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[katyafeline]

The world of the Twilight is utterly bizarre. Even Others know this - the blazing sky, the grayed out surroundings, the blue moss growing here and there and sometimes everywhere.

Being sent into the Twilight by a stronger foe is even more bizarre. She knows her body hurts - there's an ache she didn't quite leave behind when she was shoved out of the human world. She's lost track of the common landmarks of Moscow, and has been wandering for what feels like forever. It's getting harder to move - the Twilight is sucking away her warmth, her strength, leaving only aching cold.

Panic is starting to set in. Despite all her training, she can't get free of the Twilight's grey grip, she can't find any of the Nightwatch to help, and she knows that soon... she'll never leave.

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[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

In her head, she knows what this is. She's had to be rescued from the Twilight before, when she was very young and very raw (and stupid the way all young people are). But last time she was simply tired, and needed a path home. This...

This.

She screams, letting that give way in a herculean effort to not flail, not reach for the twilight and throw up wards of her own to stop the pain.

She yells at the unnatural sky, and tries to focus on how the cold isn't advancing any more, and not on the feeling of being impaled.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga grimaces, lowering her center of gravity and reeling her in, hand over hand. Behind her, the door onto the Scottish Highlands grows smaller, more ragged. Olga thrusts a hand out in that direction as well, forcing it back open.

A cold wind whips around them, slicing away at their bodies, kicking up a hail of debris around them.

Olga leans, hauling with all her might, a hoarse roar choked from her lips as she tears Katya loose from the lower layers and drags her back to the surface realm.

It seems like it's mere feet from the door, but it might as well be miles.

[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

The relative warmth is amazing, like sinking into the Black Sea after a rough winter running patrols in Moscow.

Katya doesn't appreciate it, however.

The closer she gets to the human world, the closer she gets to the damage done to her, and the harder (impossible impossible, how long can she be asked to do the impossible?) it becomes not to flail, to try and escape this amazing, horrible pain.

"Olya..." The whine catches, climbs, claws its way out of her throat. Perhaps it would be better if she could remember this damage, but it's all new, scraping raw already frazzled nerves.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She can't put her under. She can't. She needs the pain to focus on, needs the hard pulse of her heart and the pounding of her lungs, needs the flare of her rage and fear to hold onto.

She can smell the blood. Feel the crushed bones and the nerve endings singing out their song of agony.

"Pain. Is good, Katya," she grinds out, through gritted teeth, hauling with every ounce of her power. "It means. You're still. Alive."

The Twilight hears the sizzle and crackle of energy and rails against her stealing its hard fought prize from its jaws.

"Not. Today!"

With one last great surge of power, she clutches the chilled body to her and falls back through the door onto the wet, muddy grass. The air expands and then contracts violently around them, sending out a sound like an artillery shell vibrating across the lake and rattling the windows of the bar.

[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

The young Other lets out a pitiful whimper. This is all she can manage, crumpled and broken like a child's unloved toy. She has been crushed, literally crushed under the weight of the spell thrown at her in the last battle. All she can think is that if she has to die, at least she can do so under the sun, with color and life around, not drained like a vampire's victim.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Katya's broken body lies across Olga's lap, her bloodied face turned up to the sky, and Olga swears.

She's through, but she's not done yet. The fierce grip she has on Katya's spirit becomes all that is holding her ruined flesh together. She will not let this one fall, not today, not on her watch.

There's a memory, from so many lifetimes ago, it might have happened to another person entirely, but it's still there, still fresh when the moment calls for it. A spell so ancient, it pre-dates the division between Light and Dark. A spell that some might call Dark in her time, but she knows better. Life feeds life every day, here and everywhere. It's only fair that it feed the massive influx of energy that Katya requires just to have a fighting chance of survival.

The words stream up from her memory, a ribbon of fire that coils up from her lips, swirling around them, digging deep into the turf of the meadow, digging into the very soil around them. A dark patch forms in the grass around them, spreading like an ink stain, rapidly growing dark as Olga chants, her fingers weaving the fire into and around Katya's form. The saplings a few yards away from them crackle and curl as if in some invisible flame, giving up their life to the Grand Sorceress and her incantation.

She chants and weaves and fights with all her arcane knowledge and skill. And silently, in the back of her mind, Olga prays.

[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

For a long, painful moment, nothing changes. If it weren't for Olga's wards holding her tight, she would simply fall away - too tired, too injured to soldier on any longer, Gesar's fighting tiger finally slaughtered in the streets of Moscow, dying under the fake sun of a magically-created world.

There is a faint whisper of an apology, for not being able to turn and rally one last time. The girl who has been loyally achieving what her commanders have told her to do for decades can no longer obey. She has nothing - she cannot even retreat into herself and heal under trance. There is only the dull, drawn-out waiting for the end to come.

And then.

And then.

Power, raw glorious power, not Light nor Dark but something beyond them both, pouring like a cataract over her being. She gasps desperately, her heels and fingers digging into the soggy loam, her ruined body twisting in agony. She'd scream, but vocal cords aren't a vital organ. Thus, there is no audible response... but the mental cry is desperate, ragged and raw.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga hears that sound rip across her mind and smiles. Like a babe being brought into the world, that scream is a herald to the universe.

Not today.

Not on her watch.

The grass smoulders around them, charred black in a ten foot radius around the two, a ten foot sphere really. Nothing organic within the boundary survives, all turned to carbon and ash.

Olga holds tight as the last remnants of the spell cascade over and through them, using her craft to make sure not a shred of the gifted energy goes to waste. She takes none for herself. It all goes into Tiger Cub, and even with that, it may still not be enough.

[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

She is greedy in this moment, grasping every shred of power she can, forcing it into a form she knows how to use, her newly repaired heart crashing in her still-shattered chest to keep going, keep going at all costs.

She falters and grasps and digs her not-there claws in, refusing to surrender to death. Her hands twist, broken fingers ignored, and she uses the power given to start hauling herself back to the land of the living.

Starting by wrapping her hand around Olga's, steady if not entirely strong, an external link to reality.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga's hand caresses the few strands of blond hair back from Katya's eyes, strokes along her cheek, crooning softly under her breath.

"Not today, my friend. Not today."

[katyafeline.livejournal.com]

She's fighting now, fighting hard, but unlike in Moscow, she has a chance of winning. Slowly, by inches, centimeters, she's repairing the catastrophic damage dealt to her - ruptured organs, shredded blood vessels, bones crushed to dust, muscles flattened into uselessness.

A thin thread of her awareness, the her that was left defeated but undamaged, twines around the more powerful Other's aura.

Gratitude. Relief. Exhaustion. Confusion.

She's simply too busy and worn to project more than emotion, vague impressions.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

The protective warding still cradles the younger woman, body and soul, like a cocoon protects the caterpillar in transition. The magic needs time to do its work.

Olga sings softly under her breath, a lullaby in the old tongue, trying to soothe her confusion, to lessen the need to struggle away from the pain.

She wonders if anyone heard the report and will find them here. She doesn't have a spare hand to ward around them, not yet. In another few minutes, perhaps.

Right now, she needs to hold on just a little longer, and only Katya herself can finish what she set in motion.