SKILL : - - - ( 1 / 5 )
She will save Foxglove , if permitted!

She wasn't sure she made the right decision in bringing her family here.

Pressed between the promise of certain war and the promise of something she thought offered them some modicum of safety, no matter how tenuous it appeared when making a blind decision, she chose what she thought was a brighter future.

She could not have stomached seeing her family cut down, and they surely would have been; Deithe would never leave any of Avon's kin alive, to do so would have been to invite in dissenters and the enemy nation thrived on their convoluted version of the truth.

They hadn't hesitated to wipe Avon's ancient kingdom from history books after they killed every last one of its citizens... or so they thought.

It wasn't bad enough that Deithe itself was a resurging threat - there was infighting within the Hand's members. They would turn on their brethren who sought refuge alongside them, all because of the Matriarch's heir's lineage.

Familiar lands were no longer safe. Samhain would run red with blood of those she had grown up knowing - and it would have included her family, had she stayed.

But even knowing what lay in store if they stayed, Fable was ill at ease with how things had transpired since their return to Mythris. Doubt was a living, breathing entity within her chest; it dragged sharp teeth against her heart and rend her stomach with twisting anxiety. She hadn't eaten in a couple of days, but it was from a litany of reasons.

Her mother was ill. They didn't know why, or with what - she knew only that her mother was weak and couldn't be allowed to venture out of supervision. She almost walked directly off a ledge - one that was clearly visible. Her motor skills were deteriorating, and her cognition overall was poor; it wrenched her heart to watch the strongest woman she knew fade.

Not only that, she still hadn't found Aisling.

She hadn't stopped searching, even after finding her trail go cold at the precipice of one of those glowing fissures. A mournful voice in the back of her mind told her she would never find her alive, but her heart refused to listen.

Fable would search until her dying breath. She wouldn't let another one of her children slip away from her - this world would not take her from her.

She wouldn't allow it.

Even as everything was falling to pieces all around her, she would do what she always did: she would fix it. She would cradle all those broken bits and bobs of the life she still held hope for - a long life surrounded by all those who made it richer for their presence - and she would fit them back together. Some of them may not look the same anymore, but neither did she with the passing of time and having been the catalyst of five precious little lives.

Permanence was an illusion, but she wanted the life of warmth and love she knew she could still have, in whatever form it would take.

Perhaps it was that finality that kept her calm in the wake of the gruesome dream. She lifted her muzzle from her paws to look at the three portals with the clinical precision of a doctor determining how best to excise something unpleasant. Though fear beleaguered her and she knew the path forward was anything but certain or safe, the time for being idle had long passed.

She could not simply hope things got better and lay low - the dream itself had shown her as much. Despite her peaceful ways, she would shed them for those she loved.

Foxglove , Aisling , Nausicaa, Illithya, Epona , Alistair, Ffionn, Fleta , Lugh, Shiloh, Fiadh , all of Avon - and all those who had not yet met her on this side of time and space.

For them, she would give up everything she possessed. Pain or threat of harm sluiced off her back like water to a duck as she passed through the second portal and directly into the palm of chaos.

Cursed creatures that reminded her of some of the Veil's worst spirits converged upon on the tree; through the dense forms of the monsters and the other wolves, she had not yet noticed the skeletons curled within the hollow. But she saw enough to know what she needed to do.

This tree was sacred, it meant something to this realm - and she, and all the others here, were meant to protect it.

A familiar blaze of fox-red fur immediately caught her eye; she wondered, distantly, somewhere beyond herself, if it was possible for either of them to not notice the other by instinct alone. Her eyes were drawn to him and, for the first time since she woke from the dream, fear roared to life within her.

He shouldn't be here - he should be back in the Meadows, safe and at least moderately warm in the unforgiving cold.

Fable pressed forward, her limbs flying across the terrain as she dove toward Foxglove , seeking to shorten the ground between them so she could be at his back. Her jaws snapped at the cursed lifeforms as she wove between them, a thunderous snarl loosing from her chest as she burned with the fire of keeping her family safe - especially the ginger-coated man before her.

It did not understand the dream. It found only irritation with the use of words, with the imagery It did not comprehend. It sort of was starting to put together what might be going as, as more images and sounds flashed before It, but in the end, all It knew was that It wanted this to end.

It did not understand the choice that was before It. It only moved forward through instinct. A desire to move forth and not stand still for long. Long black legs lead It through the second door, with the world changing before It. A thing It had experiencing walking through the shadow into Mythris.

There is a tree before It now, large and overpowering. There was a greatness to the tree that It could acknowledge, that the tree was a power being in itself. It looked up with harrowing red eyes, before focusing on everything around It.

Violence. So many others engaging with teeth, on things It had not encountered before. It feels Its hackles bristle and muscles tense. Eyes search for whoever is closest. Luckily, the closest thing was one of the wraiths. Without hesitation, the beast lunges forward and engages. Silently Its mouth parts, and It attacks relentlessly.

---

Jökull

---

Valkyrie Gabrielle DeGrave

Valkyrie knew behind the second door there lay a wasteland of destruction and chaos. She knew she had to continue through, she had to fight. Pressing a nose to her husbands cheek she bid him a soft farewell and told him she loved him. Her citrine eyes beaming with love before she stepped through the door.

She heard screams and growls, snarls and screeches, her eyes narrows as she threw herself into the fray without hesitation. She had to fight for Mythris. For Jokull.

This dream shit was getting annoying. Azalea was never one to particularly fall for the mystical and magical, even silently making fun of the religious nutjobs she ran into. She might find them entertaining, maybe even interesting at times...but none of it was REAL....right?

Yet this dream felt different. It felt more...real. More interactive. She was given a choice, and she stepped through the second door. Her eyes adjusted, and she walked into a world of a great tree and threatening wraiths. She knew that these wraiths needed to be driven back. She knew the reason was so important, and it flooded her like never before.

She had been feeling weird as of late. Very weird, and her movement was not as it usually was. She did not realize what was happening to her body, slowly but surely, after her encounter with the exploding mouse. Something had invaded her mind, and in a days time she would be something different entirely. Azalea rushed then, her paws wobbly which brought her great frustration. She carried on, and sought to fight the nearest wraith that dare get in her path.

---

Their return to this world had come at a strange time. The sands of time would twist and ache, revealing a story that had lived within the pages of Mythris's past. There was pain, heartache, danger. And there was threat — and that threat encompassed everything he'd come to know and love.

In his time away from Mythris he had learned one thing.

He had learned how important it was to him.

The land, and especially those with whom he shared it.

Pasithea.

It was important enough to fight for.
She was important enough to fight for.

And fight, he would. As Pasithea charged forward, unraveling from their comfortable slumber, so too did the dragon. His long strides would take him through the middle door, the dark wraiths screeching horribly as they instantly descended upon the gathering of wolves. He would glance toward Pasithea, a silent plea in his eyes for her to be careful ... and he would try his best to keep close to her as he began to reach for the wraiths.

Fangs unsheathed, breath hot ... Makara would feed his love into fury as he sought to destroy what threatened the tree of life.

---