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She could feel something, a darkness encroaching on her. Her head felt heavy, and her vision was unfocused. Only when the darkness completely closed on her and she felt her body crumple did she realize what it was. She had been drugged yet again.
-
Pipin heard the shatter of glass of a tea cup fall, and he wouldn’t have been too alarmed if he hadn’t sensed where it was coming from. It was the exact direction where Sunana was, and she wasn’t the type to simply drop fragile objects. His gaze automatically snapped in that direction, and he saw something that made his stomach twist with anxiety.
It was a Hyur, holding Sunana up by one arm. She was clearly unconscious and totally limp. In other words, completely defenseless. He muttered a very well deserved, “Shite,” before suddenly making a beeline towards his love. The Hyur apparently noticed and stopped his speech about how much joy it brought him to make someone so utterly powerful into a helpless little doll and dashed out to the balcony. He muttered another well deserved, “Shite!” before dashing out and seeing what he had dreaded.
The villain was holding her over the railing, above a death defying drop. He gave Pipin a taunting look as he said, “You want to come over here and see me drop her?”
Dammit he hated hostage situations. They weren’t situations for emotional outbursts, so he sucked in a deep breath before asking as calmly as possible, “Is there a way to get you to return her that does not include going over there?”
This villain was looking more like a deranged psychopath as he said, “I don’t want anything from you, lad. I just want to see her broken on the ground!”
He dropped her. HE DROPPED HER! With nothing to lose now Pipin rushed onto the balcony, hopping onto the railing as he shouted with every bit of panic in his body, “SUNANA!”
She was unconscious, there was nothing she could do. What could he do?! He didn’t have anything to grab her, or a way to cushion her fall. He was just as helpless as she was, but there had to be SOMETHING that could save her!
He wasn’t the only entity that would do anything to keep her safe. She couldn’t hear him but maybe, just maybe…
Could her fire? It did seem to be able to understand when people talked to it, and it was capable of acting entirely on its own. He wasn’t sure it could save her, or even if it would answer him, but it was his only chance. So he shouted out, “Pyra!”
He saw the little ball of flame, its little emissary. Then it grew brighter, and before she hit the ground she was cushioned in a blaze of fire. It encircled her, then blossomed in a lily pattern.
A sleeping goddess, cushioned in the center of a fire lily. The petals fell, each one swirling around her as it gently drifted her down. The fluid spiral she floated through made her arms move as if she were dancing before she was safely laid on the ground, completely unharmed. Curious spectators came up to her, but quickly backed away when Pyra encircled her in a ball of fire that looked a little akin to a flower bulb. He had seen that defense mechanism before, so he knew it would not let anyone but him touch her.
He had never felt any sense of relief as strong as this before. He practically crumpled as he said in near disbelief, “She’s safe…she’s safe…Thank the Twelve that actually worked…”
Gods, he could cry. But he didn’t, he took a deep breath in as he pushed himself to his feet. His eyes were still on her as he pushed his hair out of his face, then he drew his sword. He had heard the curses of disbelief that came from the man that dropped her, and though he was not known for violent outbursts he really couldn’t let this man just get away with this. His sense of justice was too strong for that, so in a flash he slashed with just enough power to throw that man straight into the wall.
As that villain looked up at him he stared him down as he said firmly, “I would very much like to kill you here and now, but that would be against the law. Not to mention that Sunana would be very upset at me if I deprived her of the opportunity for revenge. So this will do.”
He looked down on the glowing ball of fire below, and decided to avail himself to one of his love’s favorite abilities. So he called out “Pyra!” with a smile, and some of the fire heeded his call. As it came shooting up it circled around him like a snake as he asked it, “What do you think Sunana would ask you to do with this villain?”
It suddenly glowed brighter, then bobbed in a movement akin to laughing before it wrapped around him in chains. Her method for controlling others through the threat of pain, one that never failed to terrify others. But his terror quickly turned to anger as he shouted, “This is exactly why that controlling bitch should die, she’s too dangerous! Why’d you have to get in the way of me killing her?!”
Pipin looked down on him, eyes suddenly half closing as he said quietly, “She would have lived she just…”
Would have been a literal bloody mess? Gotten brain damage? Broken something? Lost a limb? There were too many possibilities, and none of them had come to fruition so he simply shook his head, hopping off the railing as he said, “I would rather not think about it. I have to get to her.”
The Sultansworn had surrounded the villain, but they couldn’t touch him through the chains, so Pipin again said, “Pyra,” and it reacted to his command. He gave it a thumbs up as he said gratefully, “Thank you, that will do. Let us return to Sunana.”
It completely retracted into a bright ball before bobbing in a motion akin to nodding, then it soared over the railing and went to rejoin the majority. He watched it leave his sight before turning to rush through the crowd, and they cleared a path for him. He heard a couple people murmur that they had no idea her fire could do all that and he smiled confidently before turning to them as he said, “That is because you do not know what her fire truly is.”
With that confusing statement made he left them behind as he raced down to where his love lay waiting in safety.
-
As he arrived on the street below the balcony he ran over to the very conspicuous flower bulb and got on one knee in front of it. He reached out to touch it, knowing that it would never burn him as he asked, “May I see her?”
In response to his question the bulb glowed brilliantly before its petals opened like a lotus flower. After it opened completely and revealed the precious goddess that lay within the fire all retracted into her chest, except for one little ball. That one stayed because Sunana had managed to curl one hand towards her and cradle it between her arm and chest. Then she opened her eyes just enough to see it as she said weakly, “Pyra…Thank you…”
Then she closed one eye and opened the other a bit more so she could look at Pipin as she said, “Thank you, too…”
That was all she could do before slipping into unconsciousness again. She looked so vulnerable laying there, and she sounded so weak when she spoke that he couldn’t help worrying for her. Though just after he brushed some of her hair out of her face with a concerned look on his face, Pyra popped out. In fiery pictograms it made an image of it drawing energy from her to save her life, then used an arrow to point to another picture of her unconscious, then another arrow pointed to a sun moving through the sky (a reference to time passing, he assumed) that then led to a picture of her having regained strength. Just to make sure he was right in his translation of its pictograms he asked, “You mean you took quite a bit of energy from her to save her life, but she will recover it with a bit of rest?”
It bobbed in a nodding motion again, and he felt comfortable showing his relief visually before he asked it, “Has she been poisoned at all or was it just a sleeping drought?”
To his shock it chose to investigate by diving into the veins in her arm, which was clearly very painful for her as she immediately groaned and tightened her fist as her arm shook. Her expression was contorted with pain but thankfully not for long as Pyra returned within seconds and blipped twice. He took that to mean she wasn’t poisoned, then he noticed that it seemed to be laughing. So he asked it with a slight bit of humor, “What are you laughing about?”
In pictograms it depicted it going into her veins and her shaking before it pointed an arrow inside her and said in letters “she said to never do that again”. Just to be sure he got it right he asked, “So she asked you internally to never do that again?”
It nodded, and he thought to himself for a moment. What this told him was that her mind was still active inside her, and Pyra was privy to her thoughts even when she was unconscious. Reasonably that meant he could communicate with her using Pyra as a messenger. Of course he wouldn’t know unless he asked, so he looked at Pyra as he asked, “Could I communicate with her through you?”
It was completely still in the air before nodding to him, and he thought about what he should say. If he told her he was worried he would interrupt her rest, which he didn’t want to do. Honestly so much was going through his mind, but all he wanted to do was say something to her that may make her happy. She always complained that his compliments were embarrassing, but he knew they secretly made her happy. So he smiled as he said, “Tell her that the two of you looked beautiful when you helped her to the ground.”
The way that Pyra slowly sank and hid behind her told him that he had made it feel shy, and he couldn’t help chuckling a bit as it infused into her chest to pass on his message. Sunana apparently didn’t need to be conscious to blush at his compliments as he noticed her cheeks getting slightly redder. It made him smile as he picked her up to carry her to safety.