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ph_logs2025-05-21 07:05 pm
pumpkinhollow) wrote in ph_logs2025-05-21 07:05 pm
Entry tags:
May Event - All Too Familiar
May Event - All Too Familiar
Content Warnings: Walking dead, character deaths, potential for gore | Special Thanks to Meghan and Kalineh
It was a fine spring day when mysterious letters began cropping up all over Pumpkin Hollow. Letters whose apparent senders do not remember writing them, whose recipients or discoverers were harmed by reading them. Eventually these mysteries, though still unsolved, come to a quiet halt as stealthily as they began, but not before a mail carrier in a cowboy hat trots out to Elsie’s tree with a letter in hand, unmarked aside from being addressed to her.
Elsie,
River la Croix has been hiding something in her forge for a while now. It is called the Book of the Dead. In its pages are hundreds of spells from across time and space with the power to give life to those no longer with us.
Your father is doing his best to revive your mother. But this island’s barrier is blocking his will, resisting his magic. I can no longer watch you suffer in solitude when a solution exists. All you have to do is decipher the text, and its powers are yours. Your mother will be returned to you.
River does not want to part with it. She will become suspicious of you if you ask, and it will become harder to acquire it. You will have to take it without her notice by levitating it out of her forge. She, like many others, is fearful of the Book’s power. This fear isn’t entirely unwarranted for them, but for you, your connection to the Feywilds’ magic will be enough to grant you access to that otherworldly power.
Good luck, and all my love to your dear mother when she returns.
Fond regards,
A friend
Could this be it? Could this be the miracle she's been waiting for? Hope swells painfully in her chest as she clutches the note close. She mustn't celebrate too early. She still needs to get the book. At least her mysterious friend has already told her where to find it. Her jaw sets in a look of determination, and she speeds away into the dusk.
It doesn't take long to reach the forge. River has defended it well, but Elsie slips into her own shadow and sneaks beneath the door without so much as a whisper of sound. Only her hand extends from the puddle of shadow on the floor inside, like a disembodied arm hovering before the flames. Mustering her will, she reaches out to the ancient book and commands the winds to lift it. Sweat beads her shadowy brow while she concentrates, the flames flicker and dance around the slowly levitating book. Just a little more, a little more… There!
It's heavy in her hand, and remarkably cool to the touch despite having been pulled from the fire. She retracts her arm and the book back into her shadow and slips out the way she came. Her heart thumps in her chest as she races back to the safety of her tree. To her mother, who will soon be able to wrap flesh and blood arms around her like she once did. All that's left now is to read. Her friends have been teaching her how. Her mother will be so proud of her.
Carefully now, she opens the book, feeling her skin crawl as a sudden unease grips her very core. No, she will not be deterred. The language is unlike any she's ever seen. The letters, if indeed they can be called that, feel jagged and painful to her mind. Still, she will Not Give Up. She screws her eyes shut, thinks of her mother, and holds tight to her desperate hope to be reunited.
When her eyes reopen to behold the page before her, understanding strikes like lightning. Suddenly, she knows she can speak the words. As they escape her mouth, an unknown magic swells into the space around her, then beyond her. The ground shakes. The air turns foul. And as the trinkets in Elsie’s tree chime together in the unsettling breeze, ringing out with notes more sour than usual, it quickly becomes clear that the advice she received was not from any friend.
The forms of people begin to pry themselves loose from the ground all over town, as if emerging from water, leaving the ground unbroken as they lift themselves out of the ground. They bear horrid injuries, shambling along grotesquely, telling a story of death. However, these are not skeletons from the graveyard, housing the souls of long-dead locals. These are things of flesh and blood, however exposed they might be, wearing newer faces.
Much newer.
Since the barrier went up, many people have died, only to have their bodies vanish and replaced by a new one. Those bodies now walk the town, seeking to unleash a wrath brought on by the corrupted magic of the Necronomicon. Anyone who has died inside the barrier will have a violent, undead copy of themself representing each death wandering the island looking to increase their ranks. Which means that there will be many, many, many Yoricks.
Destroyed copies will remain destroyed for the standard overnight period of any other person. But there are too many of them to defeat this way, and their destruction is impermanent. Thankfully, help is on the way!
