Eclipse - Act 1 - The Healing

Chapter 7 - The Falconess

The Falconess

Lunar light pours over the land, skeletal shadows dancing in the breeze. A dusting of stars speckle the nightly abyss, like sugar on dark silk. Shards of crumbled moon scatter over the Mistral skyline, amber lamps and paper chandeliers casting a warming contrast against that cold crisp sky.

Two mountains reach to the heavens, spear tips puncturing the night. Their shadows ebbing and flowing as the moon slowly looms across the planet of Remnant.

The silence shatters to the echoing cry of a circling Altum Eagle, eclipsing the moon, white light dancing along it's ruffled feathers.

The same white light catches the pink buds dripping from the courtyard's bountiful trees, igniting them in an almost neon glow.

The eagle's head twists, a golden eye glowering down at the land it circles. A manor of huge oriental architecture, it's sprawling gardens and gravel paths patrolled by suited henchmen.

A silhouette clambers up the steep shingles, onto the apex of the roof. As the Eagle's eyes glow, so does the silhouettes own, her womanly figure before the moon.

An armoured guard looks up, eyes squinting at the figure above, a bow to her hip, a sash billowing at her waist. As another yawning henchmen steps across his view, she vanishes to the night.

His mind playing tricks? Perhaps. A long shift'll do that. With a few blinks, a slap to his cold and numb cheeks, he decides a coffee run is needed.

The silhouette grins in the dark, bending her leg and thumbing the coloured cartridges from the loops on her thigh high boots.

A flick of her wrist and the bow's cylinder drops to the side. Six shells thumb into the respective slots, another flick of her wrist snapping the cylinder back up into the bow.

Her eyes flit up to the sky and the Eagle overhead. Finger and thumb sit atop her bottom lip, and she blows.

A loud whistle echoes out, and the Eagle responds with a cry. Immediately the guards become highly alert to the still echoing whistle, and the huge Eagle folds it's wings back and dives towards its prey.

Several pounds of raptor slams talons first into one of the guards on the catwalk, sending him screaming down to the gravel below.

Hearts pound in the Henchmen's ears, rifles raised to the surrounding walls. Then the woman leaps over the wall, bow string pulled back as she eclipses the moon.

The shell in the chamber extends, like a telescope, arrowhead opening out into a flat and sharp hard point. The tail end clicks into the bow string and she releases her grip, letting it fly towards her targets.

Four rifles end up skewered to the opposing wall by the arrow, startling the henchmen and sending their gazes down to count their respective fingers.

She lands in a tuck and roll, rising up behind one Henchmen. Her bowstring is around his neck and the bow is twisted to create the needed loop, choking him into submission. Four others startle and fumble for side-arms, much to her chagrin. He's blue in the face and out cold by the time their pistols are raised.

Releasing the bowstring from one end of the curved wood, she swings around and lassos the wrist of the nearest guard, a firm tug pulling him toward her. The tips of the Henchmen's boots dragging through the gravel, he has no time to even yelp as her fist has squashed his nose and knocked him out.

Shots are about to ring out as the other three squeeze the triggers, the tightening muscles in their throats telling of their impending yells. She jumps forward and presses the thickness of her upper arm against the barrel, muffling the shot and taking her aura down in one fell swoop with a bright blue crackle.