking snake, Lilómiel darts ahead of her, jaws unhinging to release a jet of red flame aimed towards Crowley's head. In her ears rings his scream, a screech of warning shattering through Nymeria and Lil's telepathic bond. Flee, it shouts to her—and she turns on her haunches, hastily, ready to bolt.