IC: Midsummer Rising

[white_flowers]

Midsummer.

Longest day, brightest day, day of celebration for those of the Light and also of the Wild.

It will be a day of great power-- and had once marked the ending of the rising Dark in the world she had once called her own.

But here at the end of all the worlds, she intends to change things. The longest and brightest day it may be, but there is another side to it as well; for at the moment that the sun passes zenith, the time of Light also passes.

So begins the long slow fall into the Dark.

This time, the White Rider means to turn her carefully-gathered power to advantage at that precise moment, bringing the cycle to an entirely different ending -- for everyone.

She is smiling cruelly when she steps out of the forest and starts toward the bar, half-lost in her thoughts and her plans.

Comments

[creator_raven]

Raven is still kneeling, head bent, eyes black and oddly unfocused.

He hears Coyote, though, and it is this that prompts him to look up.

It isn't gratitude that flashes across his face.

Nor is it welcome.

Instead there is something of wariness in it, but whether it is directed toward the vast storm of the Dark, or to the woman who approaches, perhaps even Raven himself is unsure.

Perhaps.

[howling_laugh]

He isn't glad to see her? For shame. Coyote is grinning as she approaches, though it isn't a very nice one. Her halo of heat extends to accommodate him, but not Blodwen.

"Did you win, Bird?" she calls over the wind. Raven feels much nicer than the Dark pressing against her skull. She comes closer.

[creator_raven]

Raven sets both hands on the ground, trying to push himself up.

It does not work very well.

Coordination is tricky, on occasion.

"It is possible to call it that, I think."

He glances up at the fierce tangle of the Dark.

"It is what comes after that is difficult."

[white_flowers]

Be that as it may, until this moment the unleashed power of the Dark had chosen to avoid Raven, not to mention the fallen and crumpled form of the woman who once was its host.

Coyote's howl and Coyote's power, burning and defiant-- those, draw its attention and its hatred.

And it is for that reason that a whirling, spinning storm of chaotic malevolence comes for them now, seeking to destroy anything and everything that remains in its path.

[howling_laugh]

She can feel it striking, but with Blodwen down, she did not expect this either.

Coyote falls to her knees with a scream, hands clutching her head. Tears stream from her eyes, and blood drips from her nose. Pressure and weight bearing down until shecan'tthinkaboutanything-

The flames that flare up around her are mostly instinctual.

fire to burn away the Dark

[creator_raven]

It is, perhaps, a very good thing that Raven never made it to his feet.

There is less distance for him to fall.

Both knees hit the ground this time, and it takes a great deal of effort to raise his head, black eyes fixed on the vast spinning storm that is the Dark unleashed.

He still isn't laughing. The Dark, it must be said, is really beginning to piss him off.

One hand lifts, slamming down hard on the earth in front of him. Heat haze leaks from between his fingers, building behind his eyes.

And then it flares, rushing outward and upward, a breakwater of power and heat and the Wild.

[white_flowers]

Coyote's scream is the sweetest of music to the Dark, her pain glorious, and it draws closer and pushes harder, trying to devour-- but the burning flame that explodes into being around her causes a furious hiss and a high, angry shriek to rise.

And then there is a flare--

(heat power Wild burning vines)

--and that within it which carries some part of memory and sensation drawn out of she who was the White Rider remembers... and reacts.

There is a silent explosion as of wind rushing backwards upon itself, and the tall column of black mist and power whirls around them -- circling and circling the three of them, but not moving to strike again, not yet.

[howling_laugh]

Coyote's head raises again, and she spits out a mouthful of blood.

"I see you did not kill her yet." Her tone is dry. The flames are more under control, now. They do not scorch the grass again, but extend up and out in a shield.

[creator_raven]

"She is not done learning."

Raven's voice is harsh. It matches his expression.

"None of them are."

The heat haze lingers in the air around him, contained and fairly thrumming with pent-in energy.

[white_flowers]

Around them the column continues to whirl, the sound of the storm itself and of anything else beyond it muffled into silence.

Therefore, the soft choked gasp from the woman lying not far away is very, very clear as she stirs.

[howling_laugh]

Coyote spins around with a vicious snarl, fire behind her heating to yellow and white.

"Stay down, bitch."

[creator_raven]

Raven's attention does not leave the Dark.

"I do not think that will be a problem."

Beat.

"For the moment."

Something, perhaps, will have to give. And soon.

[white_flowers]

Something does.

The woman in white ignores Coyote's snarl, pushing herself up to her knees with frantic, desperate haste as she looks blindly into the whirling darkness of the sky above--

-- and then she stretches out a single helpless hand and cries out in anguish as the tall spinning column of the Dark arches suddenly backward, joining with the rest of itself as it flashes unerringly toward another target and an ancient enemy.

There is a sudden sense as of the world hanging in the balance, and then everything vanishes into white.