"Ugh...I think it's stuck, Rose..."
"Oh, stop being a baby; just pull harder!"
"No, I mean it! It's really stuck!"
"Hmph. If I had hands I'd slap you silly for being such a wuss and pull it out myself."
"Alright, alright, alright...! Just let me get a better grip...it what they say is true, it's been here for thousands of years anyway!"
"Yeah, yeah, just keep pulling! I think I saw it budge!"
"Guh...I can't believe I let you talk me into this..."
"Stop yappin' and start pullin'!"
A moment of silence, save for the scuffling of feet against stone...followed by a bedazzling flash of light and a roar as of an exploding volcano...and then, silence once more.
Iris
It was the strange, incessant sensation of something padded batting at his cheek and eyelid that awoke him at last, though his eyes remained stubbornly closed. He uttered a groan in his first effort to stop the ceaseless prodding, but it only seemed to intensify. The second thing that occurred to him, now that his faculties were more in order, was the presence of something smooth and cylindrical in his right hand, fingers curled almost painfully tight around it...and the third, was the feel of something pleasantly soft and yielding beneath his head, like a pillow.
Lastly was the realization that he was lying flat on his back, on rugged turf save for his head.
"He's coming around!" The voice was familiar, but for the life of him he couldn't remember-ah! Of course! None other than the owner of those tiny extremities patting at his face.
"Ugh...R-Rose, stop that..." he mumbled drowsily. Unsurprisingly, she didn't stop. Then, something occurred to him: who could Rose possibly be talking to? The two of them had come alone...
"Relax," a soft new voice spoke, distinctly female, as he tried to shove himself to a seated position and peer about for this newcomer, and a gentle hand at his shoulder pushed him back down. "You are safe. Thanks to your small friend."
He wanted to tell this gentle-sounding benefactor that it had been his "small friend's" urgency that got them into this mess anyway-especially since Rose had just uttered a smug affirmation-but the words simply muddled together in his brain as though he were dreaming, refusing to come out properly and educate her. So instead, he settled for the marginally less unpleasant alternative of relaxing into his makeshift pillow. He allowed himself a short while to rest and relax, but a true warrior couldn't let himself succumb to weakness for long stretches of time, so at last he forced his reluctant eyelids to lift.
It was like trying to lift lead weights, but he finally managed. It wasn't a vast improvement; instead of impenetrable darkness his field of vision was replaced with a bleary mishmash of colors, greens and blues. Gradually, as he concentrated on them, these blobs of color began to blend into focus. One patch of green, he didn't even need to think about; it was a very particular shade, too bright to be grass or tree leaves; that would be Rose. The blue was oddly too dark for sky, a deep shade of navy blue that framed an even more oddly flesh-toned oval. A face, he realized as it resolved itself into softly curved cheeks and a concerned frown, with deep blue hair drifting down like a curtain.
"…Althena?" he whispered, briefly awed. He had seen pictures of the Patron Goddess of Lunar, ever since he'd been a child, from storybook depictions to church reliefs and stained-glass windows, and her blue hair and legendary beauty were always her most defining traits; this girl certainly had both in abundance.
The melodic laughter that rewarded him was so sweet to the ears that he didn't even feel mortified. "You must have hit your head when you fell. I couldn't find anything physically wrong, though, so you should be okay in awhile."
"Mark, the nice lady's name is Iris," Rose said by way of introduction, a subtle weight settling lightly onto his chest. "She agreed to come find you after you passed out trying to pull that dumb sword out of the monument. Iris, this is my big dumb friend Mark."
"Hi," Mark added weakly, lifting his empty hand to wave, and then raising it over the weight on his chest. Fingers found the back of a furred neck and pinched to lift the little creature up by the scruff and before his face. A distinctly feline face, though marked by green fur no true cat had ever borne with a tiny tuft of rose-pink at her crown, glared belligerently down into his with irritated golden-brown eyes. She wrestled out of his grip with a fluttering of tiny wings, sending downy green feathers wafting down into his face that made him sneeze.
"You're lucky your little friend found me before someone else found you," Iris' voice continued, retreating as she moved away--thus indicating that whatever his head was resting on wasn't what he had been rather hoping it was. He heard the sound of rummaging, as though she was digging in a pack or bag, as she continued. "Lunar is a dangerous world for a lone traveler. Looking at your clothes, I'd judge you to be from the Blue Star. You're dressed a little warm for Lunar's climate; you must not be used to the cooler weather yet."
