Tiyane's bad mood manifested itself into a snort as she bounded easily from roof to roof, barely noticing the long drops as they stretched beneath her. I am going to kill him. It was a simple statement of fact for her, not a possibility but a high probability. His position and everything else did not factor in. Not for the time being.
Hunting down someone responsible for a bad moon indeed. Who really cared anyway. She knew of several workers of black magic who could throw up a bad moon. Granted they could only do it on the night of the full moon. Theoretically then finding someone capable of throwing a bad moon on a night when the moon wasn't full shouldn't be all too difficult.
So why stupid Moloc was making her do it as opposed to extending the long arm of the law was completely beyond her.
Stupid avens. Think they're so great coz they got wings.
She didn't bother breaking stride as she approached a long jump. Sizing up quickly, she picked up speed and threw herself whole-heartedly into the challenge. The gap was a decnt one, spanning a well-travelled road leading to the city centre. Her limbs flailed in a controlled fashion to add to her momentum (well, no one was actually sure if that helped or not but it seemed to work and was good for the psyche of the person performing the leap), her long tail streaming out like a banner behind her.
She exhaled sharply but still felt stabbing pain as the edge of the roof slammed into her solar plexus. She extended her claws, scratching into the moss growing on the roof as gravity grabbed her and dragged her roughly downwards. Her legs kicked the air, trying to find some form of purchase that might aid her ascent and coming up with nothing.
It took a bit of doing but she managed to get herself under control enough to think about things for a little while, and then concentrate on pulling herself back up using arm strength. It took a bit of doing because arm strength wasn't exactly her strong suite.
She paused, crouched on the edge of the roof, her tail wrapped around her, panting lightly from the exertion. Brushing a lock of chocolate mane out of her face, she peered around to get her bearings, not that she needed to really.
The Academy towered before her, dark and foreboding, lights from its windows winking like multitudinous eyes. The entire building was pulsating with the strength of magic performed within. Tiyane cocked her head to one side, gazing thoughtfully at it.
She could almost imagine the building glaring back with a what are you looking at type glare. She wasn't even sure who - or what - she was looking for. With a sigh she decided she would figure that out when she found whatever it was she was looking for. Though how something like that would work defied all possible logic.
Which worked fine for someone who didn't work much with logic anyway.
Tiyane headed for the building.
Q'it yawned sleepily. It was late. He was running on something like two hours sleep over the past three days. The mystery of the bad moon on the wrong night was looking no closer to being solved. Not that he'd expected to find the answer that soon but it would have been nice. It was only academic interest anyway. Something like that would be extremely useful to know.
If he ever managed to manifest the power to be able to cast it.
Q'it paused and looked up, allowing his eyes reprieve from the oceans of text he had been tirelessly wading through ever since That Night. He stared directly into the flickering light of the candle balanced on the skull on the desk. His eyes stung a little, but other than that made no compaint.
No one alive can cast a bad moon on the wrong night.
"No one alive..." he mused thoughtfully. Zombies did not have brains to have the brainpower for something like that. Vampires had no need. Not really. Not the ones that mattered anyway and they kept extremely tight rein on their underlings.
What then?
His mind wandered back to the half-remembered dream, when he'd fallen asleep - did I fall asleep? - at the table, over his reading. A cat warrior. They were extremely rare around human populations, most had been wiped out as people spread throughout Dominaria. There were still a few here and there in the wilder areas, but most of the tribes had been annihilated or assimilated.
It was quite sad really.
They were a people in their own right and had as much right to their own lifestyle and culture as anyone else. Unfortunately humans with their snobby, superior ways did not think the same.
Q'it exhaled gently. The idle thought that he should probably practice his magic at some stage occurred to him. He glanced again at his books. It would be a good break. He straightened up, listening as his spine clicked back into place.
Break would be good. Though he wasn't going to pass off the strange, niggling sensation that he should figure out the bad moon thing as quickly as possible as advanced paranoia or just his curiousity running itself into overdrive again.
He couldn't really concentrate anymore though. He pushed back from the desk and straightened. Blood rushed into his legs, burning in a pleasant way. He smirked and stretched, then wandered over to the window. Leaning casually on it, he gazed out into the night.
It was a pleasant night, warm and balmy, with a gentle breeze that was neither too warm nor too cool, but the perfect temperature, wafting through bearing the sweet scent of lavender and something else.
It was a nice night for some fresh air.
Lightning seared the sky, forking in several directions. The beautiful redhead from whence the lightning was originating stood in classic sorceress pose, straight-backed, sexy in her platemail bikini, one arm raised. Around that raised hand power accumulated and spread.
J'raal ducked as lightning flew over his head. The cat leaped into his line of sight, flipping neatly in the air before landing on all fours in a ready crouch, fangs bared in a silent snarl, staring down the redhead.
A fireball of fairly decent proportions shot towards the cat. She sprang lightly up, hands that were more large paws than anything else curling into fists in a shape-up type guard. A flicker of blue glazed briefly over her storm-coloured eyes, and the fireball fizzled into nothingness before it even came close to reaching her.
J'raal dropped back a little from the fray and encountered the boy. The platinum-haired youth glanced up at him, then turned back to the battle, wearing a disconcerted look. Lightning flashed. The boy waved a hand, and that spell fizzled before it could fry them. On the boy's other side, the princess snuggled up against the boy. J'raal idly wondered if she was aware of the boy's...darker side.
Good thing the elf's not here, J'raal thought idly, not having any clue why he had that thought and knowing better than to question.
The cat performed a neat half-twist through the air, landing just in time to get blasted by a rain of miniature meteors, less than an eighth of them making contact.
"We should do something," the boy said to him, his voice quiet and semi-urgent.
"Let them sort it out," J'raal responded gruffly. He thoughtfully fingered the stone on the end of his staff, smiling as he watched the girls fighting it out.
J'raal opened his eyes. In his mind he saw the cat girl still sliding backwards, bourne on the momentum of about fifteen minute fireballs, skidding to a halt and slowly sitting up, her creamy fur charred and blackened in several places.
The image faded from his memory before he could identify the place.
He was sure he knew the place.
J'raal made his way out onto the balcony, leaning nonchalantly against the warm, black stone. He gazed at nothing in particular, feeling the soft fingers of the breeze caress his cold skin, smoothing out his long, black hair.
He must have liked the feeling once. He raised his face to the breeze, inhaling deeply. He registered lavender and something else. It must have been pleasant once. He leaned back down on his arms again, staring at nothing in particular before his eyes were drawn to the silhouette of the Academy, towering above the walls of the distant city.
The place echoed with the residue of magic, strains of white, blue, red and green. While study of black magic was encouraged, its practice was generally frowned upon. J'raal smirked quietly, remembering days spent with fellow students secretly practising the black arts, the cults that spawned, the ones that thought they were better than they were.
Bad things happened to those that didn't respect the power of black magic.