Isaac startles for the bird. You hear of these things. It’s just another to witness it, the strange, blurred moment where man becomes — owlet?
(He has questions, too. They'll both have to wait.)
So that takes a moment. One in which it occurs to Isaac that they haven’t exchanged either half of the plan in whole. The first crude body to barrel down comes a shock. The rest, a recoil: For all his time in the Approach, Ghislain, a half dozen skirmishes; it’s only intensified. Lips close, lungs shut, a struggling reflex against the unnatural.
But they haven’t seen him just yet. Isaac's knuckles whiten over his staff. Not a channel, here and now, but a talisman. It’s always a sign, He’d said. That something’s gone to shit.
Fingers flex. Fade ripples, thickens; drags the brood's momentum into strange, seasick spiral. Two hurlocks stall, a third staggers into open air, metal crashing down the cliffside. The last, though — taller, burlier, an arrow fletching its skull — shrugs the spell aside.
And turns to lay eyes on Isaac. It rolls an axe in hand.
no subject
(He has questions, too. They'll both have to wait.)
So that takes a moment. One in which it occurs to Isaac that they haven’t exchanged either half of the plan in whole. The first crude body to barrel down comes a shock. The rest, a recoil: For all his time in the Approach, Ghislain, a half dozen skirmishes; it’s only intensified. Lips close, lungs shut, a struggling reflex against the unnatural.
But they haven’t seen him just yet. Isaac's knuckles whiten over his staff. Not a channel, here and now, but a talisman. It’s always a sign, He’d said. That something’s gone to shit.
Fingers flex. Fade ripples, thickens; drags the brood's momentum into strange, seasick spiral. Two hurlocks stall, a third staggers into open air, metal crashing down the cliffside. The last, though — taller, burlier, an arrow fletching its skull — shrugs the spell aside.
And turns to lay eyes on Isaac. It rolls an axe in hand.
Ah. Ah, shit.