Cináed was leaning back in the saddle, slowly shredding a handful of leaves that he’d snatched as they passed a low-hanging branch. Sheerly out of boredom, he’d occasionally incinerate some of the little pieces, then blow the ashes in Neoma’s direction. Damn, was he bored. The scenery was nice, but when you’d been looking at it for the past several hours… Ugh. Certainly didn’t help that his magic was burnt out badly enough that he’d been stuck looking like that blonde moron for the past hour or two. It was frustrating as hell to be this weak. With a growl, he threw more ashes at the elemental to distract himself.
If Neoma was bothered by the ashes, which, oh by the way, she was, she tried not to show it, letting them blow out of the way, then raise her hand up, twirled it around, letting a ball of shadows form in her hand, then throw it at his back. She seemed to be amusing herself by doing so, if the small smirk on her face proved anything.
He twitched a little as it collided with his back, then twisted partway around to face her. With his free hand, he flipped her off, and then released the remaining leaves - well, okay, the charred remains of them - more directly into her face. The shifter started to grin, but it faded as a shape in the woods caught his eye. He leaned toward it a bit, nearly falling out of his saddle in the process.
She coughed, glaring at him, about to form a new shadow, but just as she was about to throw it at him, she caught his gaze, following it, and noticed the shape as well. It caused her to miss him nearly falling off the saddle. Damn.
To Cináed’s frustration, it was gone almost immediately. “What the hell,” he huffed, but another thing caught his attention. A faint afterimage was in the spot the shape had been, fading fast. A magical creature of some sort, unsurprising giving the location - plenty of types lived in forests, after all. But the magic trace didn’t look very familiar, which was strange. He knew the qualities of quite a few creatures, but this glimpse didn’t seem to match any of them. “What the hell,” he repeated with more interest.
She raised an eyebrow back at him, “What’s up?” She asked, her tone dulled, almost muttered. Because lets all be honest here, how much did she actually care about what he was so confused about. She turned to sit a bit differently on her horse nonetheless, holding herself up with ease on it, and pulled one of her legs over the horse so that she was facing him just a bit more correctly.
“Some weird as fuck creature’s stalking us,” he reported. “Well. Probably. I’m pretty sure we’re the most interesting things in the area, so. Stalking.” He shifted back in the saddle, but continued staring off to the side.
She snorted, “I am almost two hundred and eighty percent sure we aren’t the oddest things in the area, especially not if what you saw has magic,” She commented, kind of offhandedly. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath in before stating, “Still. If something is stalking us, then thats a bit of a problem. Yes?” If she hadn’t said that, she would have sighed.
“No shit, that’s why I said interesting. I mean, this is kinda in the middle of fucking nowhere, so they probably don’t get too many other creatures wandering around.” He made a face at her. “I don’t know where it went. I can’t see it anym- oh, there it is.” The shifter went to point, thought better of it, and just inclined his head toward the spot where he’d caught another flash of it. “So, what do you wanna do about it?”
She stared at him like he had just told her the earth was flat, which, mind you, was absolutely common knowledge that it damn well wasn’t. “What do you think we do?” she asked, more than clearly annoyed at the dumb question. Honestly, Aella of all people could probably pick up on - oh wait, no she couldn’t. “Either we turn and fight them or we go ahead and let them follow us to our next stop. Now tell me which you think is the smarter option here.” Her accent, which we are just now mentioning, grew a bit thicker as she spoke, and caused Luna’s ears to perk up, then twitch.
He raised his hands defensively. “Just making sure you weren’t planning on pulling some diplomatic bullshit. Obviously, you’d rather smack it with a stick. My bad.”
She tapped her fingers against her non-sentient horse, something I have been forgetting to mention up until this point. “Yes, out of all the things you could have chosen to say, you said a stick. When we have so many other magic abilities. Smart,” she grumbled.
“It’s a fucking figure of speech,” he grumbled. “Well, genius, got a strategy for dealing with this thing, since apparently there’s a
with hitting it with a stick?”
She stared at him. “I have shadows, you can shapeshift, and Luna’s a fucking cat. I think we got this, with or without weapons.” She stroked the cat’s fur, who nudged her head up in response.
“Hah, nope. I’m not going to be any help here. Have fun!” He grinned at her, leaning lazily onto the neck of his horse. He tried not to grimace as a bit of blonde hair was swept in front of his eyes. “It’s over there, by the way. Since you can’t see it yet.” He pointed a little ways ahead of them, into the trees.