In the midst of the undead and their attack on the citizens of Pumpkin Hollow, tiny glimmers of hope appear in the form of folded paper birds. The little gold birds flit from fighter to fighter, small whispers promising that if enough enemies can be felled then the High Priestess can intervene. The necessary number is unknown, but if a bird alights upon someone, they will feel their weariness vanish for a short time, and perhaps, should she feel like it, they may receive a temporary boon to use against the undead.
Eventually the High Priestess will show herself, making good on the promises of the little birds. With a smile, her magic will wrap around the remaining undead, returning them to the unseen graves and binding them into Death once more, leaving the living to pick up the pieces.
She gleefully rips open that letter, hoping it's another message from her father. It isn't and, at first, she's crushed. But only until she starts to actually read it.
Elsie,
River la Croix has been hiding something in her forge for a while now. It is called the Book of the Dead. In its pages are hundreds of spells from across time and space with the power to give life to those no longer with us.
Your father is doing his best to revive your mother. But this island’s barrier is blocking his will, resisting his magic. I can no longer watch you suffer in solitude when a solution exists. All you have to do is decipher the text, and its powers are yours. Your mother will be returned to you.
River does not want to part with it. She will become suspicious of you if you ask, and it will become harder to acquire it. You will have to take it without her notice by levitating it out of her forge. She, like many others, is fearful of the Book’s power. This fear isn’t entirely unwarranted for them, but for you, your connection to the Feywilds’ magic will be enough to grant you access to that otherworldly power.
Good luck, and all my love to your dear mother when she returns.
Fond regards,
A friend
Could this be it? Could this be the miracle she's been waiting for? Hope swells painfully in her chest as she clutches the note close. She mustn't celebrate too early. She still needs to get the book. At least her mysterious friend has already told her where to find it. Her jaw sets in a look of determination, and she speeds away into the dusk.
It doesn't take long to reach the forge. River has defended it well, but Elsie slips into her own shadow and sneaks beneath the door without so much as a whisper of sound. Only her hand extends from the puddle of shadow on the floor inside, like a disembodied arm hovering before the flames. Mustering her will, she reaches out to the ancient book and commands the winds to lift it. Sweat beads her shadowy brow while she concentrates, the flames flicker and dance around the slowly levitating book. Just a little more, a little more… There!
It's heavy in her hand, and remarkably cool to the touch despite having been pulled from the fire. She retracts her arm and the book back into her shadow and slips out the way she came. Her heart thumps in her chest as she races back to the safety of her tree. To her mother, who will soon be able to wrap flesh and blood arms around her like she once did. All that's left now is to read. Her friends have been teaching her how. Her mother will be so proud of her.
Carefully now, she opens the book, feeling her skin crawl as a sudden unease grips her very core. No, she will not be deterred. The language is unlike any she's ever seen. The letters, if indeed they can be called that, feel jagged and painful to her mind. Still, she will Not Give Up. She screws her eyes shut, thinks of her mother, and holds tight to her desperate hope to be reunited.
When her eyes reopen to behold the page before her, understanding strikes like lightning. Suddenly, she knows she can speak the words. As they escape her mouth, an unknown magic swells into the space around her, then beyond her. The ground shakes. The air turns foul. And as the trinkets in Elsie’s tree chime together in the unsettling breeze, ringing out with notes more sour than usual, it quickly becomes clear that the advice she received was not from any friend.
The forms of people begin to pry themselves loose from the ground all over town, as if emerging from water, leaving the ground unbroken as they lift themselves out of the ground. They bear horrid injuries, shambling along grotesquely, telling a story of death. However, these are not skeletons from the graveyard, housing the souls of long-dead locals. These are things of flesh and blood, however exposed they might be, wearing newer faces.
Much newer.
Since the barrier went up, many people have died, only to have their bodies vanish and replaced by a new one. Those bodies now walk the town, seeking to unleash a wrath brought on by the corrupted magic of the Necronomicon. Anyone who has died inside the barrier will have a violent, undead copy of themself representing each death wandering the island looking to increase their ranks. Which means that there will be many, many, many Yoricks.
Destroyed copies will remain destroyed for the standard overnight period of any other person. But there are too many of them to defeat this way, and their destruction is impermanent. Thankfully, help is on the way!
In the midst of the undead and their attack on the citizens of Pumpkin Hollow, tiny glimmers of hope appear in the form of folded paper birds. The little gold birds flit from fighter to fighter, small whispers promising that if enough enemies can be felled then the High Priestess can intervene. The necessary number is unknown, but if a bird alights upon someone, they will feel their weariness vanish for a short time, and perhaps, should she feel like it, they may receive a temporary boon to use against the undead.
