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Adrenaline surged through Celeste’s veins, setting her heart racing in time with the clash of steel and the crackle of magic.
She had never felt more alive than she does in the heat of battle.
Her body hummed with an energy that felt primal and brutal, as though fighting was its natural state.
The world seemed sharper here—her senses heightened, her focus fierce.
Wide awake, living, fighting.
This was who she was, stripped bare of pretence.
The odds were anything but favourable: four against a dozen goblins, each one armed and snarling with feral intent.
The ambush had been perfectly timed.
Returning from a bath in a nearby warm river, refreshed but relaxed, they’d barely had a chance to register the threat before the attack was upon them.
The sun was about to set and dipped the world in a nearly magical glimmer.
The forest had been quiet, creatures of the night not yet awake and they hadn’t noticed the goblins drawing closer.
It was only thanks to Lae’zel’s stubborn, no-nonsense insistence that they’d brought their weapons along at all.
Her arguments were grating, but they were effective—and tonight, they’d saved lives.
Still, Celeste hadn’t viewed goblins as predators this cunning.
Hiding in the bushes, lying in wait like patient hunters, they had struck with surprising coordination. It was unusual and gave her something to think about, after the battle.
And now, the four of them—still damp from the river—stood in a tight formation, backs to one another, surrounded by their snarling foes.
Karlach’s booming laughter rang out, defiant and jubilant, as she swung her flaming greataxe with reckless abandon.
“We should bathe more often. Unprotected, I mean,” she laughed as the goblins fell around her, her relentless energy lighting up the battlefield.
“Unsure, big girl,” Celeste yelled back, forcefully removing her sword from a goblin skull.
“Do you think it’s-“ she duck to a fireball before swinging around and cross blades with another goblin.
His foul breath caught her off guard, she choked while she kicked him in the chest, sword crushing into his neck. “-a good idea to fight wet? I feel super slippery.”
“That will be all the goblin blood,” Halsin commented dryly but Celeste could see him grinning.
He moved with quiet precision, each strike of his claives clean and purposeful.
Gale’s voice cut through the chaos. “Would you all care to consider this as an attempt on our lives and not evening entertainment?”
He usually barked sharp commands that drew their focus and redirected their efforts. He was the strategist, orchestrating the battle from the save distance of the side line or in the air.
Celeste’s own movements were fluid and instinctive, her blade an extension of herself.
It knew where cuts where needed, where to place hits. Gale’s command increased efficiency and often urgency.
She hated the satisfaction she got from killing but this day, she was unable to hide it.
They were a well-oiled machine, this group of misfits.
Two years of fighting together had forged them into a formidable unit, their trust in one another unshakable.
“Halsin!” Gale’s voice rang out, sharp with urgency. Celeste barely had time to register the warning before Halsin’s massive arm shot across her chest, pushing her back with a force that nearly knocked her off her feet. Of course he steadied her, preventing her from tripping. A scorching fireball roared past her face, the heat so intense it singed the ends of her hair. She stumbled, catching herself just in time to see the spell explode in a burst of flames, scattering goblins like dry kindling.
Halsin’s arm withdrew as swiftly as it had appeared, his attention already back on the fight. His claive cleaved through another foe, but for a single heartbeat, the world seemed to freeze.
Celeste’s eyes locked with Gale’s across the clearing that had become their battlefield, and everything else faded away.
His lips moved, murmuring the incantation, his hands weaving intricate, practiced gestures.
But his gaze wasn’t fixed on his magic or a target—it was fixed on her.
There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite fathom.
It wasn’t fear, nor was it the calculated focus of a battle mage.
No, it was something deeper, something softer.
Concern.
Gratitude.
Intent.
Appreciation.
The moment shattered as movement flickered at the edge of her vision. Her instincts screamed a warning even before her eyes registered the goblin lurking in the underbrush, arrow poised to strike in Gale’s back.
“Kalla, push!” she shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Karlach didn’t hesitate.
Without missing a beat, the tiefling dropped to one knee while moving her axe in a circle, creating a makeshift platform with her broad shoulder. Trusting in their bond and their years of fighting together, Celeste didn’t think—she acted. Calling upon the wind, she propelled herself, using Karlach’s sturdy frame to launch into the air.
Time seemed to slow as she flew toward the goblin.
The creature lunged, its arrow gleaming wickedly in the vanishing daylight, but Celeste was faster. Her blade arced through the air with deadly precision, slicing cleanly through its neck. The goblin’s head hit the ground with a sickening thud, its body collapsing a moment later. A flickering shield closed around her, an arrow popping of it.
She landed in a crouch, her breath coming in sharp bursts, her heart pounding in her chest. Rising to her feet, she turned to see Gale staring at her, his expression a mix of shock and relief.
His lips were parted, his breathing unsteady, as though he’d been holding it since the moment she leaped.
For a heartbeat, they simply stared at one another, the battlefield around them a blur of motion and sound.
But there was no time to dwell on what she saw in his eyes.
“Are you alright?”
Gale only nodded.
The fight wasn’t over yet.
Tightening her grip on her sword, Celeste turned back toward the fray, her focus sharpening once more.
The battle would demand all of her, but some part of her held onto that fleeting connection, storing it away for later, when the blood and chaos had subsided.