"You lazy fuckface," she grumbled, glancing down at Luna for a few seconds. "At least you’re going to help me, right?" In response, the cat gave a flick of her ears and leaned into Neoma. Still, her eyes fluttered open, and Neoma nodded. The answer was, in case you were curious, a yes.
"Hey, it’s not MY fault I can’t shapeshift," he told her cheerfully, lifting the hand with the silver ring. The skin was viciously burned, even black on his fingers, but it didn’t seem to be bothering him anymore… which… probably wasn’t a good thing. "I’m useless with it, seeing as I’m not even armed."
She waved him off, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” The horse disintegrated into the ground as she passed over it, kind of looking like it melted into a black puddle of shadows. She turned back to him. “Don’t break a nail back here, alright?” she said, her own long black nails making a slight flicking motion, clawing at the air. It didn’t do much, but around her feet a few shadows lifted up, then fell, acting like waves for a moment. Then it was calm. Like a drop of water falling on a still pond. Only there was no water, and nothing dropped.
Cináed only grinned at her. Honestly, he was a bit torn on how he was hoping this would go. It may not even be a fight at all. But if it was… well, it would be funny as hell if Neoma got her ass kicked, and he was pretty sure she deserved it. Then again, if that happened, he was definitely fucked. He hadn’t been lying when he said he was practically useless at the moment. He nudged the horse toward the side of the path, away from the pair in the center, at the thought. The last thing he wanted to be was a target.
Oh, right. He should probably be paying more attention to where that creature was. Or, he corrected himself, his surroundings in general. Because how could he miss the kid who’d apparently been sitting, watching them, on the side of the road? The movement of him standing and brushing himself off, however, was enough to draw Cináed’s attention - that, and a rather faint haze hovering around him. It didn’t quite match the flashes within the trees, but it was similar enough to leave the shapeshifter staring in mild confusion.
Neoma seemed to have noticed him, if she hadn’t done so a while ago, and as they walked she glanced over him. There was a small paused, but she stayed silent as they approached him. Not really because they wanted to, no, simply because he was on the path they were going. Glancing down at Luna, it was pretty obvious she was biting back a comment on something, even in her cat form. Oh, if only she was in her human form. It would be amusing to hear what she had to say.
He watched them approach for a few moments. Then he took a small step forward, so that he wasn’t quite blocking their path, but not entirely out of their way, either. “Hello,” he greeted in faintly accented French. “Are the two of you travelers?” His eyes flicked from Neoma to Cináed once before settling on the closer of the two.
It was somewhat silent between the three of them, before Neoma coughed and gave a nod. “We are, actually. I don’t believe the town we’re going to is too far away, actually.” Her expression practically screamed, ‘Wow, this kid is strange.’ No, honestly. Who would hide in the shadows until they see someone, then actually talk to them? Humans were weird…
He blatantly ignored the look on her face. “If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from? Another part of France?” The tone he used was friendly enough, and he was smiling, but his shoulders were tense and he’d moved to clasp his hands behind his back.
Neoma simply shook her head, “We’ve traveled from Spain as a group, but individually, we’re from…Er. No where. Never mind,” She would have said England, but it kind of occurred to her that, shit, weren’t England and France in a war at the moment? Yeah, might not be the best idea to say they were from England. She glanced over at Cinaed and gave a nod. Actually fucking speak asshole.
As Cináed just smirked at her, clearly trying not to laugh, the polite smile stretched into an amused grin. “So… two women from Nowhere are travelling from Spain - who is currently quite busy rebelling against France, by the way - with a cat that certainly doesn’t look native to Europe. Is that right?”
"… Shit." Neoma seemed to have realized her mistake. She accepted their fate and took a small step back. "What even is with all these European countries at war with each other in this time period anyway," she grumbled softly to herself, running a hand through her hair. The cat in question seemed to have stalked behind him, positioning itself down on its haunches, like it was ready to jump any moment, there and then.
He didn’t seem to have a response for that. Instead, he said, inclining his head toward where Neoma’s shadow horse had dissolved, “That was an interesting trick with the horse, by the way.”
"You saw that, huh? Well, seeing as you aren’t freaking the fuck out, I’m assuming you’re either not human or spend your time around creatures that aren’t human," she commented, not looking relieved by that fact in the slightest.
"It was a little hard to miss," he said drily. “But yes, I have seen worse. I do have to ask - what exactly are you doing here, really?” At least he didn’t seem to be particularly aggressive. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he’d barely moved at all from the fairly relaxed stance he’d originally taken.