Eventually the High Priestess will show herself, making good on the promises of the little birds. With a smile, her magic will wrap around the remaining undead, returning them to the unseen graves and binding them into Death once more, leaving the living to pick up the pieces.
no subject
"I'm not interrupting your party, am I?" Carolina's voice sounds clear and assertive through the din.
Does Fever look like she requires assistance? No. She looks like an elemental anomaly. A well-dressed, human-shaped weather phenomenon. Lighting chases out from her fingertips. Fire fries a dozen bodies at once. They charge her, their skin sloughing off in blackened heaps. Mindlessly blood-lusting for the unattainable, and topple stupidly over themselves to reach her. No, she's doing perfectly fine on her own, and Carolina cannot help but to throw herself into the mix. For fun.
Her rifle is an archaic tool in comparison; long muzzled with a sturdy wooden stock and click-action. In her belt, a hunting knife and untrustworthy handgun. They're accessories to a more dangerous weapon; herself. She wields them well.
An undead lurches from behind, hooking its arm around Carolina's neck and snapping ferociously into her ear. She sets her jaw, gropes its collar and in a brutal blur of force, flips it over onto its back. Fetid spine thuds. Limbs gesticulate. She rams her gun barrel into its mouth, past the yellowed teeth and flapping tongue— fires.
"When I heard dead bodies were storming the town, I didn't anticipate there being a dress code."
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"I never was much for heavy armor. Weighs me down too much."
It barely helps her block, but the robe's true strength lies in what it does block, and how it brings her back. And it's good to wear it for proper purpose, she finds.
"But this party's still in full swing - you're not even late, if you'd care to join."
She can moderate her fire around another person easily enough, and she'd like to see Carolina's skills on someone else, after enduring enough of them through herself.
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Fever's eyes scorch two small marks into her skin. She doesn't splinter under the pressure of being watched. It goads her. Fans a flame she hasn't indulged since she was struck down— no, long before that. Before Texas. Before the implementation of AI. Training sessions wherein the Director himself would press his nose to glass and watch her. Watch her.
Watch me.
See what I can do.
"Don't wanna hide what you're working with?"
Two corpses flank her on either side; a lanky market woman still wearing her produce apron, and a walrus of a man who smells like the sea. Salt crystals and blood cling to his beard. They throw their arms up and out in sloppy, unpardonable offenses. Brainless, stupid things. Training fodder. She'll enjoy this. Already is.
"My pleasure."
She's on the lankier one in an instant. Throws her gun's barrel across its neck to trap it in a headlock. Biceps and shoulders flex to crush metal against larynx. It pops, gurgles, goes limp. Carolina drops it, shoots twice in Mister Walrus's direction. Twin brass bullets obliterate him— one through the shoulder, tearing limb from trunk, and another in the chest. He keeps charging.
Click— a fourth bullet slides into place. Carolina pulls the trigger.
Nothing. Jammed.
That's fine. She'll fix it in a second.
"Do me a favor!" Carolina hollers, tossing her rifle in Fever's direction. "Hold that for me."
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The rifle flung towards her is caught with both hands, but Fever never takes her eyes off Carolina. There's more than one way to kill an undead, after all. Many, many more.
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The fisherman speaks in salt brine, barnacles and death. Smells of some leathery, prehistoric thing forcibly unearthed from the sea. He bounds toward Carolina, one limb flapping by the thick elastic muscle and nerves still clinging to bone.
He swings his torpedo arm. She parries, rolls and springs to her feet. Considers, in the time it takes for her lungs to draw in fresh breath, for her brain to send message to muscle, that she could end him now. Reserve her energy. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Where is the fun in that?
She'll draw it out, just this once. Put on a show.
Carolina throws her fist into the man's whiskered face. He sputters. Spits blood like water from a faucet. Teeth scatter, dice across the ground. He swings, misses. She swings, hits. They dance like this until his face swells and her knuckles go red. Until the white tinsel of his beard is dyed scarlet. A lovely pack, pack, pack sound; song of skin on skin. Her perfect chorus.
Punch, dodge, roll. She stoops low and severs the rubbery achilles tendons keeping the corpse upright. He bellows like a foghorn. Collapses, twice-dead weight, pile of fat and bone. Incapacitated but not yet finished.
She presses her boot into his shoulder, folds him in on himself and delivers a killing blow to his neck.