This time he pushed himself up more sedately, his empty hand lifting to cover one of his eyes and the inside of the thumb joint kneading at his temple. "Ugh...what happened to me, anyway? Last I recall I was trying to pull out that..." His head turned, seeking out the monument perched precariously at the edge of the rock-outcropping that overlooked Burg's Gorge. Sure enough, the stone slab still stood firm, even the writing on it still sharp and clear after nearly two thousand years--so the legends said. But then he realized it was subtly different, and after a moment he realized that there was a piece missing...and a single, vertical slit in the ivy-tangled granite just wide enough for a blade to snugly fit.
Looking down at the object in his right hand, he felt his eyes go round and wide. What had looked like a tarnished and rusted peasant's sword, a miserable excuse for a weapon while lodged in the stone monument, was now a marvelous blade fit for a Dragonmaster. The entire hilt was molded from what looked like solid gold, but felt much sturdier and more durable. The grip was patterned in the image of a long, tight scaly coil that terminated at the pommel in a stylized dragon's head with ruby chips for eyes. Just above where the handle began, two crossbars stretched boldly out in ramrod-straight right-angles from the blade, their very tips forming curled knobs, and directly between them was set a single, faceted sky-blue gemstone, roughly diamond-shaped. The straight, unblemished blade was long, nearly three feet, and shimmered like newly-forged platinum, reflecting what he could swear was more light than actually reached through the trees overhead.
"Wow..." Rose breathed the sentiment that he couldn't force to reach his lips, her gaze apparently having followed his. "That's..."
"So, it really is Althena's Sword." This time it was Iris' somber voice that broke into his thoughts, even as he lifted the sword up and made an experimental pass through the air with it. It actually seemed to ring with some indefinable quality as it moved through the air, and the grip, heft and balance were so ideal it felt as though it may have been forged explicitly to fit his hand and fighting style. "Magnificent..."
For the first time, Mark turned to survey Iris as she stood over where he sat. Aside from her long, straight blue hair cascading to her waist--and, he realized now that his gaze was better focused, strikingly scarlet eyes--she seemed surprisingly...normal. She was still strikingly beautiful, and what little he could see of her figure through her loose men's clothes suggested vaguely at idyllic, but the clothes alone gave her a much more down-to-earth image. She was dressed much like himself, if a touch lighter, wearing a loose white tunic and burgundy trousers, folded-down brown leather boots and a flowing black mantle suited to a traveling warrior. The sword belted at her hip, and shield propped against the base of a tree next to the pack behind her spoke strongly for this conclusion, as well.
Somewhat awkwardly, Mark raised his empty hand to pass through his own unruly scarlet hair, even as Iris stepped closer and bent low to examine the weapon in his hand. Then, quite suddenly, her head lifted and eyes as red as those rubies in the sword's pommel bored into his own. She held his gaze for a long moment, so long that he was startled when she spoke again. "You have green eyes."
"H-Huh?" The sudden observation caught him off guard and left him suddenly self-conscious, as though he could almost feel her looking beyond those emerald discs and into the darkest corners at the back of his mind. "Well...um..."
"No wonder," Iris continued, oblivious to his discomfort as he finally managed to tear his gaze away from hers. "That explains everything."
"Explains what?" Rose piped up, suddenly suspicious as she fluttered to a landing on his shoulder, a tiny paw lifting to pat errant locks of his hair back into place with an almost motherly touch. It felt awkwardly out-of-place from a creature so small with a voice so high-pitched.
"How a mere human could have so easily pulled Althena's Sword from the Dragonmaster's Monument," Iris tossed lightly over her shoulder as she returned to her pack, this time closing it up and hanging the shield from it before hefting it to sling over her shoulder. "Still, I'm impressed nonetheless, though I'd like to ask a favor of you."
"What kind of favor?" Mark asked instantly, then bit his tongue even as Rose similarly sank her tiny, pointy teeth into his ear...both in chagrin at his own haste and to stifle the yelp the latter action nearly elicited. He had meant to utter a more derisive comment as to the supposed "ease" of drawing the sword, but the moment she had mentioned the word "favor" his overactive reproduction drive had kicked in before his brain. Something about the word "favor" coming from the lips of a beautiful woman, he supposed.
But the slip was out and it was too late to recall; Iris surely wasn't about to let it go. "I came here looking to find Althena's Sword, myself. I need it for something. But now that you've beaten me to it fair and square, I'm forced to beseech you for help instead. Besides, what with you having the Green Eyes, and the sword having chosen you, you're the only one who can perform the task."