“Well yeah, I wasn’t exactly trying to hide it. You seemed to be hiding yourself though…nice job, by the way.” She nodded, and after a few seconds spoke again, “Relax. There’s just…a lot of energy here. I need it to get home. Be out of your hair in no time. Him? Er, you might have to deal with him on your own.”
“I didn’t do that,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “And… you know, I doubt the ones responsible for that energy would appreciate you taking advantage of it.”
Neoma glanced back at him with her eyebrows raised, then shook her head. Just because she didn’t give a shit doesn’t mean he had to over react on this, “Its not like we’re actively taking their magic. We’re literally just using the pretty much dead magic to travel. Every creature that travels magically does it. Oh. Except witches. They can produce enough of their own magic to do it on their own,” She waved him off as she took a small step forward, looking down at him as she did.
He leaned back a little as she stepped toward him, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “I’ll assume from that statement that you wouldn’t be a witch. What does that make you, then?”
She pursed her lips, giving a light, amused hum. “Honestly? I don’t believe you want to know what we are. Especially not at the moment. I’m not a witch though. Arguably less powerful than one, depending on what aspect we’re talkin’ about.” She had a thoughtful look in her eyes for a moment, but said nothing.
"I think I would rather know," he responded a bit stiffly, looking faintly irritated by the lack of response. "What aspects do you mean?"
She raised her eyebrows. “For someone who recognized us as having magic, which, okay was slightly my fault, you know nothing,” Neoma commented, waving him off, just as she had been doing.
“How insulting. I spend every minute of my life studying magical creatures,” he deadpanned. “Frankly, a blind bear could figure out that you were doing magic.”
She nearly snorted, “Every minute of your life, huh? I bet you couldn’t tell me seven different kinds of witch magic, let alone tell what I am.” The shifter couldn’t either, but she was trying to sass him, so technicalities didn’t come into question here.
“If I could tell what you are, I certainly wouldn’t have asked. I do have a life, you know. I try to avoid magical creatures. Especially witches. I would very much have liked to avoid you, too, but that obviously didn’t work out.”
"Listen, if you were trying to avoid us, you wouldn’t have approached us, you shit. Obviously, you don’t study magic if you can’t name a witch’s magic. They’re the most common kind of creature to possess any sort of physically altering ability. I’m starting to get annoyed with this, will you move already?"
“Of course I don’t study magic! I was being completely sarcastic!” He was clearly starting to get pretty fed up himself. “I’m only talking to you right now so that you don’t get shot in the back of the head!”
"It’s not like it would kill me…the bullet would be a pain in the ass to get out," she grumbled, mostly to herself. She sighed and moved to take a small step back, glancing at the boy’s shadow, just for a second.
“I never said it would be with a bullet,” he corrected more quietly. “I know it would fry a witch’s brain. I don’t know about yours, but either way, it would do a bit more harm than a gun.”
Cináed made a coughing noise from his horse. “You know what, I really think we should just go now. Sound good? Good.” He nudged the horse so that it shifted sideways a bit, and the boy’s gaze immediately went from Neoma to him.
She narrowed her eyes at him, and with a quick, flick of her hand, a short shadow Rose from the ground, in a long vine-like motion. Only when she circled and clenched her fist did it gently wrap around his left ankle, tightly holding him in place. Despite that, he probably wouldn’t notice it. She hoped so, anyway.
"You know what, you’re right. I think it’s time to go." She stepped back, raising her arms up in an ‘I give’ motion. The ocelot at her feet stood, looking at the shadow that had wrapped around his ankle for a few seconds, then back to Neoma, like she was ready to go.
He looked back to her, not soon enough to notice the gesture, nor did he notice the shadow around his ankle. “I really wouldn’t, if I were you.
, just answer the question. They still consider you a threat. I would prefer this not to come to a fight for something as silly as withholding basic information.”
"It’s really none of your business. I think there’s a higher chance of you and your friends getting hurt then there is of us," she grumbled. She glared at him, then looked back to Cináed. "Come on, you said you wanted to leave, let’s go."
He tilted his head upward and sighed. “I understand that you would prefer the privacy, but do you really want to risk any of you getting hu-” he broke off abruptly, and an expression somewhere between upset and annoyed flashed across his face as he looked past both of them, into the trees on the other side of the path. “Oh no, Nadezhda-”
Cináed turned quickly enough to see exactly what the ‘oh no’ was about. “Holy fucking shit!” He twisted off the horse in a move that was… pretty impressive, actually, considering he was stuck in Aella’s body at the moment. The projectile, whatever it was, just barely missed him, but was moving with enough force that when it grazed the horse, the creature was knocked sideways before it reared and bolted.
