The anger and incredulity simmered in the Sunspear’s heart as she watched the violet harridan. Words dripped from her mouth but there was a simple kind of rage ringing that filled Megaera’s ears and all she heard from the Goddess’s lips was disdain and disgust. She hates us, hates mortals. She grinds us to dust and then scorns us for dirtying her hands with blood. And for one horrid moment, Meg felt quite alone on the sidelines, faced with a force she had no power to stop, but then Ampere was there. When the Gladiator pressed her side, Meg leaned in to press back; perhaps they knew little on each other’s past but there was the beginning of a deep well of respect forming between the two. I have your back if you have mine. And then Maren was beside them, and Aithniel too, and for a moment the four desert women stood, shoulder to shoulder, united in distaste and disapproval. In that one moment, Megaera might has done the wise thing and turned away, motioned to the other three and headed home with all their lives and bodies intact; but moments are only beautiful stills in the raging onslaught of time, and no one moment can define a life or save it.

The gathering did not stop. Body upon body crammed into the vicinity to witness the Goddess and these newcomers. Some were known and others new, some loved and some hated but one thing became very clear to Megaera; the number of faces that stared daggers at the Goddess. ”Damn, I hate her…” she heard Aithniel whisper and a thought flickered to life in the back of Meg’s mind, if so many were united against the goddess, maybe they could rid Helovia of her looming shadow. “You’re not alone in that…” Meg murmured darkly to the ashen warrior. Black eyes scanned the crowd, trying to count how many might stand against  her when a body moved. A gold-dusted mare charged forward, Aurelia the shit-starter, but the Goddess turned on her and she was gone, then within a matter of seconds a black mare was gone as well. Invisible? Banished? Dead? Meg could only speculate but neither option was acceptable. No, she would fight the Moon when the Sun was behind her, only his light would one day strip out her shadow, and today, she wanted none of her family to risk themselves for nothing. 

”You dare think you can take from me?”

The whispered words sent a chill into Meg’s heart, and her hatred was all but forgotten when the shadow the the great wolf loomed out of the darkness. The Goddess had been arrogant but the wolf was crazed. the Goddess was fearsome but the Wolf was terrible.

And then chaos reigned…

The surge of bodies from and in all directions left the Sultana momentarily frozen. This time, this one time where she had not wanted to fight, it had erupted around her. She was a warrior, a soldier but for the first time she could not immediately throw herself into the fray because she at once had too many enemies and none. For Megaera, there had always been a black and a white, a good and bad, a right side and a wrong side but here in the heat they melted together. 

The goddess she hated but still she was familiar the wolf and his spectral doubles were the foreign threat, the unknown.

The wolf was a likely target but the part of Meg that had raged at the Goddess wished it would cleave her in two. Meg should wish it well in it’s endeavor but she saw Tandavi bloom in a ball of light in its path. Faces that she knew attacked the Goddess, screaming revenge for lost loved ones, and in her heart she felt they were justified. She could fling herself with them, with Ophelia and her sister and Archibald, who she had met in battle so recently, but it was her friend Ampere that moved to block their path and how could she attack her friend? And though she still felt him, Gwaihir seemed the most distant he had ever been through their connection and though she tried to call our to him, to make him stay where the young eagle would beside, he would not respond. He soared from her shoulders to where he thought they both would go but she had not yet seen; to shield a tiny white figure that darted between a sea of fighting bodies. Megaera had no clear option when she wanted to attack and defend at the same time. When an enemy of your enemy was your friend but your friend was a friend of the enemy what choice was left to you but to lay down your arms and take the blade that aimed itself for you. Second after second she stood transfixed, her features and inscrutable mask of horror and rage. Here muscle in her body was tout and ready for action but her mind would not allow it. 

This was wrong. This was all so wrong.

A blade flashed through the air and it drew the Sunspear’s eyes like a moth to flame. There he was, that smirking golden stallion who had groveled so grotesquely and the Goddess’s feet. Meg had seen him do it. She had watched him jump to defend the bitch she hated. She had watched him try to steal Aithniel’s magic from the air and redirect it away from his mistress. And now she saw him swinging his double-ended blade like a hurricane and where he was is where they would be. Cera was falling from the sky and Ranjiri was running towards the goddess and Ampere was running at Ktulu and she saw flashes of Tandavi and of Aithniel beyond, all seemed like they would come in range of the golden man and his blade. Megaera latched onto that thought, that motivation, like dying man in the desert grasps for water. An immediate threat with immediate consequences.

She moved like never before, throwing herself into the kind of oblivion that only battle can bring. Black flints dug themselves into the earth and wings beat once, twice, three times. Anything to increase her speed and momentum and she threw herself towards Thranduil. Knock him down. Take him out. Stop his blade. Anything. When she reach him she did not slow, only raised her great wings to keep them out of her way as she threw herself almost sideways towards him. It was her leather to his metal, her bone spikes against his steel ones, and her body against his, and as she sailed through the air in her final leap, she reached his his weapon with her steelbound jaws. 

megaera
this also has been one of the dark places of the earth