"Wait a minute," Rose broke in before Mark could begin thinking with the wrong head again. "If only humans with green eyes can get it, how were you going to? I may look like a cat, but I'm not color-blind."
"I said his green eyes explained the ease of obtaining it," Iris clarified, still standing with her pack slung over one shoulder and the other settled on her hip, just above where her sword hung. "There are spells and rituals, days' worth of rites and passages from ancient grimoires, that I had planned to use. This is just as well, since it saves me several days of delicate procedures that would have to be begun anew with the slightest mistake. But only if the Dragonmaster-to-Be is willing to help me."
"D-Dragonmaster..?!" Mark blurted, somewhere between amused derision and shocked disbelief. "That's only a legend! Everybody knows Dragonmasters are just a fairy tale told to get kids to sleep at night! There's no such thing as a Dragon!"
Iris chuckled softly, her hand rising from her hip to hook a stray lock of hair behind her ear, the motion briefly mesmerizing as it slipped right back down over her shoulder. "As you wish, Proto-Dragonmaster Mark. It doesn't matter right now, anyway. You have Althena's Sword, but if that still isn't enough for you, it doesn't really have to be. Will you lend me the power of the sword anyway, regardless?" Noting his hesitation, she frowned and stepped closer, her tone urgent almost to the point of begging. "Please."
"What is it we'd have to do?" Rose asked before he could fall to the spell of those fiery red eyes. A look of faint annoyance crossed Iris' face for the briefest of instants, momentarily transforming it from a vision of beauty to something frighteningly cold and alien...but it was gone just as quickly, her expression one of proud beseeching once again.
"It's a small task, it truly is. I only wish you to accompany me to find another sword, the mate of Althena's Sword which will only fully respond to its presence. I need it for...a personal task I would rather not discuss."
"Smells fishy to me, Mark," Rose hissed into his ear, and this time he had to bite the corner of his mouth to restrain a snicker as the tiny creature's breath tickled the lobe. "And not in the good way. I say we take the sword to some church, sell it for a tidy mint of silver, and then get off this rock and go home."
It was tempting, so very tempting, to just go along with what Rose suggested. But really, was it so much she was asking? Althena knew he had his own secrets and things he would rather not discuss, and she was only asking him to help find a sword. If her intentions were truly evil after all, he still had Althena's Sword, so he could deal with whatever it was then.
"I'll help," he said at last, suppressing a wince when Rose dug her tiny claws painfully into the shoulder beneath her, and was compensated when Iris' face brightened into a jubilant smile. "Just let me get my things together, alright?"
"Quickly," Iris agreed, stepping back out of his way. "Time is of the essence."
"R-Right...!" Knowing there was no hope for the voice of reason to be heard at this point, Rose merely rolled her eyes skyward with a sigh of resignation, and fluttered up off Mark's shoulder to keep from being dislodged less gracefully as he rushed to his pack of supplies and began gathering up the small pile, which included his own sheathed sword and red-painted steel shield.
It occurred to him after a moment, to his chagrin, that he only had the one sword-sheath, in which his old blade from back home on the Blue Star resided. He frowned for a moment in thought, before the solution occurred to him. Reaching for his own mantle, which was as crimson as his hair and shield, he started to wind it around the blade of Althena's Sword--but then he had a second thought. Smoothing the cape out in the grass once more, he reached to draw his old sword in his now empty hand. He laid its blade across the fabric of the cape, and then reverentially slid the Sword of Althena into the scabbard of his old steel sword. It wasn't a perfect fit, and it seemed somehow wrong to house such a marvelous sword in so mundane a sheath, but it was the best he had. With that done, he began to wind the old steel sword up in the fabric of his cape, before tucking it lengthwise through the top flap of his pack. Then he buckled his sword-belt at his right hip, hung his shield from the back of his pack, and slung the whole affair over his right shoulder in a mirror of Iris' own posture.
Rose flapped in to settle back on his left shoulder, and all was finally in place. "Ready when you are," Mark announced confidently. Iris took a moment to examine him and his preparations critically, then gave a small, decisive nod before turning without further word and beginning to walk. It suddenly occurred to Mark that he still had no idea where they were going, but Iris wasn't so much as slowing her pace, and her strides consumed so much ground he very nearly had to jog to keep up, leaving him little room to interject with any questions.