The fact that he was cut off was already an alarm to her. Neoma’s eyes widened, her body jerking harshly as she moved to step off to the side. Nice movement too, seeing as only moments later, there was a rush of air moving past her in the place she had been. She hissed and spun on her heels. “What the hell!” She glanced over at the kid. “What is this thing?” she snapped. Dark streams of liquid shot up out of the ground, forming into balls that hovered above the palms of her hands.
He was a too distracted to answer right away, seeing as the second attack had come uncomfortably to him. Rather than moving, though, he just raised his left hand toward it, and the chain bracelet that was around his wrist sparked. The projectile seemed to hit an invisible shield, scattering out into little beams of light before dissolving. With a huff, he hissed, “Fantastic, now you’ve gone and used up her patience! This is
what I was trying to avoid.” His free hand went to his waist, and he pulled a crescent-shaped blade from underneath his coat.
Still unbalanced from the last movement, Cináed was forced to ungracefully hop sideways to keep the second set of attacks from nailing him. As it was, it still managed to graze his already damage arm, but he didn’t even wince at that. He quickly regained his footing with a hiss, trying to spot exactly where this creature was. The faint trails from the attacks were already disappearing, but he could tell the general location. He pointed with his good hand. “Neoma, over there.”
When given the directions on where their attacker was, Neoma’s arm swung up, sending what almost looked like a black disc flying in the general direction, speeding into the trees like a large bullet. She took a small step back so that she was standing in the shadows of the trees, giving her a little more power if she would need it. At this point she wasn’t aiming to harm, simply to locate.
At the sight of the blade, Luna, who had been pulled back with an arched back and stiffened legs (despite the fact her form had been completely ready to pounce), leaped forward, practically bouncing off of the ground. Her claws scraped against the ground in her lift off, pushing the dirt back as it steadied her balance. Within moments, her claws were ripping through his pants, digging into his skin. After leaving the long scratch, she landed rather gracefully for someone that had just torn skin out of a guy, tail twitching as her big gold eyes blinked up at him a bit too innocently.
A large burst of light flashed out of the trees, blocking the disc. Immediately following that, another pair of beams shot back, this time with both aimed at Neoma.
He nearly dropped the blade, letting out a pained gasp as her claws shredded skin. He went to twist away from her… only to yelp and jerk painfully sideways as his trapped ankle didn’t move. With the position he stopped in, he’d definitely wrenched it, if it wasn’t sprained or broken. He grabbed for a second blade, this one thinner and longer, and swiped at her with it.
Neoma had to shield her eyes from the light. Like her eyes weren’t sensitive enough as it was, she needed bursts of light in it too. Okay, toning the sarcasm down a bit - they were fighting, after all. When the beams were shot at her, she didn’t exactly have a lot of time. Her feet stomped on the ground, a wall of black lifting from the ground below her, looking like fogged up glass that was tinted black. It took the blow, hardening before her only to crack and scatter, forcing Neoma back a bit with her heels dragging in the ground.
Using the remaining inky balls in her hand, she threw them both off to the side. They hovered around her, turning long, sharp, and almost needle-like in shape. Then they shot forward, aimed at nothing. They hit Luna and Cináed and simply sunk into the shadows that were formed against their bodies. She wasn’t exactly aiming to harm them. Everything else, they stuck up like darts thrown against a wall, or sunk into the ground when they hit the murky black pools under the trees.
Luna… didn’t even flinch at Neoma’s attack. She didn’t feel it, and she was so focused on the human in front of her that it was questionable if she even noticed it. Her eyes flicked up to the blade, but she bounced forward again, aiming to graze his non-injured leg.
The kid cried out as the dartlike shadows bit into his back, but he had already started the movement of his counter attack on Luna, and that wasn’t enough to stop him. The crescent blade - now properly held, the blade curling over his knuckles - swept down even as the dagger missed.
Another bright shield shimmered for a moment, but slightly fainter. The follow-up attack, though, was much faster - the creature had apparently moved much closer through the trees. Cináed’s head jerked up as the magic haze concentrated in his vision. “It’s up in the fucking branches, literally straight ahead of you!” he snapped at Neoma. As he looked, a more solid color suddenly came into view for a moment - were those feathers? - before another attack came through. This time, though, it was aimed directly at him, and it was way too fast to avoid unless he shifted… which he couldn’t.
He really didn’t want to do this, but…
Then, there was a sharp
, and there was the distinct smell of burnt metal as the ring shattered. Silver magic seemed to explode outward from his - Aella’s - body, dissolving the attack completely. Then it just kind of… faded out of sight.
