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SecondHerald Darkness, pure darkness, surrounds everything. Zahara, Luc -- neither, it seems, can see anything at the moment, above the wrenching pain of the world's breaking.
Lucent has his hands on his head, stiffling a scream... it had been so long since anything could hurt him. Nothing CONCEIVABLE could... the voices from the Coronal let out the cry he held back.
Zahara doubles over, her knuckles whitening as the pain rips through her like she hasn't felt... well. She screams raggedly, her vision going red before it...is black. A second or two as she catches her breath and takes in the darkness. "Where...?"
Lucent "Zahara? You are here?" Lucent focuses, beyond the pain, shining bright as he can!
SecondHerald The voices are muddled, rough, as if heard through water or some other substance; and though Lucent turns up his anima as bright as he can, he still cannot see.
Lucent "I... I am shining bright, Zahara. There is no light here." He draws a sharp breath. "Nyx?"
Zahara shakes her head, wiping blood from her lips with the back of her hand. "Lucent? I can barely hear you! I don't see any light..."
Lucent makes the Coronal explode to all sides, a futile gesture. "Zahara? Is that really you? This is... this is like Nyx! Like they took the principle of light away!" He begins to run, towards the likely direction of Zahara, or at least, the one he thought was in desperation...
SecondHerald There's something like ground beneath Lucent's feet, but it's muddy, soft; running feels like it's taking a great effort for a small result, though he does find himself moving.
Zahara closes her eyes, focusing inwards, then testing her senses one by one. Sight is obviously useless... she tries shifting her sight to essence
SecondHerald Shifting to Essence gives Zahara a marginal improvement: she can see the faint outline of her own body, assuring her that she is in fact still alive.
Zahara looks towards Lucent, "What do you mean, like Nyx?"
SecondHerald Zahara can't see her friend, even with squinted eyes.
Lucent "No... light..." He stops, exhausted. That should not happen either... it was all wrong. "Nyx... he is Shadows. Lights do not exist in the shadows... Alveua only walked to the stars, at most... shadows, like jelly... but the sound... the sound is all wrong!"
Zahara ::Cerin? Varanim? Imrama?::
Zahara "Calm... Calm down, Lucent." She crouches and feels the ground at her feet, then attempts to step into the air a bit, to walk over it. "Gods, that hurt."
SecondHerald Zahara steps, very tentatively, into the "air," and finds she can walk a little easier there than on whatever passes for ground beneath her..
Lucent "He should be dead. This cannot be..." He stops. If that hurt him...
Lucent ::I hear you. But even the rings sound distorted. Darkness of Essence::
Zahara "My hearthstone works... Essence sight works, well slightly. Lucent, reach out, i'm going to send the Bonds to you..." She untwines them from about her waist, imbues them with Essence, and sends them slithering in his direction. Or so she hopes.
Lucent spreads his arms, trying to touch something in the darkness...
Lucent "No can do..." He stops. And then, he slides a hand into the folds of his robe, bringing out the pendant, placing it over his forehead. His third eye. His Caste Mark. The most sacred of all chakras. "Love begets love. Care begets care. You know of shadows, love. Show me my empress. Take me to her."
SecondHerald After a moment of focus, Luc sees it, just barely -- one end of Zahara's Bonds, stretched out for him to reach.
Lucent picks it up, running through the bonds all the way to Zahara! If there is anything else going on, he fails to notice, single-minded in this purpose.
SecondHerald Lucent pulls on the Bonds and follows it what seems like forever, an almost immeasurable distance. (...)
SecondHerald Finally, he grows near, and with his pendant held high, he can even see the outline of Zahara's form, standing there in the darkness, calmly waiting for him....
SecondHerald But then, he sees something else too, rising up just behind her....
Lucent opens his unnatural eyes wide, pools of gold challenging the darkness "... behind you..."
Zahara freezes for a second, then slowly turns just enough to look behind herself
SecondHerald Zahara turns just in time to see the faintest, almost imperceptible outline of the Herald's staff swinging down towards her with immense force.
Lucent "ZAHARA!!!"
Zahara "Oh for fuck's sake." She melds the Bond around her wrist with half a thought, as she brings her daiklave up, two-handed, so that it arcs behind her head, a golden-blue slash in the darkness.
Lucent sighs in relief, turning into a angered roar in short order
Lucent The coronal flares to light once again, orbs spreading as far as to Zahara and beyond.
SecondHerald The staff strikes against the daiklave, and for a moment, there is a brilliant flash of light -- though it illuminates nothing besides the creature that strikes at her.
Lucent "See, I was scared for a moment. I thought you had brought the father of night back! We killed it, you see... and no shadows but his' may threaten us!" He points at the Herald, the pendant still over his forehead. "We still hold the night. Right here. The Essence of all darkness!" He called, and he was as a child again.
Lucent "And of all light!" Alveua, lithe and sweet said, her image superimposed to Lucent's.
Lucent "Both of us."
Lucent "All of us."
Lucent "Be it on brightest day!" She spoke, her hammer shattering the immadiate darkness and giving away to his sunlight!
Lucent "Or darknest night!" He shone, the light brighter on him, the shadows darker everywhere else!
Lucent "Those who worship Wyld's Might" They said, together, "Beware our power!"
Lucent "CREATION'S MIGHT!" They vanished, Lucent and the Sun, Alveua and the Ebon Dragon, exploding together on what was neither light nor darkness, just an everpresent eclipse that battered at the Herald like shards of Heaven and Hell!
SecondHerald Lucent's brilliant rain batters against the Second Herald, who turns, amidst another flurry of vapor, to look directly at Luc, but.... at the same time, somehow, he also stays, focusing with laser-like intensity upon Zahara, bringing his staff up for another assault....
Lucent appears again, once again as the jovial man rather than the child! "Stop attacking her, damn you!"
Zahara catches a good look at the Herald as the light shines brightly. It is gone too quickly, and so she counterstrikes at the afterimage burned into her pupil, compounded by Lucent's attack. She is not entirely sure she'll ever see again, but her anger burns through the pain and she strikes out with the daiklave that has slain gods and demons and mortals alike.
SecondHerald Even as the Herald bounds lightly over her to confront Luc directly, the Herald also kneels down -- injured, but not severely, by Zahara's assault -- and grins hatefully at her.
Lucent "Avert your eyes from your God," Lucent prays, "And kneel before your Empress!"
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