Well, he had come to the Silver Star seeking excitement that hadn't been present on the Blue Star. It looked as though he was about to get it.
The whole of the Great Hall was darkened and dank, lending the feeling that it had been uninhabited for centuries, even millennia, in spite of the fact that it seemed all but untouched by time. The water that flowed on either side of the main walkway was still pure, crystalline blue, fed by spouts from the mouths of stylized gargoyles and passing through metal gratings to either side of the grand double-doors that lead to other parts of the castle. A broad red carpet lined the central walkway, leading up to a raised dais at the opposite end of the chamber. This place was obscured utterly, unilluminated even the dismal lights from the torches that lined the two pools of flowing water.
And yet, within that profound darkness, even the most casual observer could feel an ominous presence, a dark and terrible force that sat and lazily bided its time, like a tiger waiting for its prey to sleep before pouncing.
The visitor to this nightmarish chamber was announced not by the sound of the double doors booming open, but rather by a deep resonating humming, as a man-sized ball of scarlet light spiraled in directly down from the darkness of the vaulted ceiling, not so much as leaving a hole in the roof from its passage, and settling gently to the immaculate red carpet before the double doors.
The light began to mold itself into a more cohesive shape, coalescing into the outlines of arms and legs, wild locks of long hair and a flowing cape. Then, it began to take on darker colors, the bulk of it dimming to a deep midnight blue that shone in the firelight with the glint of metal. The cape, on the other hand, softened, the exterior taking on the same midnight-blue hue as the visitor's armor while the inner lining darkened into a rich magenta. A shield distinguished itself from the scarlet light, buckled to the man's left arm, and a sword created a slight bulge at the hem of the mantle. The only thing that remained the same color was his hair, framing a golden-bronzed face lined with battle-scars and crow's feet. Soon, all that was left of the scarlet ball of light was a shimmering red aura, an unsubtle glow around the man's body that radiated almost tangible malice.
The great, hulking figure, nearly half again the height of the average man and broad enough at the shoulders to equal two battle-toughened warriors, strode toward the shadowy dais at the opposite end of the Great Hall with caution that seemed almost comical for one of his proportions. When he came to a stop before the stairs leading up, he dropped reverently to one knee with a subdued clank of plate mail.
Within the darkness upon the dais, two glowing crimson slits appeared, set just close enough together to resemble eyes, and widened subtly. "Gades," was all the acknowledgment the armored man received, the voice of the speaker booming deeply enough that it felt as though it might shake the foundations of the palace itself.
"My Lord Arek," Gades replied, his voice low and respectful, if grudgingly so.
"Why have you come?" the being addressed as Arek asked suddenly, blunt as a hammer blow to the face. "Erim is in place and performing her assigned task."
"It is not my place to question you, Lord," Gades replied in a tone that bespoke very different sentiments, though surprisingly subtly for him, "but I cannot help wondering whether it is wise to trust Erim with so important a task. She has betrayed us before."
"She has been punished and then some for her deviation," Arek intoned calmly, somehow suggesting without a hint of malice in his voice that Gades was dancing on the line of a similar punishment, "and the task at hand requires subtlety. The rest of you three are all every bit as subtle as swatting a gnat with a battle-axe. Erim has proven her proficiency at subterfuge, even if as an act of betrayal. With her current punishment upon her shoulders, she will not dare betray us again."
Gades lurched to his feet, throwing off his pretense at humility. "Well, I don't like it!" he bellowed, a raging bull with the promise of catastrophe in his glowing-red eyes. "I tell you, Erim is a rogue! She is weak, soft toward humans! I should be--"
Gades' tirade was cut off by a burst of amber light, briefly illuminating an outstretched hand and the folds of a portion of teal blue cloak in the darkness around the throne. Gades did not see this, however, for the bolt of light struck him square in the breastplate and sent him toppling backward along the gold-trimmed red carpet, stopping just short of one of the pools. He lay still and silent for several long moments, his only motion the rise and fall of his massive armored chest.
"Question me again and you shall share Erim's fate," Arek droned, his tone idle and disinterested. "Now be gone, Gades. We have waited far too long for this chance to pass us by and I will not permit you to jeopardize it."
Slowly, wincingly, Gades rose to his feet, not looking at the shadows from which his lord's eyes glowed with frightful intensity. Then, the bull of a man began to walk toward the double-doors, bursting into a ball of scarlet light mere steps away from them and rocketing toward the ceiling once again.
