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The tigress, for all her fury and might, is nothing beneath the combined strength of the Helovians that fight for their land. The Earth God watches as she totters, swiping and screaming her fury to heavens that watch her suffering impartially. This is not her domain, and her pride is her weakness, thinking she was strong enough to slip into a foreign land that did not support her magic and still win. She does not go willingly, struggling against Isopia’s magic as she chokes and drowns, deaf and blind. Justified suffering for the pain and death she has caused on the battlefield, and the God feels regret for how he has failed all of them. Though he’d not promised, he’d hoped. A battle that should never have involved his flock ended up the downfall of a few scattered souls.
The thunderous crash as the tigress falls, stone-legged and helpless beneath Archibald’s magic and Isopia’s sludge. Her bodice is ripped and pierced – Volterra’s doing, with his earthen spikes – and the blood soaks into the ground as readily as the tar. Ophelia and Cera flit about the falling form, darting in to land punishing blows that keep the goddess pinned like a struggling butterfly. “It’s over,” the Earth God proclaims, and the tiger’s body goes rigid and then slumps as her heart gives out beneath Isopia’s pressure. He does not let the body linger long, aware of the Helovians trapped beneath her, and in glowing light he wrenches onto her substance and pulls until she is disembodied beneath the shroud.
They are all worthy, those who fought and those who healed – a glance is spared towards Resplendence, checking on Erthe’s progress. The tiger’s hide is first, the largest object of the remains, and he settles it with a thought at the crumpled forms of Ampere and Zekle. Though the two did not see eye to eye, Ampere was a fierce protector deserving of the similarly fierce tiger’s skin. To another, a Rift child who’d doubted his existence, the god’s sharpened femur is gifted. The skull he materializes before Dragomir, the last large gift of the body given. It is not the only, bottles of blood glinting innocently in the tar-stained grass near Sno, Ranjiri, Knox, Ghost and Ashamin. Glowing more insidiously are long, wicked claws, scattered near Shida, Volterra, Kipling, Mauja and Archibald.
He turned his face to the battlefield, weary and regretful. So the cycle had continued after all. A gentle nod was given to Isopia, proud of her for striking the killing blow. At last he turned to them as a whole. “This is the end,” he vowed firmly. “Return to your herds, tend to your wounded. The fight is over, be at peace.” As the last words washed over them, he extended his power across all of Helovia, settling into the bones of those afflicted with disease. They would be free of the painful clutches and adverse effects within minutes, and though he had no strength left to physically heal those around him as his sister had, it was his hope that it would do something to ease their pain nonetheless. It was the only apology that would matter to them, for all that he and his siblings had cost them.
All SWP diseases have been cured!
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SWP :: Blunt Little Instruments (Conclusion)
