Elemental Thief Part I : Child of Calamity

Sacrifices: Treasa

Treasa didn't really know why she was at the ball, other than the fact that she was considered Lianza's daughter, and generals in Rulin had more rank than most courtiers, which equated to rank in Clairval.

Though, possibly it was because she had helped save the Queen's mother, the former Regent who was recovering, but was still too weak to do much more than spend calm days at a manor outside the city with no one to bother her. Or maybe because she had given over those papers and stopped Lord Corvin.

So if she truly thought about it, Treasa suspected she had a few reasons to have been invited as an expected guest to the Queen's coronation ball, but she was still out of place. She didn't like the crowd, didn't like this event that had everyone luxuriating and clinging to the power that was around them. It was a waste, to think that people struggled to eat and live only blocks away in the city while this was what nobles wasted their money on. Fancy clothing, tiny little bites of food, and sparkling glasses of alcohol that she was told she wasn't allowed to drink.

She had glanced up once and seen Darya standing on a step, looking out over the crowd, before she was pulled back into whatever conversation that was happening around her. When she looked up again, Darya was gone, probably wandering in this mass of wealth and nobility, which could mean that Treasa wouldn't see the other woman at all tonight. Darya didn't seem to like these events any more than her and often found ways to miss them, which Treasa hoped to learn, if this was what was expected of her when she returned to Rulin with Lianza.

The Queen, the new one, seemed to be a pleasant woman, and they were talking when Treasa flinched at the sound of fighting, finding Lianza pulling her away from the sounds and to the other side of him. Not far away, she watched as armed guards rushed behind the tapestries as the sound of swords clashing rang through the air over the music that was quickly fading away.

Before Treasa could ask what was going on, she was given a hard shove from behind that sent her stumbling into the Queen, who then stumbled into Admiral Tisaso, hard. Despite the panic and fear of the noises of fighting, Treasa had a moment of panic, wondering if she had assaulted the Queen Regent of Clairval.

Treasa scrambled back, turning and seeing a noble she had sometimes seen speaking with Kethan, standing nose to nose with Darya. Which was odd. Treasa knew she knew who he was, and that he was part of the group of nobles she knew to be like Kethan. It was odd that he looked so intimate with the woman who she considered a friend, though as she saw him collapse backwards in a pool of blood, feeling his life-force leaving his body in a rapid rush, she couldn't put a direct reason on that feeling, for the life of her.

She felt more pain, more fleeing life, tugging her gaze, only to see Lianza catching Darya as two swords clattered to the ground, and blood started splattering the marble. It sounded like raindrops, like a waterfall, though she wasn't sure if it was the blood or the sudden onslaught of rain on the windows as thunder rumbled outside.

Treasa knew then, exactly what had happened, could almost picture it from what she was seeing now, and she rushed forward to press her hands against the wound in Darya's side, feeling the warm, sticky blood coating the both of them, hearing the bubbling, choking cough of the woman and feeling the struggle beneath her hands as Darya's body tried to stutter to a stop.

"No. No No no no no!" Treasa yelled, letting her power flow into the woman, first holding her there in it. Treasa was not sure how she was doing it, keeping Darya from leaving, but she started with putting her power into keeping the woman's heart pumping and lungs moving, though both were filling with blood in places that they shouldn't have blood.

A vicious, lethal wound that Treasa knew from her books should mean instant death. But she also knew how to seal up the damage and move the blood where it needed to go, what was left of it, anyway.

She stopped listening to the world then, focusing on stopping Darya from dying, though there was so much wrong, she didn't know if she could keep a body going, long after it was supposed to have stopped, not sure if she could fix the loss of blood and other things that would threaten her friend's survival.

So she healed, and then she replaced the magical life-force that she'd felt leaving Darya's body with her own power. It wasn't something they'd taught her to do, or even if it should be possible, but Treasa refused to let Darya die.

She recited what injuries she found, if only to keep her focused and remembering that she had read about most of the injuries, had studied how they could technically be healed, rhyming them off as she found them, fixed them.

She didn't have time; she knew that. She didn't have the time to filter her magic and turn it into Darya's own life force like she should do, not with Darya slipping through her fingers with every moment. So she didn't.

When she felt the others loan her their power, she didn't have time to stop and turn their power into healing energy, either. She just used it. She didn't know how it would still work, but it as she pushed through trying to save her friend, Darya's body seemed to accept it, and adapt to it. Treasa learned then and there, as she was struggling to keep life, any form of life, in her friend's body, that she could use power in a new way.

Though she did not know what the consequences of that choice would be, she hoped her friend would survive.

Treasa would normally use herself as a way to filter it, and she knew that part of what made each species different was their life force, the stuff that harnessed the power, which was why humans were better at healing and Vayan's were better at power, and the Rulin were entirely physical, though there was still a part of them that thrummed with their own power. Power that didn't manifest in anything other than their physical abilities.

It was only after seeing all that power within Darya, working through her system and keeping her alive, binding with her human cells, that she realized she was doing something different. Somehow she was turning Darya's life force from human to something completely different, nearly as different as the oddly mixed power from the Princess, containing Feyshan, Rulin and Vayan power.

But this was that and more.

And it worked through the human woman's body, changing, saving.

Treasa didn't know what she was doing, or if it would even work, but it was the only thing she could do, only knowing time had passed when she felt someone else's hand in hers, feeling a new power flowing through her and into Darya.

Still, there was so much blood, and it was a cooling, thick mess around her now.

The wounds were sealed, and Darya was no longer drowning in blood, but the woman was changing and still struggling to stay alive, anchored in only by Treasa's efforts, and the powers of all those who were helping.