"So impatient," Arek commented dryly to himself, once Gades was gone. "The only question is how to make the best use of such a mad bull."
Slowly, he began to chuckle, and then to laugh outright, his thunderous voice causing sand to sift down from the vaulted ceiling high above. It was only a matter of time, now.
Mark had been traveling for much of the past three years of his life. He was no stranger to the way of the wanderer, to long hours of nothing but walking in silence, save for the ambient sounds of nature. And he was used to the traveler's pace as well, walking in measured strides that ate ground without exhausting one's inner reserves to the point of resting every ten minutes.
But Iris had apparently taken this form of travel to the level of an art. She walked at a speed that was just short of an outright jog, her sable cape bobbing and flapping in her wake with each step, and yet still maintained a gait of effortless grace, like a tireless drone ant with only enough of a mind for one purpose, heedless to such trivialities as pain and fatigue.
Thus, it was an embarrassingly short time, just inside an hour, when Mark ground to a halt, barely able to pant out his request, "M-Miss...um...Iris, wait...! I know you're in a h-hurry, but it's no good arriving dead ex...exhausted..."
At first, she merely kept walking, eyes fixed forward and deep blue hair swaying gently with every step. But when she apparently realized she no longer heard the sound of his footsteps following, she turned slowly and crossed her arms, frowning. "I thought you were a man, a warrior even."
"I'm still only h-human," he gasped, a hand pressing into the stitch in his side as he watched her dispassionate eyes survey him. Rose was, thankfully, comfortable snoozing in a pocket of his pack; otherwise he'd have never heard the end of this incident from her.
Iris blinked once, her expression genuinely startled, as though that thought hadn't even occurred to her. Then, her expression softened subtly and she nodded once, stepping back toward him. "Of course. I'm sorry. I was in such a hurry I didn't think..."
As she approached him, he realized she wasn't even breathing heavily, and he watched her in disbelief. What's this girl made of...?
Gently placing an arm to his, she guided him to one side of the path and urged him to sit on a fallen log, even as a subtle breeze wafted through the trees overhead. "You're right to be...in a hurry..." he panted, still eyeing her suspiciously. "These are the W-Weird Woods. They're infested with Goblins, and even darker things. Some of the plants are even man-eaters."
"Fortunate for me that I'm not a man, then, isn't it?" Iris tossed off lightly, as she settled down to sit beside him, swinging her pack down to rest at the base of the log. Heaving a great sigh of relief, Mark mimicked her, though more gentle so as not to jostle Rose out of her catnap.
Mark was about to answer her with a good-natured if somewhat lewd comment about why plant-monsters would find her even more tasty, when a sudden rustling of the underbrush startled him. It had been too spontaneous and too violent to be a mere act of the wind, which wasn't strong enough this far below the tree level to cause such a reaction.
Iris, proving her own warrior's instincts to be true, noticed as well. Her head lifted, all traces of mirth gone from her face, and she slowly rose from where she sat. She bent to loose her shield--which Mark now realized was hammered into the macabre semblance of a snarling beast's skull--and slung it into place on her left forearm. Then she pushed back her black cape to reach for her sword, whose crossbars and pommel also bore stylized images reflecting the morbid shield. When Mark rose to follow suit, she placed the flat of the rune-etched black Damascus blade lightly across his chest. "Stay here. I'll deal with it."
He started to protest, but a single look from her scarlet eyes stilled him. There was no room for tenderness or good humor in that gaze; only the promise of death. He swallowed hard, and desisted, watching as she strode out to the middle of the path and rapped the flat of her sword on the rim of her shield, sounding out an ancient warrior's challenge.
Goblins were creatures of only rudimentary intellect, but it was an intellect just childish enough to be unable to resist a challenge, even when a less dangerous target was easily available. For a moment, Mark began to wonder about the mental state of his recently acquired travel companion, for though she held a sword and shield in hand, she wore not even chain-mail, let alone true armor; her tunic fit far too closely to leave any room for such beneath.
He needn't have worried, though. Just as the first shufflings from the brush began to draw near, Iris reached the middle finger of her sword-hand toward the hand behind her shield, and with two of those fingers, she subtly twisted a single ring on the extended one.
There was a babbled yelp from the beasts beyond the tree line, which Mark found himself hard-pressed not to echo, as the ring flared up with scarlet light that sketched its way up along the back of her hand from the ring. Two slightly-curved lines of blood-red light arched gracefully as far as her wrist, solidifying into delicate black chain in the wake of the glow as it progressed upward.