In that time, the number of undead flanking the pair has doubled. Not ideal.
"We've got ourselves a welcoming committee."
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But oh, they don't have too much time before their next dance partners want to show up.
"How kind. They really didn't have to go to all that trouble."
It's second nature to reposition herself closer to Carolina, entrusting her back to someone breathing. The rifle's shoved under her arm, freeing her hands to twist and shift in the right way while an incantation that sounds like a curse - a command - is flung in the general direction of the undead. Heliotrope light gathers and bursts, Fever's eyes aglow as it attaches to the four newcomers, and she grins in satisfaction.
(That scent, petrichor and sweet sharpness, nigh chemical in composition. Clinging like that of gunpowder to the skin, ground in just as deep.)
Every one of them is now moving at half speed, struggling through their motions, and it means the living can move out of the way even easier. You're welcome, Agent.
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Wide, whaling lungs expand beneath skin to pull in new breath, the coolant system to some hard-working machine not ready to quit. As automatic a gesture as allying at Fever’s back, life collating in touch. Two violent, disparate pieces brought together, back to back.
Her rifle.
How rude of her to have pawned off the responsibility.
Carolina twists, bracing one hand across Fever’s waist to thrust the rifle out from under her arm. Mutters a reflective ’thanks’, as any good combat partner ought to.
Words she doesn’t understand. Radiant light disperses outward, encompassing the undead population and rending them of their speed. Strange, how like a gift it feels. Something handed to her knowing she’ll enjoy it.
Carolina splits a grin.
“You’re not going to make me dance all by myself, are you? I thought this was a party.”
And in a quick burst, she’s off.
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As if she could or would say no. By now, Carolina has some of her measure in fighting - her tendencies for evasion if she doesn't have a shield to block with, the high mobility, and always looking for an opening, and she brings that to fight the undead as well. But magic flows from her freely in a way that shows the whole picture now. Bolts of fire going towards the pair on her own side, who screech in slow motion - hilarious, she'll be reenacting that later.
It could end there, but she's tempted to show off in kind, and so right now, she takes the fire. Doesn't question why it's moving with her so easily today, only revels in a partner that takes her and synchronizes to her breath and heart. It spins, grows, engulfs dead flesh and chars it to a blackened crisp, weaving over and under upon itself into a net the zombies cannot run from. Draped over, wrapped around. and she pulls ties taut. Bound in twofold way, then, caught by the fiery weft and seared until they drop, still burning like logs of flesh that slowly reveal charred bones. A too familiar scent, after travelling through cursed lands, but today it is more than welcome.
Focus. Don't let the others slip out of your grasp, or they'll be back to full speed.
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"By all means," she delays her acceptance of this special gift— flesh to be beaten, wrung, scored; victims to magic inertia— to nod Fever into their pas de deux. A pair of zombies flank her left side, making swings and missing, staggering over stones. She parries, dips, plays evasive, head fixed in Fever's direction like a ballerina spotting her turns. Her attention relents to nothing.
That is, until juvenile excitement wins over and she bursts on fast-foot to accept her gift.
No knife, no guns. She'll savor this.
She's on the first corpse in an instant, bear-hugging arms around its hollowed chest to slam it backward onto the ground. Dead vertebra shift and pop. It throws itself onto hands and knees and gets up— good. Carolina pirouette, fashions momentum and drives her heel into its gut. Something squelches. An organ, maybe, or pocket of gristle. Again, it rises. Starts a lunge and is met by an explosion of force— heel and sole colliding hard to snap the fragile neck. It drops.
Carolina rolls her neck, a proud beast.
"Had a ballet recital like this once. My cavalier called me a bitch at rehearsal, so I kicked him during the performance." She grins wryly over her shoulder, "On accident."
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Her eyes still keep a glow - holding the spell in place for now, keeping the dead bodies slower. But her concentration has always had to endure watching events that she'd rather give her full attention, and she stays steady. They're both showing off, she knows, and she likes the give and take, performing and witnessing, audience and star. That one won't be rising again - disappointing. Carolina deserves better opponents.
"A tiny mistake - who could blame you, in the heat of the moment? He should have moved out of the way."
She hopes it bruised deep.
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"It is," She contends. Lands right-hook to collapsed cheekbone, sends the second zombie staggering, though not yet finished. Not a chance. "It becomes like speaking. Learn the language and you can say anything without ever opening your mouth. I always liked that. Deferring language to the body."
