The Buttercream Woods

The witch cackled at Seren's frustration, and the feathers on her cloak seemed to ruffle and rise. She held Ollie up for a moment longer, then returned him to her pocket. The poor dog was stuffed into the cloak rather roughly, with his tail being the last to disappear.

"Why ever should I do that, dearie? What would you do? Surely you wouldn't strike such a frail old woman like myself. Children these days are so rude. No manners! Always running around, too. You ought to learn to stand still."

Seren, Roy, and Typhus would suddenly find themselves sinking into the dirt, as though it were a thick swamp. Roy, realizing that he was sinking, quickly ran to a tree and started to climb up. However, the tree suddenly convulsed, and a branch smacked him in the face. He fell to the ground, and began to sink.

The sinking was disconcerting but not something he hadn't dealt with before in the arena surprisingly. That was one benefit from a lifetime of fighting for you life against all kinds of opponents, you saw some weird shit. Rather than panicking he lunges forward at the woman, moving fast enough that once he got through the first step he was able to churn through the mud faster than it could suck him down. He was going to beat this bitch to death, or well that was the plan until Seren exploded into light and he was too busy covering his sensitive eyes to keep moving at the witch.

Seren had a new panic. She couldn't stop the starlight from coming off of her body and it was literally burning her clothes off. NOt that that mattered much to Seren, she was very comfortable with being naked, but she was panicking because she was so hot and glowing so brightly that it was hard to really look at her... and she was beginning to burn other things around her as well.

"Typhus!" She screamed, panicking, hyperventilating as she looked at her hands, sparkling brighter than any diamond, heat coming off of her in such thick waves that it made the air around her glimmer like a mirage. Her hair was floating off the ground and all around her like dark, floating water, the stars that shined in her hair glinting and gleaming brightly. "Typhus, what is happening?!" she panicked.

And then she saw Ollie, his fur on fire, his mouth still not there. "Ollie!" she yelled--

and then things began to float in the area around her, including herself. Including the burning logs that began to float apart, as if she was somehow controlling the gravity around her body. She didn't even seem to notice, even as her long hair began to change in color to look... almost like the tail of a comet.

Roy glanced about desperately for a way to help, but he was rooted firmly into the ground and was unable to do anything as things began to float around Seren. As Typhus ran to Seren, all Roy could do was watch in disbelief. Ollie squirmed out of Typhus's arms as he ran towards Seren, and Roy snagged him by the collar and held him close.

The witch, meanwhile, rose to her feet as though pulled up by an invisible hand. She swayed a moment, then pointed a single bony finger at Seren. The trees began to bend in towards her, stretching their branches towards her and closing her in. They caught fire, but continued to stretch out and try to confine her.

"You'll not get away, star child! You'll be my dinner tonight!"

Typhus found himself being hit by pulse after pulse of magical energy, his lupine nature absorbed some of the magic but not all and he was in pain. That didn't stop him though as he pushed himself off boulders and floating branches towards the corona of the star @seren had become. His hair caught fire his skin was going from red to black but he would not be stopped clawing towards her with a mindless, animal desperation until the half-charred body of Typhus, still alive for the moment finally impacted into Seren. He tries to speak but his throat is far too dry and his eyes are closed shut and he might be blind at this point, but he'd reached her that was all that mattered in the small part of his mind that was still conscious.

She wasn't aware of Ollie. She wasn't away of Royal. She was frantic, her mind whirring too hot and fast for her to keep track of anything. She was terrified of her power as it continued to burn and burn and burn inside her, and she floated higher and higher, the heat rising and rising as it charred away Typhus' fleshed, burned away his hair.

But she didn't know how to stop it. Both of them had known that there was powerful magic inside of her, but neither one of them had known what to do with it. And once it was unleashed, it didn't seem like it was going to stop. There was no around to save them...

Seren was sobbing as she looked at Typhus, his body wrapped around her, and when she wrapped her arms around him, she was burning so hotly that his flesh was coming off like charcoal beneath her touch. She was screaming his name, screaming his name over and over and sobbing, but there was no moisture, there was no tears.

The magic that pulsed from her hit across the tops of the trees, making them sway, the concussive blast from her enough heat to perhaps make a light sunburn rise on Roy's flesh -- and knock him down -- as he ran away with Ollie, who was whimpering and terrified and didn't know what to do either.

Seren screamed and screamed and didn't know what to do as the magic rose and rose and finally --

erupted. The light exploded from her in a thousand different directions, tearing into the ground far beneath her now, shoving the faint clouds away, knocking leaves and smaller branches from the trees -- and at the center of that force had been Seren and Typhus, one an exploding star... the other a mortal.

Roy fled through the forest, clutching the squirming and whining dog under his arm. He had to get away, as far away from Seren as he could before she undoubtedly exploded. As he heard her screaming get louder and louder, he realized that it wasn't safe to stay out in the open much longer, and that the trees likely wouldn't protect him. He picked up the pace, sprinting as fast as possible until he spotted a large boulder. Hurrying around the boulder, he threw himself down on the ground behind it, covering Ollie with his body. It wasn't a moment too soon, as the explosion rocked the forest just seconds later. Trees were bent and splintered by the force, and Roy could have sworn that he felt the ground shake from the deafening blast. Still, he was safe, and Ollie was unhurt. That was something, wasn't it? He hesitated for a moment before getting up and picking his way back towards the blast area. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see what was left, but he had to be sure. Still, he tied a handkerchief over Ollie's eyes to protect him from any gory sights.

Thump..............

Typhus was still alive for the moment blind, burned, and dying but he was stubborn. Even before he became a werewolf his one defining trait had been a refusal to die a refusal to stay down until he'd been beaten to within an inch of his life and beyond. All those years ago he'd been gored, broken, and half eaten by the werewolf that had turned him and despite that he'd survived long enough to go through the agony of his first transformation. Today was even more painful than that but he was tougher now than he'd been back then.

Thump.............. Thump.............

Thoughts of the past made him remember something he'd heard once as a child, one of the few disjointed memories he had of his mother before she'd given him up. Despite being blind he can still smell, he can smell her, and he forces burnt flesh that cracks and flakes away with every move to drag him towards her. His mother had told him a story about how sometimes stars feel from the sky leaving great silver trails in their wake. Each movement brings about new agony as inch by inch he comes to closer to her, just as she reached out for him in her dreams he reached out to her in his haze of pain. The memory is so faint but he remembers the last words she'd said, she'd said if you make a wish on a falling star it would come true. Finally, his hand bumps into her's he can feel his life ebbing away and it is only through force of will that he holds onto it like a dog stubbornly pulling on a rope only, in this case, the other end of the rope is held by the specter of death. When he'd been young he used to watch the sky hoping to see a shooting star hoping to make a wish, a wish to be free, a wish to no longer be alone and then one day he'd stopped. But his wish had come true he'd gotten free and he'd found Seren, he'd no longer been alone he'd had his star.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

Cracked lips part and move and a pained rush of air leaks out and for a moment he is worried he won't be able to say it. He had only one thing he wanted to do before he'd died, he knows that the story his mother told him is a fairy tale something that won't work. But he couldn't, wouldn't die without telling her one thing. He tries again and each word is pain, it feels like he has to crush his own lungs just to wheeze it out. "I... Love... You... Wish... I... Could... Stay... With... You... Seren... My... Star..." He doesn't know if she is awake or if she is unconscious, he thinks, he knows she is alive, and he just hopes his words will stay with her after he's gone. The rope is finally pulled free and he is tumbling, tumbling, tumbling away.

...................................

IC: Talia whistles idly, spinning a knife in one hand.