Nausea radiated throughout Roger's body, peeling the warmth from his skin and blossoming into a wretched choking cough that colored the grass he lay on a bright arterial red. Moving his legs produced an immediate cramp in his ribs, followed by a sickening crunch. He was a crumbling wall of wet dog. His tongue weighed a thousand pounds, and his last whine was steeped in iron.
"God knows how much I love you, my dearest Madeline"
----
Smoke snakes it way through the floorboards into the cellar, ascending into Ander's nostrils. The Kneeling Man is burning alive and not a single dirty rug or posh bottle of whiskey is going to survive the inferno. His entire life is about to be ground into a fine ash by the boot heels of his own ignominious inaction.
"Bloody feckin' hell! Get outta my way!" he practically yelps as his arms tense and flail at the bodies around him, the crowd like so much dirt on a newly planted coffin. The ink isn't going to dry on ol' Anders death certificate, no sir! He reaches the ladder they'd all descended and with a fist he punches the wooden square with all the emotion in his flaring soul.
Pain promptly reminds him willpower only gets you so far as his knuckles barely raise the boards an inch before slapping back down into the indent they've inhabited for years. Cursing in gibberish he allows some of his wild anger to leak out with the blood dripping out of his hand, and with the sliver of clarified focus that pain brings he is able to discern that -pushing- is a more appropriate method to gain his freedom.
----
Ulgar drew his bow back with the strength only the newly hopeless are capable of achieving. He knew there was no place in the Thousand for cripples. This short, dainty, red-haired piece of shit had ruined his leg. -HIS FUCKING LEG!- that'd spent so many god-awful years holding him upright in the pitch black underground waiting to be called upon. One of his molars split from the tension in his jaw, and the nocked arrow began to smolder with raw heat; hairs of deep maroon flame flickering in the wind dancing through the broad-head.
He remembered making this particular fellow. It'd taken a whole day to construct, to tweak the fletching's angles just right so the flight was true. He'd sharpened the blades to an edge he was righteously proud of.
Every single pillar and scrap of his being went into this moment. The fire's dance on the blade was now a riot, the bow's arms screaming for vengeance.
snap. went everything
----
Grogoth watched the world in slow motion from a noble stance amongst the sodden grass and thistles. The elf running towards the tavern was throwing up streaks of mud in a sprint, making comical progress with how often she was slipping.
His eyes were bare to the evening air, the moisture comforting somehow; His natural calm felt at home. It was why he'd been chosen to lead. Why the explosion that now tore the entire side of the tavern into a blazing crimson holocaust only made him turn his cheek in reverence to the heat, not submission.
----
Leecia combed through the layers of shock and fear that unfolded on top of her but she couldn't escape. She could wait, or she could fight. No, wait, she couldn't... you can't cut air with a sword, even a royal one. Her father's useless prayer strangled her stuffed rabbit Leonile as he hung from her waist. She couldn't focus. Couldn't stop thinking couldn't. Could + Not? What's the point of saying those noises, anyways?
The light, oh my god-that-I'm-not-sure-exists there is a light. This is my escape. This is my wonderful path home.
----
The explosion threw Anders against the bar, trashing his liquor collection and blinding his aging eyeballs with one fell swoop. His nostrils now filled with the peculiar odor of smoking rock and the stinging bite of alcohol.
----
Leecia was re-birthed into a world of colors any witnesses would have endlessly argued were either brown or red. She felt the pull of her leather belt against her thighs, the strands of hair folded behind her ear, and the prickling of her eyelids as airborne particles of dirt and carbon dioxide blew into them.
She gave in to wild instinct and pulled her sword from it's sheath. Slashing madly at the air she began to scream her confusion in unhindered strokes. Stumbling towards the exit she kicked at the broken bottles and crumbled rock, not noticing Anders sprawled on the floor, his body soaked in amber despair.
The colors changed as she bolted from the doorway; any witnesses would have agreed unanimously it was a delectably rare shade of grayish-green. The forest was beginning to still for the night, it's depths darkening and inhabitants quietly curling in their nests. The sky was overcast, the sun having set and it's last gift of light blooming in white through the cracks in the clouds. The cool air against her cheek contrasted so well with the heat of the Kneeling Man she swore it was a loving caress from a sentient atmosphere.
And then he appeared.
A black figure with a two-handed sword that rested with horrific confidence across his shoulder. The rise and fall of his iron breast the only indicator he was alive. She shivered now as the caressing cold slid down her throat and violated her lungs, coursing through her bloodstream and making her fingers twitch. His armor was marred with bits of lichen and drops of mist, but it's quality was never brought to a point of doubt.
She tore herself away from him for a desperate moment, trusting him to stay put, trying to grasp for anyone who could save her... help her... even simply kill her without pain to escape this fate.
She saw an archer collapsed against a tree, his skin pale as the moon and arms limp with lifelessness. She saw an elf groveling in the mud, tears of involuntary shock pasting her delicate red hair to her face.
"I'm alone."
----
Grogoth set the skull shaped visor of his captain's helmet in place; The metal sockets rung with a glossy emotion-less stare. He lifted his sword off his shoulder with one gauntlet-bound fist and lowered it to his side, his forearm bulging against the chainmail.
Even in this moment of quiet conquest, honor rolled off his posture in fumes of gold as he bowed deeply to the girl in the doorway. Nothing could stop her death. It had been decided with kindness the day she was born that this was the minute of her end. However, her choice to greet his inevitable arrival with distinction would be her legacy, even if it only lived on in the dark throne room of his mind, and the doubtful recollection of a fleeing elf.
----
Leecia wrested control of her fingertips, winding them around the hilt of her father's royal sword as she beheld the bow of a captain of the marching thousand. This is everything she had wished for when she stepped from the castle only a month ago. To meet an enemy worth fighting. But oh my... the atmosphere that caressed her now with solemn cold was the truth. She was soothed by the realization that she was incapable of surmounting this frigid black mountain. She had done her very best, and she would continue until the last blow was dealt. There were no tears in her eyes, the whine and crack of the fire behind her was gone from her senses.
She was at peace at last.
*****
Morning would see a girl buried in a mound besides a solider, their necks both broken and bodies unmarred by blood. Their resting place behind an inn charred to its bones, all its ruined potential and lost history blackened to smoldering soot.
