The chaos, turmoil, and bloodshed continue to rage around her.

The cries of anger and pain haunt her ears, seemingly piercing straight into her bones, and spreading through her body like a hot, searing acid. She wonders how it has come to this—how they could have let this happen. They had trusted him. Looking back, it makes her sick to think of how he (this perverted and barbaric monster) had led them so blindly, how they had been tricked and made into fools; the mare’s teeth gnash together as the tears continue to stream pitifully down her cheeks. Between the wildfire rage that burns and the heartbreaking despair that crushes her, Tiamat doesn’t know what to do next.

Suddenly there is someone standing next to her—speaking words of firm comfort and earnest encouragement. Tiamat recognizes the voice and turns her head, burying her face into the broad shoulder of the dappled mare, breathing in the familiarity of her newfound friend. “Wessex,” she chokes out, likely incoherently, while breathing haphazard sobs over the larger mare’s skin.

There is something about Wessex—whether it is her militaristic call to action, her steadfastness, or simply her presence—that rouses life into the wounded Mender again. She clings to the mare’s questions, anchoring them like a lifeline, like a sense of direction (of purpose) in the bedlam of violence that her world has suddenly become. Coughing and sputtering past the tightness in her throat, Tiamat pulls slowly away, trying to blink the moisture from her eyes. “Um—” She glances around, trying to separate the blurs of people that race around them, “Hotaru or Erebos, we need to find them.” Surely they will know what to do.

Stumbling forward, Tiamat searches for other familiar faces, glancing often to Wessex, as though she would lose herself in this nightmare if she lost sight of the large dappled mare. In one of her glimpses, she notices a dark figure—one that pulls even more on her frayed heartstrings—and skips forward in her desperation. “Erebos! Over there—” She is cut off when, suddenly, a bony appendage emerges from the marsh’s mists. The skeletal claw rakes across her neck and cheek, gouging parallel lines into her skin, and exposing ruby drops that mix into her salty tears. Tiamat is thrown off balance and staggers to her knees, gasping from the trauma that chills her body until she shivers, struck into shock.


notes; Clings to @Wessex then searches for @Erebos but gets hit by the Fido monster.
“Speech.”