Neoma’s body turned at the sound of Cináed’s directions. However, by the time she had prepared her attack, Cináed, that coward, was fleeing from Aella’s body. Neoma’s hand twisted up, the shadows around her forcing up and above her body, shielding the girl from possible attacks. She honestly hadn’t even noticed that her ring had shattered yet. “I think that’s enough,” she commented, body still stiff and on alert. “Luna, back off him.”
At the last attack, Luna had successfully sunk her teeth into the boy’s flesh, the metallic red leaking out of her mouth and around the bite. Ew, that must have tasted terrible. At the same time she had bit down, the blade came down on her, causing her to give a pained noise in the bite. She didn’t let go, result in her getting a small… er, chunk of flesh in her mouth. She was forced back, and only after she was laying on the ground did she turn human. She spit out what was in her mouth, giving a small ‘Bleh.’ “Not going to argue,” she grumbled, lifting herself up with a bit of difficulty. There was a gash on her side, blood staining the clothing, which was unripped and clean.
There was a soft thud as the creature dropped to the ground and stepped partially out of the woods. To be perfectly honest, it… well, she, apparently… wasn’t all that intimidating. She was downright tiny, barely Aella’s height, if that (and Aella’s head barely even reached Neoma’s chin, so that was saying something). She actually looked pretty similar to Aella in general, actually, with the blonde hair and the blue eyes, just paler. Oh, but there were also the huge white wings that were still partially extended for balance. That was a small difference.
She started in a language that definitely was not French, then caught herself. “I’m not done with you yet!” she snapped, sounding and looking insulted. The statement was kind of offset by her completely blowing her cover, though. Genius.
Her attention went completely off of Neoma in the next moment, though, when the kid dropped both weapons as his knees buckled. There was an ugly snapping sound as his already damaged ankle broke, and he half-stifled a scream by biting down hard on his knuckles. Shit, that was probably bleeding now. “Dillon!” The angel-creature-thing moved right past Neoma toward him, definitely not whapping Luna in the face with one wing. Nope, that didn’t happen at all.
Neoma had been a little more prepared for something a bit… bigger, maybe? This creature was actually kind of cute… then again, she had seen power before in tiny things, so maybe it was for the best if she didn’t judge a book by its cover. She did seem to relax a little, an almost amused smirk on her face as the woman yelled at her. She didn’t even glance over to Dillon at the sound of bone snapping, stepping off to the side to allow her through. She tried to stay calm as she moved over to Luna, but it was a bit too obvious that she was panicked as she bolted over to her. “You’re okay, right?” she asked with a small tilt to her head. The girl gave her a thumbs up, but the expression on her face was pained and forced. It was better just leaving her be than to pry information out of her (years of traveling with her had told her that), so she sighed and started over to Aella.
The shadows fell around her, sinking into the ground, and the one holding Dillon in place, curled and metallic, softened and wilted until there was nothing left. “He can’t fight anymore and these two are hurt. Let us through without a fight and we’ll be out of your hair in a few days. If you don’t let us through, I won’t hesitate to snap those wings off your back and burn them to ash.” She picked the blonde up with a little too much ease. Her expression was angry, and voice dripped with rage. “This fight was useless.”
"That is exactly what I said, if you had listened," Dillon ground out. With his leg freed, he was able to shift his weight off his injuries without jarring his ankle any further. He leaned back with his eyes closed, taking slow, deep breaths.
The woman stood in front of him with her arms crossed, wings spreading a bit to half block his from their vision. “I’d like to see you try.” She paused when the kid tugged one of her feathers in protest, then said grudgingly, “You’ll need to leave
. All three of you.”
"You’re the one that attacked us." She placed Aella on her back before starting over to Luna, eyes suddenly looking a little tired for a moment. It passed over, and she shook her head. "That’s what we’re doing. If you leave us alone, we’ll be out of your hair in a few days." She continued to walk, like she wasn’t totally pissing off the two French assholes. Luna followed, stumbling a bit as she followed her at first.
He chose not to argue that point, though the angel women’s wings ruffled a bit, giving her a clearly indignant appearance. She still looked like she would quite happily blast Neoma in the back of the head, but with a quick glance at the injured kid, she unhappily stayed put and watched them leave. “You had better be gone by the end of the week. We’ll be watching to make sure.”
Neoma had no shame in offering the angel a middle finger. That was still an insult during this time, right? Right. Anyway, middle finger, blahblahblah. She sighed and simply moved into town, carrying Aella on her back, Luna leaning against her.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
