Driven to desperation, the fiator dove and wove through the narrow corridors of the mountain with frantic determination, his wings brushing perilously close to the rough stone walls as he sought both protection and any possible escape. Midnight, unfazed by the elements’ wraith, understood that he intended to descend further until the winds would allow him to break off from the mountain, to lose her in the swamps of the northern Midlands. Midnight did not evade the challenge. Obsessed by a mixture of admiration, determination and mounting frustration, she strained to solidify her darkness, to see it coil tighter with every strike. Each attempt was met with failure — a manifestation of intent with no effect. The very nature of his existence defied her, slipping through her grasp like water through claws, a core of tangible life that resisted the nothingness she wielded.
As they neared the mountain base, Midnight’s frustration surged, breaching into the prospect of failure. With four to five hundred kilometers left before they reached the bottom, she detected the first traces of potent swamp poison swelling upward with the winds. The sensation was subtle yet distinct, a sharp contrast to the cold mountain air, and while she could not spare the attention to explore this newfound sensitivity in the midst of the chase, it intrigued her. She instinctively suspected that this heightened awareness was linked to her initial transformation into a creature of poison, a lingering connection to the rock weaver poison she had woven into her existence.
Refusing to let the fiator slip away, Midnight altered her approach. She compressed her form, becoming more noticeable, and repeatedly closed in from underneath the bird, only to retreat at the last moment. She created the illusion of singular escape routes, subtle openings that strategically steered her prey back upward. She forced the him to ascend once more, back towards the snowtrail and away from the safety of the swamps below.
Pages:
Pages:
Pages: