MARGOT

Castor, her refuge in this moment, was quick to react to her. He kept her from losing balance as he calculated their escape. She could smell the acrid contents of the vials as he threw them, and she knew that she must away from here. She was fighting many things, her mind was slow and she didn't remember. Her body was numb, she couldn't feel. There was something not right with her, more than the obvious. Something that was hidden from her.

She followed Castor with unsteady steps, he was trying to protect her, she couldn't continue to bog him down. Then, through the daggers of snow and icy rain, Petra, a goddess in her own rights was before them. She was urging them onwards, not to give up.

The shudder of the earth beneath them as Norvyk landed was nearly enough to topple Margot. She could feel the electricity in the air as the massive dragon covered their retreat. She was losing focus again, Petra's firm grip on her as she tried to explain giving the girl some clarity. She felt the world starting to slip sideways again, Petra's pleading eyes begging for understanding made the abused knight nod. Yes. Norvyk would bring her home.
 
CASTOR

The chaotic escape to the clearing had been but a blur to the Sworn. He slung cantrip after cantrip in attempt to slow their pursuers down. His strategy seemingly effective to some extent seeing as how he wasn't dead. There was still time for all that as Norvyk was nowhere to be seen. Castor steadied Margot so he could focus on his magiks. A haphazard wall of mana separated the two knights from a litany of hostile spells.

Castor turned at the sound of the dragon's appearance, bracing himself as the ground shook moments later. Needing no further encouragement, he urged the Pursuant towards their scaled savior. A brief lapse of concentration, however, was all it took to invite danger. Castor swore as pain lanced through the back of his right shoulder. He'd been hit by something, but there was no time to figure out what.

Destructive lightning arced past them, making it unlikely for Castor to be hit a second time. Fortunately Petra had a clearer head than he as he quickly figured out how best to accommodate Margot in her current condition.

Muttering prayers to gods he didn't believe in, the Knight Anathaeum made sure his harness was tight. Castor was certain he wasn't going to enjoy whatever happened next.
 
Water clung curls to Petra's face, and she struggled to see through the rain to locate where the blood was coming from on her dragon, let alone if it was even his. Still, she couldn't help but run relieved fingers over his scales, trying to stop their tremble as Norvyk lowered himself for Castor to climb up.

"Rider." His familiar rumble rolled through her mind and the ability to hear him once more in her head almost sent the Dawnling to her knees.

The urgency to leave ate at her chest. But she couldn't help herself. The fear for her dragon's safety had caught up with her and her breath shook in her throat, she needed to make sure he was okay,

Rain sluiced rivulets between the joinings of his emerald scales and Petra stepped into his shoulder, pretending to adjust the leather straps that secured his saddle as an excuse to continue checking him over.

"Rider." He insisted, but Petra ignored him. Glancing up to be sure Castor had settled into the saddle and clipped himself in. She made to walk to Norvyk's left hind, where he seemed to be favoring his leg from what she suspected was an injury.

"Let me just—" A piercing screech tore through her words.

"RIDER. Enough." He snarled, whipping his head round to bare his teeth at Petra. The elf only snarled back at him in challenge.

"Fine." She acquiesced through gritted teeth. Grabbing a side strap, she hoisted herself up into the saddle and sat in front of Castor, Norvyk already lurching to all fours while she clipped in.

From the direction of the clearing where they had found Margot, came the haunting beats of flapping wings.

One, two, three, no, four sets on the wind.

Her heart leapt into her throat and trepidation bottomed her stomach as she squinted through the grey skies, trying to find a visual for what hunted them. There— a flash of mouths full of needle teeth. Rows of fangs made for ripping and tearing muscle from bone. Ragged black gums that bled from the sharp bits that controlled their long snake-like heads, reminiscent of dragons, but only dragons that had been borne from the depths of caves. Grey fetid skin that shunned the light, never to know the warmth of the sun or a kind hand. These were creatures made for malice. Made for death. The visions from Norvyk's head made flesh. And they were headed right for them— the dark shaped bodies astride their backs shocking Petra into action.

"In the air now! We'll cover you." She desperately searched the thundering clouds, with three people, she doubted even Norvyk could outrun those rabid hounds of the sky for long.

But she was sure they had one advantage that the cultists did not. Norvyk was a storm dragon. He was made for this weather, born from it. A master of its winds and a child of its crackling lightning. All they had to do was lure the enemy into that storm and they would have them.

"There! Norvyk, into the eye of the storm! We can take them from the inside!" She shouted over the tempest.

Norvyk answered with a bone-chilling rumble that begged for vengeance and his pound of flesh.

Gingerly, Norvyk collected Margot to his chest and wrapped a delicate collection of talons around her middle securely. A pained hiss escaped his maw as he bunched and launched from the earth with his injured back hind.

But the wind ate the sound and the only one who flinched was Petra.
 
MARGOT

Margot was aware to an extent of what was happening, but her reactions and thoughts couldn't perceive really what was going on. She knew her friends, and she knew her enemies. She knew to trust Petra, and when the storm dragon towered over her, she accepted his presence with an ease that should have made even her flinch in a normal state of mind.

Spells, and grumbles, and screeches slurred around her in the rain, but she stood firm and waiting. Her thoughts purely on what Petra had demanded of her so fervently. She shouldn't even be standing right now, but there was something beyond her that compelled her into action. Even the cold wasn't biting her into submission like it should, though those hits were bound to be coming after safety was reached.

Norvyk gingerly wrapped his talons around her, securing her against his chest. Despite him being a dragon of the storms, she could feel a heat through the scales on his chest. It was soothing to her, despite being wrapped in weapons meant for shredding and decimating. Home. He would bring her Home.
 
CASTOR

"Oh, oh bloody gods," swore the knight as they took to the air. Castor was not a man easily shaken. He'd spent his early years on the sea, the buck and sway which often nauseated others. It turned out the world was a far bigger place than he'd imagined. Never did Castor think to be on the back of a dragon, let alone in the most dire of situations. He gripped the saddle tight as they took to the sky amidst unending chaos.

A cacophony of shrill screeches was enough to pierce the din of combat. Castor turned to see what could only be described as winged abominations. His instincts kicked in as he attempted to urge the dragon forward, but quickly realized the futility of his efforts. This was no Kaliti steed and he sure as hells wasn't its master.

"The inside of what?!" Castor called from the back. He knew she couldn't have been talking about this massive godsdamned storm. Surely this was not their best option. Yet any argument he could've made was subdued by their alacritous needs. The Sworn instead turned his attention inwards as he focused on gathering mana. A dull crimson shield began to coalesce around Margot's limp body. Whatever was to come was not likely to be gentle to anyone, let alone a person on the verge of death.

A sharp sound whizzed passed his ear only moments later. Castor barely caught glimpse of the projectile and yet knew that it would easily skewer him.

He may be the only sailor in history keen to wade into a storm.
 
As Norvyk flew them into the tempest and up, the deafening roar of the wind enveloped them, swallowing anything less than a shout to communicate.

"Keep them off, Castor!" Petra yelled over her shoulder.

Leaving Castor to the offensive, Petra tried to focus inward amongst the chaos. Evening her breathing while she poured her own magic into Norvyk's efforts. Bolstering him with all she had. If they could just make it to the eye of the storm. Petra had never done that before, let alone with other people on board, but her gut was telling her to trust her dragon to see them through.

Rain hammered against them, stinging her skin like a thousand angry hornets. And this deep into the storm, when the great cacophonous thunder boomed, it shook her teeth and the very marrow of her bones. Yet still Norvyk flew, trying to find the center like a homing pigeon, his massive wings catching purchase in the high winds, while also trying to dodge magical onslaughts, forcing him to flap relentlessly, providing an opportunity for the cultists to close the gap.

A movement above made Petra gasp and raise her arms to defend them, but she was too late and a cultist on their fell beast slammed into Norvyk's neck from above and their tangled bodies plummeted through the air.

"Hold on!" Petra's cry merged with Norvyk's enraged roar. The beast's talons were like that of a bat's and sunk their hooks into Norvyk's scales, a cultist clinging to its back. Petra's heart raced as they fell, holding onto her saddle and screaming Norvyk's name, trying to orient herself enough to even cast something to save him, save them. Through the rain she watched the fell beast almost find purchase behind Norvyk's head to sink its rows of serrated teeth into his spine, yet fail when her dragon's spiraling horns kept knocking it away.

Still, they fell, locked in a desperate and deadly aerial ballet, Norvyk unable to dislodge the winged horror due to holding onto Margot, refusing to let her go.

But it wasn't until the air began to stink with the rancid chanting of whatever spell the cultist was preparing that Petra felt her dragon's intent. With barely a moment to spare, she threw her arm back to grab hold of Castor as best she could, screaming at him to duck low and then she flattened in her saddle as Norvyk struggled to tuck his wings into his body from their freefall, and instead of trying to shake the beast loose— he dove from the sky. Petra yelled as she fought to keep her grip on Castor and one on her saddle. It was then that the storm dragon began to spin. Corkscrewing through the air at breakneck speeds, death rolling this fell beast from his body like a rabid crocodile. The cultist clung to his creature, but without a saddle he had nothing to hold onto but his rain slicked reins. With a shocked yell the man was wrenched from his beast and lost to the skies. The riderless fell creature screeched incoherently as it tried to hang on, but it too came loose from the velocity and tumbled away into the dark storm after its master.

Another moment they span and suddenly Norvyk snapped his wings open and lurched them from their free dive. Panting, Petra rested her head briefly against the front of her saddle, that maneuver having even shaken her fortitude of the sky. But she sighed past the nausea and instead in relief at still feeling Castor's weight behind her. Glancing down passed an emerald scaled shoulder, she could see the rain slicked blonde head of their Pursuant, Margot.

Finally, she noticed the strange quiet, an uneasy respite from the storm's wrath and looked around. Swirling dark gusts of wind and clouds still surrounded them, flaring with the bright light of dancing lighting, but they were distant now. The pocket of air that Norvyk was hovering in was eerily calm. And for now, devoid of even the fell beasts that had been upon them moments ago.

They had found the eye of the storm.
 
MARGOT

Margot was protected in the mighty grip of the storm dragon, though not immune to the lashing of the wind and rain that befell them. She hummed softly, seemingly unawares in his clawed embrace. Glazed eyes stared at nothing; no fear touched her delicate features. She stared out from her new tomb, watching the world dip and sway, and plummet beneath her.

She couldn't hear her companions, a trust imbedded in her knew they would keep her safe. Her ears pounded with the sound of the storm, her heart matched the rumble. She was going to go home, they were going to bring her home. It stopped suddenly, maybe she had gone deaf. There was nothing but dead air holding them up now. Maybe they had died after all. Slow slurred words, her tongue thick against the roof of her mouth. "Are we dead Norvyk?" Though she knew he would not answer. A senile smile on her lips, she stroked his claw with grubby hands, sinking once again into her mania.
 
CASTOR

"I'm a knight not a damned dragon!" He shouted back. Their foes closed in but Castor was limited in his options. He was starting to favor his odds against an unending swarm of cultists on the ground than a handful of fellbeasts in the sky. Their desperate fealty had been given to one ineffable soul. Baleful gazes hounding unperturbed by even the strongest squall. He could only wonder what men could do against such reckless hate...

Castor could only do what he had always done, that which he was capable. He reached to his side and pulled a trio of vials, contents sordid in appearance. Words unheard through storm and known by few were chanted without error. Castor tossed them over his shoulder as if separating wheat from chaff. His hands formed a steeple of faith forgotten. Old magick surged through his body bringing both power and pain.

"Cease," he spake in a tone of the iciest calm.

Glass vials shattered and coalesced into a being that could only be described as a demon. Hands of horror sprung forth from its ubiquitous form and snatched without abandon. Riders were pulled from saddle and sent flying to their inevitable death. Even the terrifying winged beasts found pause.

Many foes had found their end but not all and Castor was spent. Petra would find her grip on Castor all too easy as he slipped from consciousness. He wouldn't know at the time how she'd saved his life.

He came to conscious in the calm. His sentiments echoed Margot's though his words were certainly not as gentle.
"We best not be dead Darthinian. Gods should've least given me solid ground in the next life."
 
With a manic laugh that was born of sharp relief, Petra patted the part of Castor's leg that she could reach, a comically wet slap from their drenched clothes. "Nay, Castor. I don't imagine that we would be going to the same place if that were the case."

Taking a moment to assess that they were all indeed in one piece, she leaned forward to see what damage she could that was prevented by her dragon's scales. Her hand trailing with concern along his neck, as she felt Norvyk shudder beneath them.

Through their bond, she spoke to him.

"Norvyk, speak to me. I can feel you're hurt."

A reluctant rumble emitted from his chest. "They will have to do more than try and bite at me with the feathers they call teeth to break my hide and render me from these skies." His following hiss was filled with indignant venom. "They are poor copies of a superior mold."

Petra did not find his words as reassuring as she wanted to. She could feel the pain in his neck, the trembling in his hind where he bled freely, and the ache in his wings as if it were her own, albeit only an echo of what Norvyk suffered. But he would live and that's all she cared about.

Yet, as if fate heard her thoughts and thought them a challenge, there was a great crack of thunder at the edges of the storm around them. And through that booming, she could hear the shrill screeching of more fellbeasts. Fighting the winds to get to them and no doubt tear their bodies from the sky.

"Motherfuckers. They just won't quit! Hold on!" Baring her teeth, she gathered her wits and her soaked reins and redirected her dragon in the only direction they could escape to—up. There, through the eye of the needle at the top of this raging tempest, could she glimpse calm and clear skies.

Her dragon answered her with a great flourish of his wings and turned to that beacon above them with a roar, his wings pumping great buffets of air as he climbed in a steady spiral. Small residual sparks arcing from the edges of the storm to dance against the scales of his underbelly.

Petra held her breath and stayed the hope that warred with the anxiety in her chest. They were on a knife's edge. Outnumbered, yes. But if fate favored them, they would not be outmaneuvered before the sanctuary of the Monastery crested the horizon.
 
MARGOT

The clothes she wore, if you could call them that, clung to her thin and malnourished frame. She was soaked to the bone, her lips turning purple as the rain fell like needles on her skin. The wind felt like razors, tearing at delicate flesh as Norvyk kept them aloft. She had tears in her swollen and bruised eyes as she realized she was causing friends pain; they were trying so hard for her. Maybe it would have been better if she had frozen in the snow instead.

Thunder erupted around them, lightning dancing through the clouds that surrounded them. The hellish screeches of predator seeking prey filtered through the booming voice of the Gods. Margot lifted her head to the heavens, her hair plastered to her face as she silently pleaded for their escape. She could feel the vibrations as Norvyk beat his mighty wings, the roar that reverberated in his chest. There was hope, and Margot knew now that they would not be caught. They would make it; she could count on them. An arc of lightning seared past them, the sizzle of static electricity making her teeth chatter. The shrieking of the enemy was closer, but the scent of burnt flesh too was about them. Their foes would not chase them unscathed, be it from dragon, magic, or the wild of the storm itself.
 
CASTOR

"Oh hells," he managed to mutter as the dragon began its ascent. Castor knew logically this was the best option but he still didn't give a damn. He did his best to grip the saddle tightly but his body remained weak from the previous spell. Honestly he'd half a mind to just slip back into unconsciousness and hope for the best. The ever-growing shrieks, however, brought him back to his senses. He couldn't see any of the fellbeasts just yet but clearly they had no intention of giving up.

And so the dragon continued to climb. Rain and wind battered their bodies, accompanied by the ever-so-close arc of lightning. They seemed to empower Norvyk. Castor doubted the effect on his body would be quite the same.

"Incoming!" The Sworn yelled up to Petra just as dark bolt raced past the side of him, barely missing the dragon's head. Even in this maelstrom, Castor could vaguely sense the cultists' vile magiks. He turned to see a single fellbeasts desperately attempting to gain ground. It had been badly marred by the storm but neither the mount nor rider seemed to care. Their purpose was singular. Final. Unflinching.

Castor's hands were already in motion, body before brain; the age-old formula preceding doing something properly stupid. Lightning flashed. He began to count. A dagger in hand, he spoke elemental words of power. Twelve breaths, lightning flashed again. He waited for four breaths, muttered a final arcane phrase, and flung the blade downward. Imbued with sorcery, it flew straight and true.

Then the twelfth breath came again. This time the lightning arced with hungry purpose to the dagger of enhanced metallic properties. The small blade which crested just before the cultist's blinded view. Rider and beast screamed as their bodies became unwilling conduits before falling from the sky as charred husks. He was ready to praise himself but was instead met with the telltale sound of leather snapping. Even the most well-made harnesses had their limits apparently.

The knight clung to the remaining leather tighter than his first love.
 

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me." Petra snarled through her teeth, twisting in her saddle to track the returned fellbeast, Norvyk roared goadingly in its diving wake, the fellbeast shooting just outside of his snapping jaws.

The freezing rain had plastered her curls to her head, but adrenaline was racing too hot in her blood and she felt nothing but the thrill of the chase and battle and the electric dance of rage contained in the dragon beneath her. She half-listened to Syr Vega casting curses at the advancing cultists. The dawnling just prayed that it was enough.

Suddenly, Norvyk found a thermal within the tempest and the leather of his wings snapped where they caught the gale, hurtling them sharply skyward at the same time that a crack of lightning struck below them, the charred keening of a fellbeast fading with the wind. Petra went to look behind them when she felt part of her saddle lurch backwards, sending icy stabs of panic into her heart.

"Cast-?!" She began to yell, but then she felt the rest of his leather harness give and break and she screamed through the pain as her arm wrenched painfully backwards, twisted as it was to death grip the side of his tunic. She would not let him fall. She could not.

"Grab onto me! We're just going to have to outrun them!" Her other grip transferred to his forearm that she wrapped strongly around her middle. They would lose the cover fire, but Petra would rather that, than lose Castor entirely.

They hurtled closer to the blue of the sky above, the light at the end of their dark tunnel. The rabid screams of more fellbeasts crying out beneath them, chasing them down like hounds on the heels of a bleeding stag. Just a little more, please, please, they could make it.

Cloistering clouds whipped past them, shrouding them in flickering darkness. A flash of red light speared her vision and Norvyk jolted and roared. A moment more and they broke through the cloud cover, the open blue sky all around them.

"NOW, NORVYK!" Petra yelled and even the wind seemed to quiet for a gathered breath. A high keening sound rang out around them, teetering on the edge of their hearing, causing all the hair on Petra's arm to raise and she grit her teeth as a too bright blue light snaked a path up her dragon's neck. A crackling energy charged the air around them and Norvyk aimed his head down, facing the writhing black tendrils of the storm just as the flock of fellbeasts finally broke through the top like hornets from a hive.

Norvyk shuddered beneath them and roared at the same time that a sonorous boom split the air and great bolts of frenetic blue lightning hurtled from his maw. Arcing down with a lethal vengeance until it hit the mob of fellbeasts. The beasts and cultists made no sound, but their jaws were open in silent screams as their bodies contorted with savage energy that danced in sparks between them. The air flaring with the stink of burnt ozone and hot metal.

Raw power continued to torrent out of Norvyk's body, until each one, fell, blackened and limp from the sky like marionettes whose puppeteer had cut their strings.
 
MARGOT

Their skyward dance did not mean they were safe, that was all too apparent as heavy wing thrusts worked to bring them higher. The screeches of fell beasts below them filled the air with spite and menace. Margot pressed her hands to her ears at the sever change of air pressure, barely able to hear the encroaching enemy as her ears tried to adjust.

She shut her eyes tight at the bright flash of lightening that hit the fell beast, knocking it burnt and silent from the air. It must have Castor that sent that, she wished she could have seen him in action. There was yelling from Petra, frantic, though impossible for Margot to make the words out. She heard nothing from Castor, and her heart began to race as she strained to hear the low tones of his voice.

In her panic, she began to try and extricate herself from the grip of the storm dragon, wanting to help her friends, but her unsound mind giving her poor instructions on appropriate actions. Blue skies briefly stopped her clawing, her heart beating fast, her eyes wide. The shudder of Norvyk, and the light that came next was blinding. Every hair on her body stood on end as if she herself had gotten struck, so powerful was he. She rubbed her eyes as the singed flesh of the enemy beneath them filled the air with their acrid smell. It was soon gone, the smell of the dead. The smell of the storm was still stronger, with the help of Norvyk and his lightening.

Beats later, Margot was back at her plan of extraction. She needed to know that they were safe, that Castor was okay. This was all her fault. This was all her fault. They would be okay if I had just died like i was supposed to.
 
CASTOR

Leather snapped. Once, twice, then nothing. Silence found him in the squall. A lack of sound terrifyingly followed by weightlessness.

Oh, he thought as recognition became reality. He was falling. Like if someone tipped your seat. Except he'd have a touch longer to think about his mistakes before hitting the ground. Castor supposed it wasn't all bad. He'd made good account himself. Few could ask for more. Well, other than living.

His mind struggled for answers, but sometimes the storm just took you.

A jolt. Castor's body lurched. "Fu-" He didn't hear her words but latched onto Petra' strong forearm. Between the two, he wasn't sure whose effort was more responsible for bringing him back to saddle. The Sworn wasn't going to argue the point as he held to his companion as best he could.

Sky. Storm. Sky. His consciousness faded in and out with each subsequent movement.

The stench of char caught him before passing into oblivion yet again. A habit he was apparently developing.

"Please tell me I'm dead this time," groaned the knight as he stirred to lucidity.
 
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