The Mother of Monsters

There were no real words that Teyva could come up with to properly articulate how she felt in the moment. Neither were there any words to console her friend. She stood there, dumbly, as she bore witness to her friend. She coudn’t even imagine what Azrael was thinking. She took a breath and failed to clear her throat, coughing again and dragging a sympathetic wince out of Azrael. The young Azar rubbed her arms and looked away, her gaze likely following Yaga’s departure along the outer ring of the campsite. 

“Azrael, I-” Teyva started.

“I’m so sorry Teyva,” She choked, “I didn’t know she would do that to you.”

Nephral looked between the two of them and canted his head, “I have missed something.”

“Yaga Yftha and I had a disagreement, love,” Teyva said to the sphinx, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. The sphinx looked to Azrael with confusion but Teyva held up a hand; “Easy Nephral, I know you have questions.”

Nephral’s ears drooped and he strode over to Azrael, weaving between her legs. Azrael leaned down and picked him up off the ground, holding him to her chest. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, stroking his head. The Sphinx purred and reached up to paw her cheek. She gave a weak laugh and looked up at Teyva and firmed up her expression, straightening her shoulders. 

“I’ll go say something to her,” Azrael said.

“No.”

Azrael blinked, “But-”

“No, Azrael. You aren’t,” Teyva said, this time with a hint of command in her voice. “Not right now. Not while we’re out here, and not in front of her men. You’re better than that.”

“Corner her in private as she did to you?” Azrael cut back, her expression growing cloudy.

Teyva sighed and shook her head. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her friend, pulling her into an embrace. She held her there for a few minutes, squeezing a bit tighter as Azrael’s back began to heave a little. She stroked Azrael’s hair and let out a breath; “Let’s get you to Elat, okay? We can talk about this later.”

Azrael nodded mutely and Teyva took her hand. The two of them crossed the camp together, catching a few looks from the gathered warriors and caravaneers. Some looked at Teyva with awe and curiosity, others with fear, some more looked at Azrael with concern, noting the strange way she carried herself. They had just neared the tent where Elat was staying when Yaga Yftha stepped out of Teyva’s periphery. She was speaking with one of her warriors when she came to a stop, her eyebrows raised. Teyva didn’t feel Azrael’s fingers slip in time to stop her. The Warden crossed the distance in less than an instant and drove a fist into Yaga’s mouth.

Yaga stumbled back, raising a hand to her lips and looking down at a small trickle of blood in her palm. She stared wide-eyed at Azrael and then looked to Teyva accusingly.

“Look at me! Not her!” Azrael shouted. Yaga jumped and looked in the young woman’s direction. “I have two aspects now,” she bit out “The new one gives me very good hearing.”

Yaga froze, the implicating sinking in. “Two aspects? Since when?”

“Since Teyva petitioned an Aspect Being to give me one to repair my crippled leg. Before she nearly gave her life to save me from a human Justicar. Before she fought off the Lydan to save my life and the lives of these travelers that she doesn’t even know. Who made her sit in the storage wagon because she looked ‘too scary’ for them!” Azrael bellowed, “How dare you! I swore an oath to Teyva Akura and you tried to drown her in mana!”

Yaga stiffened, “What do you mean an Oath?” She demanded.

“No! You don’t get to ask questions right now! You want me to start acting like a princess, do you? Fine, just for you! Get out of my sight!” Azrael shot back and rested her hand on the hilt of her weapon. “As far as I am concerned you dishonored my Lady and by extension, me. I don’t know if I’d trust you to have an honorable duel right now so I’ll spare you the chance to disgrace yourself further, Master Yaga Yftha.”

Yaga’s face went pale and she cast her gaze in Teyva’s direction. Teyva looked just about as surprised as she did. Teyva knew that Azrael took herself seriously but she hadn’t expected her to react so much to a slight to her honor. She felt a chill down her spine, suddenly very wary of ticking off her best friend and knight. To their left, Elat had poked his head out of his tent and was watching in dumbstruck horror as Azrael gave one of her heroes a dressing down. He looked over at Teyva who made a face urging him to retreat back into his tent. She didn’t want Azrael to go into another tirade about having a lover. Yaga’s treatment of Teyva was one thing but Elat may very well get worse. He took the hint and retreated before Azrael could spot him.

“Elat!” Azrael shouted, causing a stumbling rustle in the tent. He poked his head back out wide-eyed, she glanced his way and nodded once. “We should go. I don’t feel safe here and it puts my lady at risk.” She clipped, emphasizing the title before turning back to Teyva. “Is that an issue, Lady Akura?”

Teyva shook her head, too stunned to speak.

“Now wait just a minute, it’s the middle of the night!” Yaga protested.

“Blame yourself,” Azrael snapped, “And I thought I told you to get out of my sight.”

