A/N: Love is Kyrie/Rorek, lust is Trigon/everyone-who-is-scared-of-him. I think. But you're welcome to interpret it however you like.

And yes, Zoi, I am going to tease you about the "cute" thing forever, becuase most of the time "cute" is one of the last words people would use to describe my writing. (To put it anecdotally: when we had a class discussion about the VA Tech shooter's "disturbing" writing, half of the kids in the class turned to look at me. It was amusing, actually.) And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what kind of mental disorder would make scaly wings and fiery breath seem attractive.

Breaking Free

Some time later, Kyrie's eyes flickered open, and she yawned lazily. She hadn't the faintest idea as to what had possessed her to go to sleep on the rock floor—Malchior had made up something that closely resembled a human bed for her, and he could be ridiculously adamant about her well-being. She thought it was a product of his rivalry with Rorek, in some twisted dragonish sort of way (I have your woman, and she's comfortable with me, take that), but she wasn't about to complain. She stretched, reaching her hands over her head and trying to puzzle out the appearance of a lovely set of bruises on her back. What could have happened—

Oh. Kyrie froze in mid-stretch. No. It's not possible. A nightmare, that's all, and any minute now Malchior will ask me why I decided to freeze myself like this, and maybe he really will let me see Rorek but I'll come back and stop the summoning and then I'll be back with Rorek and I'll convince Malchior to do—oh, I don't know, something to make it all right and we'll have the happy ending that all the bards' tales do—

She was cut off in her self-delusions by a shout from somewhere over her head. Dreading what she would see, Kyrie looked up.

There was giant chunk of stone missing from the ceiling of the cavern. Sunlight streamed through the hole—how had she missed the light? It was such a contrast with the usually near-lightless cave—and, through it, she could see bolts of magic and streams of fire. She had really, really hoped that she wouldn't see that when she looked up.

Muttering a long stream of colorful oaths, Kyrie cast around frantically for some way out. A sudden flash of light illuminated the entire space, and Kyrie gritted her teeth. Nothing. Besides the straw pallet—which she knew to be useless, having helped make it herself—the cave was completely bare. Forcing back the first stirrings of panic, Kyrie ran her hand over the smooth wall, resisting the urge to punch it. She knew this was where Malchior kept the foci she needed: she had seen him spirit crystals and scrolls out of the hidden compartments. For the thousandth time, Kyrie cursed whatever god it had been that had seen fit to make her a chaos mage—

And froze. Was she a chaos mage anymore? She had teleported to Malchior's cave, which was definitely not something any type of mage could do under normal circumstances, so…

Kyrie screamed with frustration. Of all the days for me to go stupid, she thought furiously, trying to recapture the sensation she had felt when sending herself to confront Malchior. At the time, the action had been unconscious, born of her anger at and fear for her friend. Now, she was finding that it was infinitely more difficult to do so consciously.

Another flash of light flooded the cavern, breaking Kyrie's concentration; this one, however, didn't fade like the first. She looked up and winced. A steady stream of fire was blazing over the hole, and it showed no sign of abating.

"Damn, damn, damn," Kyrie muttered. In sheer frustration, she began to kick at the wall. "Let me out!"

Her efforts earned her nothing but a rather painful ache in her toe, which did nothing to improve her temper. "Let—me—out—of—here!" she yelled, punctuating each word with another (albeit less violent) blow. She didn't actually expect her tactics to accomplish anything, which was why it took some time for her to notice the miniscule fissure that had appeared in the marble.

Kyrie paused, suspiciously eyeing the crack as though it would disappear at any moment. When it remained very much stationary, she just shook her head and attacked the stone with renewed vigor.

However, the break refused to widen, and Kyrie eventually desisted. Despair and frustration having pushed her well past the point where she refrained from talking to inanimate objects simply on principle, she snapped, "Will you make up your mind? Either you crack or—"

She was cut off by a slight groaning sound as the break widened.

Kyrie blinked once. Twice.

"What the…"

The movement stopped again.

After a few minutes, Kyrie groaned, hitting herself on the forehead. "Idiot!" She hadn't studied much about demon magic (no one knew much about demon magic, really), but it shouldn't have been too hard to figure out. Summoning up all the anger and frustration she could muster, she glared at the wall, willing it to move.

It did better: it exploded. Kyrie flinched back several steps, staring at the clouds of black dust that were rapidly dissipating in the breeze. Repressing the urge to go huddle in a corner, ignore her new powers entirely and perhaps start sucking her thumb for good measure, Kyrie took a tentative step towards the hole. When the rest of the cave didn't come crashing down on her head, she walked with slightly more confidence to the edge of the opening and looked out.

She was standing on the side of Nebulexeser Peak, probably about halfway down the slope. The mountain itself was gray and bare: somewhere below where she was standing, Kyrie could see the dark green of trees and plants, but the landscape around her was cold stone unadorned by any type of life.

She stepped out sideways and stood to one side of the hole, wobbling slightly as gravelly rock shifted underneath her feet. Regaining her balance, she looked at the incline leading to the top of the mountain. It was steep enough that if she fell, she would probably roll until she came to a halt against a tree or rock.

Or, for that matter, a cliff.

With the last thought in mind, Kyrie hesitated a moment, staring up at the distant peak. Another flash of light and the roar of a dragon decided her, though, and she started up the mountain.

As she picked her way through the rock, trying to both hurry and stick to areas that looked least likely to collapse and cause an avalanche, a thought occurred to her. I don't even know what I can do when I get there. Malchior was quite obviously in no condition to be dealt with by any means other than brute force, and Rorek could be… stubborn (perhaps obsessive would be a more appropriate term), especially when he thought that her safety was at stake. Not to mention that they had a long history of hatred between them that she could barely begin to understand, and interrupting even a practice duel between mages was not something to be undertaken lightly.

Well. She'd just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. But for now, Kyrie just tried to force a bit more speed out of her legs. After all, there was no point in worrying if they would probably both be dead before she got to them.

She thought about that for a minute. Somehow, it seemed distinctly uncomforting.

Second-to-last chapter! Yay!