into the unknown... [open/any]

[Mephisto]

Mephisto
dusk court spy

I

t is not the only hungry thing here today.

There is something in the way his words are spoken, which raises the hackles on her back. It is not like him, decidedly something… other. There is an edge to him that wasn’t there before, a darkness which was almost imperceptible. A darkness she has seen before – in another place, another lifetime. A darkness which tore her entire world asunder. Not for the first time since their meeting in this place, her touch goes to the vial at her chest, and she clings to it for a moment, fear flickering in her as she pushes it down, her eyes imperceptibly harder as she watches him and swallows down a lump in her throat.

Her magic reaches involuntarily toward him, tasting something dark before retreating, a quick flash of something blinding her as she steps away from him. For the magic shows something else staring through Asterion’s eyes, something not entirely mortal. “Asterion?” She questions even as he warns her to fly, and Mephisto knows in that moment, her trust is a fragile thing. Her heart aches for her friend, even as Tempest’s pool grows close enough to lap against her feet, pulling her toward the magic.

Mephisto is faced with an impossible choice, to trust the familiar face in front of her – the face which screams a warning, the eyes which warm with concern. Or to give into Tempus, to allow his room to swallow her whole. “I’m sorry, my friend…” Her voice is strained and quiet, as she steps away from Asterion, liquid creeping from the pool upward. It climbs her legs, dousing her in mirrored light as it pulls her under and away from this place. She squeezes her eyes closed, unable to watch the horror which washes over the stallion, unwilling to see the betrayal in his eyes as she leaves him.

And the magic draws her far from here, spitting her out on a distant shore as she gathers her wits about her, turning to look back at the island only once before she flies home to Terrestella once more, shaken to the core as she mourns Asterion and his fate.

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Mepisto | "speaks" | @Asterion

rallidae