The camp had fallen entirely still when Azrael turned on her heel and approached Teyva, the red in her eyes was gone and all that was left was a fierce sense of pride. She dropped to a knee and lowered her head; “Lady Akura, I am afraid I cannot best this person in a duel so I did my best to reclaim what she took. I hope that is enough for now.”

Teyva swallowed, suddenly very aware that she was the center of attention and even more aware of how seriously Azrael had taken the oath she made after her resurrection in the Underfield. The weight of the expectations placed on her was suddenly far more real than she had expected. Even so, after everything her friend had said and done in her name she was not going to disappoint her by failing to return the favor. She let out a breath and extended a hand to her; “Thank you Azrael, you’ve done more than enough. I couldn’t ask for a better knight. Let’s go.”

Azrael took her hand and rose to her feet. She didn’t look back at Yaga who stood there with an expression somewhere between horror and humiliation. Elat joined them just a few moments later, having hardly unpacked with the expectation of an early morning departure. Teyva put out a mental call to The Marble who clattered his way through the camp without an ounce of concern for the frightened onlookers. Instead, he assumed his position at his mothers side and awaited her orders.

Are you sure you want to do this? Teyva asked through the private channel.

Yes.

Okay. We’ll go it alone from here.

Thank you, Teyva.

The only thing that punctuated their departure was the staccato thump of The Marble’s feet against the ground. 

In the end, Teyva and her companions traveled for at least two hours before making camp with Teyva’s walls as shelter. Azrael kept to herself, even avoiding Elat and Teyva was forced to explain to him everything that happened. When Azrael finally came out of hiding she was back, more or less, to her normal self. Her expression was firmer than usual though and she seemed to stand a bit straighter when she walked around, helping Elat prepare a meal while Teyva resummoned her mockery swarm. With a fresh cap of seventy to work with it took a bit of time to recover from only having Queenie left. Though thanks to it being night her downtime was very small with the help of [Starlight Sorceress]. The infant Mockeries explored the campsite with youthful abandon, Queenie watching over them from Teyva’s shoulder.

When it was finally time to sleep, Teyva leaned up against The Marble, took Neprhal into her lap, and allowed herself to drift off into the void. There she spent little time enjoying the scenery, instead, she looked over her attributes and decided to drop all of her points into willpower. She was convinced there had to be some correlation between willpower and mana manipulation. After what she’d experienced with Yaga Yftha she never wanted to go through that again. With over two hundred points of mana at her disposal and nearly three hundred health she was feeling a little better.

When she woke she glanced over at the sleeping Azrael and frowned, she needed to be stronger for her friend and she needed to pull herself together even more. She pulled out her remaining [Aspect Shard]s and laid them out while she began to experiment with her Mana Manipulation, trying to use it while she was more alert. It was harder than she thought. She eventually gave up when she realized she couldn’t concentrate on her decisions. Instead, she puffed out a breath and went through them one at a time, thinking hard about her choices.

She started with Titan, the easiest choice since there was only one tier 1 ability left.

Next, she moved on to check out the new list of Pale Dawn abilities.

The utility of [Stream of Cold] was pretty obvious, but as it stood all of her ranged attacks were from [Pale Dawn] so it really didn’t change much, especially since her razorchain seemed to count as a melee weapon. [Coldsnap] was powerful, very powerful, and the first ability she’d encountered so far with a built in cooldown. It seemed like the obvious pair for another ability that came to mind. [Glasswalker] sounded cool but she felt like it could wait until she was in a position to burn an extra shard on the convenience of easier travel. [Chillblains] was another strong contender with a pure damage over time effect but ultimately she went with [Coldsnap].

Next she pulled up the list for Facsimile.

Teyva had already looked through these earlier that evening and with the introduction of [Coldsnap] into her kit she knew only one choice worked for her. She selected [Mimicry] and hoped that it would give at least one of her summons the ability to cause [Withering Cold].

Finally, she pulled up the Labyrinthian Tier 2 list, her final shard squeezed tightly between her fingers.

[Cry of the Siren] was another attack to add to her kit so it immediately went to the top of her list of possibilities. [Labyrinthine Shield] had a huge cooldown but a chance to defend against something without fail. She didn’t like that the attack was diverted in a random direction but she imagined there was a chance it could be rebounded on an enemy if the foe was close enough. It was something to consider. [Create Darkeye] was simple utility, something told her it would come in handy later down the road but she felt confident leaving it be for now. [Passwall] was one she had to read carefully, it seemed too good to be true until she realized it specified physical damage. Magical damage was still very much on the table and she couldn’t do anything while in that state.

Ultimately she chose [Cry of the Siren] to add a bit more versatility to her attack powers.

With her kit fully fleshed out and all of her upkeep complete from her level-ups, she felt the exhaustion of the past few days finally catch up with her. She looked down at the remaining two Aspect Shards and glanced back over at Azrael. She knew exactly what to do with them.