Up and Down

Ambition and Wisdom

Dedicated to my friend Levi who is undergoing spinal surgery right now.

Silver wings flap in the still cavern that never knew the breath of fresh breeze. Immaterial, made of magic and light and memories of warmth.

No longer angry red, but still pained, the ball of magic confined in the prison still resists.

Her Patronus brings in another strand of grief to her. But when she breathes on it, trying to share her warmth, she doesn't have enough left. It refuses to be purified, still slithering its way across her skin in a burning spiral, trying to get inside.

Tempting her to just... just take it. It's only one. She needs the strength right now...

Anna is bone tired. What is the point of mystical powers if every time she exerts them for more than spontaneous, unpredictable acts of violence she wants to sleep, forever and ever?

Isis, Rackham and even Isidora didn't seem to have such a weakness. They commanded the forces of the primordial sea without nearly as much effort.

Perhaps whatever bloodline led to her existence has been diluted to the point of near-disappearance? She might indeed be the last.

This magic has not manifested in anyone if nearly four hundred years. Perhaps there will not be another one like her, and the power of the ancients, of myth and legend, will die with her.

Perhaps it's not a bad thing.

The tales of gods of eld are full of injustice and atrocities. Even Isidora ended up going down the path of darkness, and she could have wrought such chaos had she not been stopped.

It is too much for anyone to wield...

Her song reaches its final plea, to the very same gods she just maligned.

O Gods that dwell beyond the stars, if you can hear my cry -

And if you have compassion - let me send no more to die!

Her voice wavers and her osprey plunges through the prison.

But it isn't alone. A silver nightingale flies in beside it, pushing back the darkness. Behind her, she hears a gasp.

Spinning on her heel, she sees Sebastian, bloody and bruised and clutching at his chest.

"Sebastian!!"

"Bloody hell, what is this feeling?" He rubs his sternum with a pained expression, "Merlin's balls, it's almost like a Dementor."

"I suppose it's not that far-fetched," she shrugs, stumbling over to him, "it... tries to balance its pain and suffering with what our Patronuses bring. Sebastian..."

"Yes, love?"

She trips over her feet and nearly knocks him over as she approaches, grabbing onto him for support. She is so cold... she didn't even realise it until she touched Sebatian's skin.

"Your hand..."

He notices the dark strand of pain clinging to her fingers like a leech.

"Don't touch it. It's... resisting me. I'm just too tired..."

She sighs, feeling the dark memory leaving raised welts on her skin. She shakes it off and her eagle grabs it with its talons and takes it back to the silver prison.

"Ominis?..." Her voice trembles more than she would like.

"On his way here."

"Oh... good. And his brothers?"