DISCLAIMER: of course it isn't mine. I'm not THAT good of a writer. I hail Tamora Pierce as my inspiration, and envy her for creating Daine and Numair. This is not for profit, only for fun! So please, enjoy reading it, and feel free to tell me stuff. I'll try and edit.

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Rock Cannot Keep Me From You

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Numair glanced back at Daine to see how she was fairing with the Chaos vent. A small tentacle of the stuff snaked out towards her, and she backed away with a little moue of disgust. Still, she looked none the worse for wear. Satisfied that she was all right, he turned his eyes forward again, only to be met with the site of a gray column of rock detaching itself from its fellow rocks and rising slowly upwards at least 20 feet into the air.

"Gods… Daine!" He cried out, as the nightmarish arm curled itself around in the air and swooped towards him, sweeping him off his feet as easily as he would have done to a child. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Wildmage look for and find him, before taking a step back, her face going pale.

"Daine! Run!" He managed to gasp out, as other rocks in the area began to shift themselves, humping upwards and shaking off the accumulated dirt of many years with a grim sort of purpose. The one that was holding him moved once more, tightening around his middle but turning him so he could clearly see Daine just as she stepped back and the edge of the canyon broke under her weight.

Her face went from tight determination to slow surprise as she started to tumble, the bow her father had given her rising upwards in the air as she threw her arms back, trying to catch her balance. The darking wrapped around her shoulders made a lunge for the crumbling ledge, but it was too late. Daine's boots fell, her legs, hips, torso, frantically searching arms, and finally, her face, the eyes catching and holding his at the last possible moment. Then, no more. She was… gone.

Numair let his body go limp with shock, hardly registering the vaguely manlike forms that had taken shape around him. Gonegonegone his mind echoed, morbidly replaying the last scene in his mind. Her eyes, her beautiful, gorgeous, too young to die eyes that latched onto his in her moment of panic and seemed to say, Numair, don't let me go like this! But he had, hadn't he.

Memories swept over him: The first time he saw her, felt her strange brand of magic, received her smile. Watching her hair fly as she rode Cloud with the Queen's Riders during training. Teaching her to shape-shift and heal. How much she loved her friends, the People, and would do anything to help them, even to the point of death. The way she looked at him, the way she touched him, the way she embraced him. And, unbidden, the sight of her that one morning by Temptation Lake. After he'd just been saved from that chaos creature and turned to find her there, gloriously naked and shamefully young. Too innocent for his lecherous thoughts.

"Help her… can't we?" A small voice shrilled from inside his shirt. He snapped back to reality and the danger he was in. Jelly was right, there might still be a chance! He could save her!

"I – I don't know Jelly," He gasped out. It was becoming too hard for him to breath as the stony bones of the man-rock's arm that held him squeezed even tighter. He was sure his spine was grinding against his ribs. Gathering his wits, he raised his staff, and brought it down as hard as he could against the beast's arm, hoping the shock would cause it to drop him. Nothing. Instead, it only ripped its feet free of the bedrock roots it had grown from and started to move, carrying him away from the cliff, away from Daine.

"This won't do," He gasped, and tried a fire spell he knew, flinging it at where the thing's face would be. The fire parted around its craggy features like water, sliding off and dispersing into the cool air. Numair sagged against it's fingers, the spell having taken most of the energy he could glean from the few breaths of oxygen he was getting a minute.

"Try another! Another!" Jelly urged against his chest, sticking out a small head and gently knocking it against Numair's cheek. "Daine need you! Now!"


Jelly's right… I must do this… for Daine… Numair's fuddled mind managed to whisper. Gathering the last of his energy, he pulled together a vibrations spell, and set it upon the creature with a single word.

At first, there was nothing, but then, it stopped, and cocked its deformed head. The man-rock closest to it stopped as well, shaking its torso back and forth as if to rid it of a small, insistent pest. Then, the next did the same, and the next, until Numair could hear the hum from his spell growing louder, could even feel the ripples through the rock wrapped around him. Dust began to rise off its head and shoulders, as it started to tremble visibly.

"It's working!" Numair gasped out, feeling the pressure around his body subside. His teeth started to chatter slightly as the tremors passing through the creature became more intense. Its fellows surrounding them were already banging their hands against the canyon walls in silent screams of agony, some even going so far as to throw themselves bodily against the rocky sides.

"Go on, you bastard. Let – me – GO!" Numair said, stronger this time with the air rushing into his lungs. As if hearing him, the rock creature released him and he fell, tumbling to the ground and scrambling as quickly as he could out of the way as it raised it's hands to it's lumpy head and scrabbled hysterically against it's skull.

Numair was already beyond caring. He pulled out the locket he had of Daine on his bracelet and cast the spell that would take him to her… if she was still alive. The spell drained even more of his severely depleted energy as he searched, hope biting at his heart. At last, he found her! But... something else too... even more problems.

"Oh wonderful… Spidren."

-fin-

Well, reviews would be appreciated!