Merlin 2:38 “Wasted Sacrifice”
By dint of apterous leap the growingly tenuous descent, his clothes drying and fluttering, as his perfect posture with featherless arms abroad vastly, his eyes closed and back arched he dreams of what he can see. In sooth, he has made theft of a golden dagger, as he falls he holds his arms like wings then takes it from his shirt, afore the ground he points the dagger at his chest.
Nick: “Revelation, here I come falling, oh grave, where is thy victory her voice resides.”
Increments later, he liquefies thru impact, chthonic and regilding. The wind carries Lynn as a slow fog over broken stone and idle ground, to the narrow canyon floor of stones and pebbles she appears from smoke before the storms of the mind in the crevasse deeply of relaxation and meditations, she humbly waits as a secularist heir, amazed she cannot classify the pool of blood and battered rags. Prediction cannot balance unequal paths, for as she waits the grand phoenix carefully enters the craggy corridor with gusts of wind and apprehensions. Her survival is choosing the safest concept of distance different to her revealed existence, so as it lands, she walks into the fog and hides spying disposed.
Troy focuses on the displayed venerable suicide to find triviality, as Nickolas focuses on memories to find his pain. He elevates his mind to abandon emotion, consuming manna to regain life. As he imagines where the wind begins, Lynn revels in the power of such magic for a spirit in the nothingness and shadows. She moves toward the young rider whose skin seethes the oil of edelweiss petals and resembles leather. Hiding from her discovery, she steps in silence thru the air to avoid the phoenix of sun-tinged steel and coal-covered soot with feathers protruding of equity design. Her hand reaches forth to corrupt the guise of him, but her powers are worthless while hiding in cloud, she tries a hex correct to fill his blood with allergy but he is impervious to her magic while she is hiding herself in his presence. Alerion hears a pebble roll and turns to howl a fear annulled, what bit of Lynn is visage forth retreats in form of mist.
The burning woods long below the mountainside satiate after the fires contributed to the collapse of the city of glass, partial whence the deluge and survival requires floating thru melted ice. Merlin wrestles the descending currents and blocks of ice among the flotsam of a broken bastion as Ana screams, lashing with wroth, outraged by drowning as she searches desperately for any kindling to burn beneath the water in the flood on the face of the mountain, to make air from boiling water with her fire. Verging and fighting the collapsing palace are the other bodies, many dead, in the current. Fire to ice essence, Ana is sitting in a charred wooden royal throne reclined and floating down river, nearby Merlin on his back floating feet first downstream.
Ana: “Are you dead yet Merlin?”
Merlin: “I am hearing. Where are the others?”
Ana: “Help me Merlin, I cannot swim.”
Merlin rolls on his side, then his stomach, he begins to crawl across the river as if it were a drawn rug.
Ana: “How do you do that?”
Merlin: “Air floats above water.”
Merlin guides and drags the broken throne to the riverbank where they exit and respite while discarding the makeshift raft with burns that resemble her handprints. Bloody clothes taint the river red, farther along the banks other men climb to shore from the current, some are allies and one is Quinn, some are foes and some are running for desertion. Between there are battles in the forest unscathed where leaf are falling aside the forest scorn by definitive line of immolation.
As Quinn walks to Merlin one of Halle’s reckless minions takes a young hostage of soldier, he moves from sight to hunted allay immediately upon hearing his name.
Kaian: “Where is Quinn? Where is he? Tell me or I’ll send this boy to a place far worse than this!”
Ana: “Would you believe us if we told you and let the boy go?”
Merlin: “Would you tell us why you want him?”
Kaian: “Want? Detest! He ruined a safe haven, he, would make us work, he, ruined everything, we would only take from others if we would not make, as we needed their ability, to give our time until dreams become reality, what, would a wealthy man know of sacrifice!?”
Merlin: “I’m sorry this is how you feel.”
Quinn behind kills Kaian with an arrow to the heart, he releases the blade from the hostage’s neck, he feels the arrowhead barely protruding from his chest, and the blood smears on his fingertips as he struggles to pull it forward thru himself, tho he lastly cannot. The hostage takes his dagger and finishes him.
Merlin: “Was that for practice?”
Quinn: “That was on principle.”
Merlin: “There are other ways to negotiate.”
Hostage: “You can’t negotiate with slavers and murderers.”
As Kaian falls Ana opens her arms to hug the former hostage.
Quinn: “The more things change, the more they stay the same. Ana dear, bring the boy to me.”
Quinn begins to rustle thru his drenched attire until revealing a pouch of coins, he hands it to the shaking youth. As he speaks, he begins untying belt and bandoleer, dropping his various weapons and scabbards to the ground.
Quinn: “Take those funds to the nearest town, keep them, but tell the first soldier you see that Quinn is alive, and I’m somewhere in the north woods, haste hence.”
The squire begins to run into the forest as Quinn pulls open his coat to examine his shoulder, finding nothing wrong he begins to remove his leather armor, heavy and soaked it falls to the ground piling upon itself.
Quinn: “We’re going to need horses.”
He walks to the river then kneels and begins to drink with his hand the cold water of a wintry mountain, eventually dunking his wetted hair to soak it again and wash his face before shaking his head.
Merlin: “What is your plan now, o wise and wet one?”
Quinn: “We cross this river. There is a redoubt not far anon.”
Ana: “Easy for ability, and harder still for you, I’m starting to reckon the captor was correct.”
Quinn: “It’s a barter town, a trading post by the militias after the plague; from there we’ll find a lead or follow a dunce minion of your favorite foe.”