At first, it seemed as though a bracelet was forming at her wrist from the light, but it continued to spread upward, seeming from its close fit to be replacing clothing rather than covering it. A black enameled forearm-bracer flared into existence from her wrist to the inside of her elbow, leaving a gap of pale, bare skin before the glow resumed at her shoulder with the beginnings of an inky shoulder plate, which lead to a similarly midnight-hued breastplate that carried on down to her waist. The scarlet light diverged in three directions, at this point, traveling in rings upward toward her brow where it left a black circlet inset with a small ruby almost like a third eye; along the left arm to mirror what it had created on the right; and down from her waist, creating a divided white battle-skirt and knee-length boots. A final flash of red, and light steely-gray chainmail appeared to interconnect the segments, leaving only her face and hands bare of metallic protection.
The light-show, at last, had been enough to awaken Rose from her slumber, but she and Mark were both too wide-eyed and slack-jawed to speak.
The beasts in the woods were, as well...at first. But another impatient rap of sword-flat on shield was enough to jolt them back to awareness. Mark wasn't sure whether to consider it fortunate or unfortunate that Goblins were also too thick to recognize a more dangerous predator when it bared its fangs at them, as the creatures began to advance.
They were vaguely man-like, though their warty and leathery skin was the same dull brown of tree bark and their clothing varied in the hues of dead leaves, making excellent forest camouflage. They carried an assortment of weapons in hand, from the most basic of clubs to the chipped and bent swords of fallen warriors, and most distant of all he spied even a shaman or two, carrying primitive--but effective, as many unfortunate adventurers had learned--magic canes and wearing clothes that were more robe-like than the rough tunics of the rest. Bulbous noses, ragged pointy ears and nearly bald scalps adorned with savage scars completed the unsavory profiles, but Iris stood alone and unfazed; Mark was still too intimidated by her to defy her wishes and help her, even though he was recovering his breath nicely at that point.
The minute the first Goblin shambled out of the brush with a wild, clumsy but brutally strong swing of its club, however, Mark instantly found himself almost feeling sorry for the creatures. Iris hadn't even bothered to raise her shield, stepping disinterestedly aside and almost contemptuously bringing her black sword down on the back of its neck. The head toppled off without so much as a whisper of sound, rolling to a stop at Mark's feet, and he reflexively kicked the ugly staring thing away with a shudder.
It was like a green flag. With wordless, incoherent bellows, half the small war party closed in on this dangerous viper of a woman. And she was ruthless as she cut them down, her previously lovely visage now caught somewhere between boredom and scornful disdain as she took them apart. Thick ichor sprayed and spurted, staining her armor and her luxurious long blue hair as she spun from future corpse to future corpse, a whirling dervish of Death who butchered with an air of superior irritation. Blows of clubs and swords cascaded off her shield, spells from the increasingly frantic shamans barely slowed her even as she grimaced from their impacts, while her own swings always found their mark with inhuman precision.
It was like watching a Goddess of Death wading through a crowd that had curried her displeasure.
The melee was over in mere seconds, though it seemed much longer as Mark tried to wrap his brain around the sheer butchery of it. He had never seen even Goblins die so messily, cut down so heartlessly, and Iris stood amongst the blood and carnage with her sword dripping blackish, tar-like gore. The shamans had run out of spells some time ago, and they could still be heard blubbering in their guttural language in the distance, as they shuffled off to whatever wretched holes they had crawled out of.
When Iris made as though to follow them, Mark finally found his resolve, and before he knew what he was doing or had the sense to stop himself, he stood interposed between this terrifying woman and the treeline, arms spread. "Iris, that's enough." He almost couldn't believe he had even said it, and found himself wondering just how much it would hurt when she cut him down like all the rest.
"Stand aside," Iris intoned coldly, her voice detached and her eyes not even focused on him as she strode boldly forward, as though to march straight through him.
Again before he knew what he was doing, he had straight-armed her, his forearm shoving horizontally into her collarbones, just above her generous (and now generously armored) chest. "I said that's enough." Even as he spoke the words, behind the facade of his determined green eyes his brain was screaming at him, What are you doing, you fool?! Or was it Rose hissing into his ear? For some reason, however, the consciously active part of him ignored it, whatever it was.