Quad muscles flex, frenzied, down into ankles, into feet, propelling her forward to land one, two, three kicks in quick succession. A rhythm. A sentence.
"He could never stick a landing. All his words fell out from under him. That night, he knew exactly what I'd meant."
Fuck you.
And she hadn't even needed to curse.
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"Are you talking to me, then, every time you throw my ass down in the dirt?"
Unspoken, and layered behind it: and what were you saying the day that we met?
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"Always."
Isn't it obvious?
"Sometimes I'm thanking you for throwing gasoline where I want fire. Sometimes, when I've got your cheek in the dirt, it's to ask whether you think I'm playing games. People need to be pushed. It's what invents our drive. Sometimes that's all it is; you drive me."
The zombie channels its slackened weight into a swing of its arm. Carolina catches it, bends elbow joint backward until it pops.
She isn't obtuse to the latter question, not required to be spoken aloud, like so many others. Carolina considers leaving it unanswered, but doing so feels like defeat.
She catches the zombie's throat between her forearm and bicep, positioned at its back. Gaze set over its shoulder with Fever clear in her line of sight. It struggles, beats closed fists against her shoulders as she forces the remnants of life from its throat.
"Any sentence I tried to string together fell apart and I hated you for it. I felt like that boy." Struggle, gurgle, crunch. Dead fists fall limp to its sides. "Incapable."
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Probably something like I was told you needed a kick in the teeth, and I came to deliver. Nothing Carolina would have context for.
"You weren't incapable. But where I spoke, you shouted, and so, you didn't hear me."
And that was why they ended up as they did, lightning carving itself into Carolina's torso. It was the only way she was going to listen.
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"I think you're onto something there."
The admittance doesn't come easily. It's heavy and cumbersome like the body at her feet; weight she'd prefer to step over and ignore, cross on from one event to the next without looking back. She's become belligerent in her rage. Consequence of death, or maybe an inevitable splintering. This is a realization Carolina agonizes over. One she can't fix into a sentence, but which comes as long, pointed stares at the scar across her torso most mornings.
She steps over the body and acknowledges the fault.
"How's my volume now?"
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Which is why she keeps showing up, keeps accepting that while she'll never match Carolina's strength, she can match her stubbornness. Keeps engaging - sure, her father may have shown her the path, but it was her choice to walk it. It's her choice to keep approaching.
"Do you want to know what I heard?"
Before she can answer, though, she sees a duo of dead Yoricks stumbling their way, and falls back to Carolina. No help needed - her hands move before she even raises an eyebrow, and her eyes flash red, bright, a sheen over their original shade.
"Tormentum."
Six large darts, divided by the foes, all aimed at their head. The raw force cannot be avoided - each carries the strength of one of Carolina's punches, a crossbow bolt aimed between the eyes. They shudder and fall back, shot down by the concussive blasts.
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Carolina opens her mouth, question resting on the flat of her tongue and is interrupted by keening; by red eyes transfixed, luminescent glaze obscuring color as Fever invokes her sorcery. Tormentum. Torment.
The word is unnaturally dulcet, when she says it.
Brilliant light forms above head. Shapeless at first, then accuminating to six talon points. Carolina throws her head back to watch the armada tremble, draw backward as if taut against invisible bowstrings, then pierce their targets decisively.
The undead collapse.
It's a showy, violent, breathtaking display.
Carolina draws attention, gathers it up, hands it to her.
"Tell me."
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"Agony. A woman in a strange land, where nothing is like it was before - no connections, no one who already knows you, expected to include new natural laws into your thinking, where you're told you can start again when you didn't want to go back to the beginning. It frustrated you, and it pained you, that there was no cure for your position but time."
The little curve at the corner of her mouth only grows. Of course she knows. It's how she felt the first time the world shifted from underneath her feet.
"Stop me if I'm wrong, but...it'd make you feel better to win. To have the control back in your hands, you making all the decisions. You'd feel more centered."
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Carolina draws herself inward. Solidifies to cold aloofness, a prey animal spotted between pushes, too thoroughly seen for its own comfort. She asked and Fever answered. She has no one to blame for this spotting but herself, and to turn away from it now is a cowardice Caroline cannot— will not— permit.
The brazen reminder of her situation stands like a formidable adversary before her. It beats its chest; delights in the fact it cannot be so easily taken down. What strides Carolina takes to kill it— to forcibly remove herself from the isle— are useless. She can't leave. Her time is no longer her own to spend.
