It was the voice that did it, just as it had for the Bright God; the very air of the desert was slit open like the gut of some animal, words like entrails, slimy, slick with viscous red intent; they trailed and skittered along her neck like the groping claws of an insect and Ultima felt her entire skeleton vibrate, one great marrow-deep thrum— and go utterly slack. Whether it was the down-thrust of a hundred pairs of wings or the blood that had frozen in her veins, she fell to the ground in a whirlwind of water and salt fine as powder, and for several moments did not stir. And then the earth shook. The stench of brine and rot, fanned by the heat of the Bright God’s fire, struck her squarely across the face. ‘Crocodile,’ she thought briefly, explosions sounding off behind her like guns at salute: crocodile, crocodile, and with a deafening bang, CROCODILE!

She ran.

The pain would come later; wasted by the onslaught of shock, despair, relief, and shock again, her muscles now were fed by adrenaline, a useful anxiety that settled into the tired nerves and jolted them to wakefulness. Run, run, run, her heart clamored, fly, fly, fly, her reptile brain screamed— Leaning back onto her hindlegs, her wings wrung out, the sound of the joints popping and groaning lost in the throes of the battlefield— And with a bound she was airborne, leaping onto a hot draft that carried her further and further from the fracas. She glided for several meters before her hooves began to skim the glass, and with a neat collection sprang upwards again, gliding and clawing for distance, puppeted by her sheer desire to survive. It was only when she got the idea to look back that the magic ran itself dry. 

Unbalanced by the sudden jerk of her head, she spun out in a whirl of feathers and dashed herself on the flats, cartwheeling for several moments before coming to a stop. One blink. Another, the world pulsing uncomfortably as her brain settled back into place. And then the now-familiar jolt of realization, like a blow to the throat: death is behind you. She wheezed. She pulled her legs back beneath her, wobbling and pink where the Flats had scoured the skin raw.

She ran.

A band of horses had gathered up ahead, and Ultima craned to separate their shapes – a stallion, roaring like a bull, a mare the color of the sea encroaching on the Flats, a— ‘Tiger,’ she thought dimly— And a girl in the center of them all, crowned with a delicate set of wings, eyes blank and dumbstruck, and clearly not moving. 

“Wh— Are you mad?” More out of belligerence than compassion, Ultima fumbled to a rolling stop at the band’s edge and turned backwards, to where the war was still blazing. Electricity and fire dotted the air over a mass half-caked in sand, dark, quickly-moving flecks bouncing off of the invisible body like fleas. A brief hush, no more than a hair wide. A shiver stood her feathers on end. And then another blast of energy, sending a wave of cracks through the salt pan. Ultima spun sharp and flung her wings out, shielding her head – and indirectly, Evaneska – as the sand buffeted all around her. “Up there,” she coughed eventually, gesturing with a flash of gold to a low set of outcroppings in the near distance, like white caps frozen at their very peak. They’d be as good a shield as any, she figured, glancing harriedly at her audience. 

“They’ve got it preoccupied for now, but who knows how long that’ll last, and I really don’t want to be killed, so please, up, let’s go live,”

command me to be well.