Even Iris, herself, seemed surprised at this sudden show of boldness. Backing off after the half-hearted push, her crimson eyes began to slowly survey him, the surroundings and then herself, with dawning comprehension. As suddenly as it had appeared, the eerie black armor dissolved back into crimson light that contracted back into the ring on her right hand, leaving the blood staining her sword, face and hair as the only testament to her bloody massacre of moments before. And, of course, the mess on the ground.
"...Mark, are you alright?" she suddenly asked, dropping the sword and lifting her hand to his upper-arm, her previously hard and cold red eyes now softened around the edges and filled with warm concern that seemed almost out-of-place in them now. That frigid, steely look had seemed all-too-well at home in them...but even now that was beginning to fade from his memory, like some terrible nightmare, as her brow furrowed in worry.
"I'm fine," he answered almost under his breath, vaguely aware of something nipping at his ear in increasing frustration. "You?"
Iris nodded wordlessly, but even as she bent to pick up her dropped sword, he could see her flinch and touch her shield hand gingerly to her side. While none of the sword or club blows had struck home, there hadn't been a shield invented yet that could fully ward off a spell. He was amazed she had seemed to shrug off the ones that struck her in the slaughter--there was simply no referring to what he had seen as a battle, even with the images beginning to fade into obscurity in retrospect--but it seemed it had been in large part adrenaline carrying her. She favored a knee, trusting most of her weight to the other as she pushed herself back up to wipe her sword off on a corner of her cape, then sheath it.
"Here," he said, not willing to leave it at that, and his hand rose to her upper-arm where her long-sleeved tan shirt had reappeared with the disappearance of the black armor. She blinked up at him in bemusement, but before she could protest, he lead her to the fallen log they had been resting at before. "Rose?" he asked, peering around, only for an especially hard pinch at his ear by needle-like teeth, that he could have sworn almost pierced. He let out a yowl almost worthy of the winged-cat herself when he had stepped on her tail once, clapping his hand to the ear and almost knocking her off his shoulder. "What was that for?!"
Rose merely glared at him icily, flapping about a foot away from his face. "You can't honestly mean you expect me to heal this sociopath!"
"Rose..." he murmured plaintively, glancing between his old friend and his new one, who was staring at him with near-comprehension, touched with a different kind of bemusement.
Rose heaved a long-suffering sigh and nodded, rolling her eyes skyward. Then she fluttered down to perch on the mossy log next to where Iris sat, closed her eyes and began to hum a soft tune.
Iris' eyes went round as, seemingly in response to the high-pitched humming, a soft verdant glow began to suffuse her body, outlining it even through the moderately thick fabric of her clothing. It didn't cleanse the blood smears from her cheeks or hair, but the minor burns and frostbitten patches from spells, the scrapes and nicks and bruises, all began to rapidly mend themselves. When at last the song had come to a stop, both Rose and Iris took in deep, cleansing breaths, albeit for different reasons. Rose, while not exhausted, still had to exert some effort to use her healing powers, and Iris was undoubtedly feeling the renewed strength that accompanied the healing process flowing through her body.
"Now all we have to do is get to a spring where you can wash up, eh?" Mark asked with a small, relieved sigh of his own, offering Rose his arm to perch on. She did, with the affronted dignity of a regal matriarch who had just performed a task she felt beneath her, and climbed her way up to her usual perch on his shoulder. "Won't do to pass through town covered in Goblin mess."
"No need." Without further explanation, Iris lifted the hand with the ring on it once again, passing it smoothly over her smeared cheeks and back through her hair. Without so much as a glimmering of light, this time, every spot the ring passed came abruptly clean, and as soon as her fingertips passed through the last feathery-soft tips of her hair, it very nearly looked as if the two of them had stumbled across this scene of butchery completely innocent. Mark knew it would be a long time before he could fully burn the images he had seen out of his mind, but it already seemed so distant now that Iris was back to her former relatively innocent, if somewhat haughty self.
"Well, then." Mark extended his hand to her, smiling to try and cover how disconcerted he was by her casual display of power. What else was this woman capable of? "Shall we go?"
She nodded, beaming a smile at him that left him almost unable to remember what her hard glare had even looked like, and stood at his urging. "I promise to walk more slowly this time. Come." For a moment, she didn't even think to release his hand, though she made no comment when she did so to adjust the clasp of her mantle.
Shaking his head slightly, Mark made to follow her. He had the feeling it was going to be a long trip, and he wasn't quite sure if he was looking forward to it or dreading it.