There is no solution.
Fever's fishhook smile pierces her.
She steps a few haughty paces forward.
"What, you say I'm capable, and now you think I need to be handed wins like a kid? You think that'll make me feel better? How am I supposed to make actionable decisions in a place that undoes itself at the expense of everyone in it?"
Thinking big-picture. Missing the details.
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"Not handed victory. Handed control. Whether you wrest it from someone's grasp or find it offered up to you, it would settle that thing in you that wants power. Aren't you soldiers all about discipline, anyway?"
She might be a fighter, an adversary, a combatant, but she's no soldier herself. Never will be. Carolina will never know why she shies from any authority, why she seeks no leadership.
no subject
"We are," she says, voice solid like stone. Coming from some deep place within her throat. The closer she steps (open ravine narrowed to a split in the earth where bodies cram themselves), the wider Carolina sprawls. All bulk and height coming up from the ground, topped by flame.
Discipline might as well be her middle name.
"You talk about it like you're sure it'll work. Like you're trying to sell me something." Control. The word buzzes at the back of her skull. Electrifies dead air to a swelling jitter. She feels it on her tongue like the taste of a battery.
"So, are you giving it to me, or should I be ready to wrestle?"
no subject
Shimmering blue, stained by blood as vivid as her eyes, all will and motion that refuses to settle. Unruly chaos, compared to the steel and well trained strength in front of her.
Just her fingertips on Carolina's chest, over where she knows the scar must be. Her scar.
"It doesn't have to be me. But it could be."
And before she can say anything else, she hears a death rattle, a pained and low groan coming from behind.
"...for fuck's sake."
Is that Crichton, when she turns around to see who it is? Yeah, those eyes, that height, and that ass are unmistakable. And he's got his neck torn open, so he's definitely dead as he's charging the pair of them.
no subject
For fuck's sake is right. It's the second time she's opened her mouth to speak, and the second time she's been interrupted by the undead. Their speared army crawlers were forgivable, but this? Crichton? It's like he's made a pact with Death, reanimated for the sole purpose of pissing her off. Look, he's even smiling.
Carolina sets her jaw. Ghost-touch of fingers against her chest, like they've never left.
"Careful," She says on instinct, Commanding Officer's tone etched into her vocal cords (and despite Fever being perfectly capable of taking him down herself). But Crichton is fast. Wide, on account of the ass. A clumsy force to be reckoned with. He barrels forward on long legs and throws his weight into Carolina. They scrabble for a beat, all claws and fist fulls of hair, until she's able to cinch him in a headlock.
"If I'm going to make you hand over anything, you have to be worth the effort. Come here. No magic. Use your hands. Get a couple good ones in, like I showed you."
no subject
But it turns out that she doesn't need to ready a second volley. Instead, the order is given, and Fever adds in an eyeroll - no magic? Seriously? When she just showed how powerful it can be? - but slowly comes over. Slowly, to show her distaste for the idea, before forming a fist in the way she'd been taught and taking swings.
She won't do the same amount of damage Carolina would - can't, when her frame is smaller and her training less - but there's force behind it. A drive, as Carolina put it. This thing isn't her friend, and how could it wear his face? Aim where it'd be softer on a living person, no need to break her bones if she could instead bruise and rupture internally. Solar plexus, kidneys, liver. And then his face, to make it even less like Crichton's own.
no subject
Smugness etches into tan, war-weathered features; Yep, no magic. Why call upon lousy weather when you've got all the strength you need in your fists? In tendons stretched taught, in muscle threads severed and rejoined, body burning fuel in a force explosive enough to knock a man unconscious. It's a wonder what correct posture and momentum can do. Fever's is... getting there.
Crichton's gut folds like a cushion against her fist. His knees buckle, stiffen, then buckle again. He does not fall. Not with his throat pinched between Carolina's forearm and bicep. She holds him the way a trainer holds the dummy bag steady for her pupil. Watches, rapt yet always scrutinizing, as fists fly.
There's grace to magic; so what? Watching Fever lob hooks and jabs into the man's nose, is as beautiful as any light show.
"Remember, hit with the first two knuckles. Not the whole hand. Unless you're keen on breaking it. How'll you shoot your lightening then?"
Crichton splutters globs of old blood from his nose and throat.
"See? He agrees."
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