Sins of the Mother (Finished)

As the wall of sand and wind was about to hit Glyndwr, he simply put the shield up in front of himself; this shield then extended somewhat to cover his entire front as he plunged right through the obstacles placed by the witch. Discarding his shield then, pushing off of it with another fireball. Once again, he was heading straight for Neoma with killing intent, holding his claymore over his shoulder, clearly ready to strike the witch again...

While Glyndwr was busy fending off Neoma, Yurio was busy getting out of dodge with Aurora on his back; not for long, however, as the effect of the resonance between him and Glyndwr started to appear. The same fire, if not as extreme, that billowed around Glyn started to appear around Yurio. It wasn't the same as Glyn's, either, as it didn't burn anything it came in contact with. Yurio attempted to go for a landing before anything happened, but he was too late. Suddenly, he was small and had to catch Aurora in midair, using arms.

The small girl all but squealed, instinctively transforming mid-flight and floating into the creature's open arms like a falling feather. Confused and disoriented, it didn't even fully register what all had happened, at least, not yet...

Wings raised and poised, she worked to try to maintain two spells at once: one to harden her wings, a tricky piece of magic that stiffened the flesh, increasing the density, slowly; and the sandstorm that chased after the strange experiment, little snapping jaws at him as it followed along.

Seeing as Neoma seemed confident enough in the strength of her wings to attempt to block his blade, Glyndwr flipped the sword around and went for a thrust rather than a slash; he figured that he'd have more luck getting through if he focused the impact on a single point. Even if he couldn't harm the witch with it, he could still use it to stay up in the air; he didn't have an idea of how he could do so otherwise. 

When Aurora transformed into her animal form, Yurio grabbed her and clutched her to his chest; he had no time to worry about being gentle, either, since he needed to make a landing. When he had Aurora safe and secure, he used the wings which hadn't disappeared with his miraculous transformation like a parachute, to at least slow his descent enough to keep from breaking his two legs.

The impact struck home, causing the bones to bow, the front ones breaking in the process. Behind the veil, the witch ground her teeth before calling out, the spell still trying to fall into place, setting the bones improperly, in the process. Behind Glyndwr, the sandstorm's maw reached out in vain for him, the spell disabling; however, doing such cause the entire mess to collapse onto them, both.

Her wavelength took control, combining with her magic to form a sort of aura around her, fighting to prevent damage before it could be done, rather than repairing the effects after the fact. She cried and whined against his chest, panicked and confused; Aurora could smell Yurio, but what she felt were not scales, what she saw was not dragon.

While the sword was still stuck in the wings, Glyndwr used it to pull himself towards Neoma. After that, in each hand, he created two stiletto-like blades and thrust them down into the wing to try and create himself a couple of handholds. He ignored the sand now raining down on top of them; if Neoma were to fall, Glyndwr would be the one at an advantage. He is proficient at staying on top of things that are very quickly moving through the air.

Yurio's wings were definitely enough to keep him from harming himself on touching down on the ground. This, however, didn't stop him from overbalancing forwards and falling over after only a few steps. The last thing he had the idea to do was to twist himself a round and fall on his back, to avoid crushing the tiny Aurora. Thinking about how breaking a wing is painful made the wings go away before the impact. Now, there was very little to suggest that he was a dragon mere moments ago.

She screamed, the pain of his flames igniting and engulfing her nerves as her wings caught fire. Panicked, they fluttered and beat against both him and the air, struggling to break free as the sand overtook them both, sending them crashing to the ground with the witch, now feral, falling beneath him.

The sugar glider made a number of sounds, ranging from distressed to confused, as she pawed around her, trying to figure out what was going on, body jostled by the impact. If he were to look, he would notice her glowing faint shades of yellow and purple.

While shaken by Neoma's beating wings, he managed to hold on and even maneuver so that she was below him; that's when he finally released a jet of flame from between his hands, aimed almost point blank at the witch. Apparently, the force of this jet was enough to slow his descent considerably before he impacted the ground. He would land on Neoma, or whatever was left of her, safely.

Yurio was laying on the ground, being very confused about what happened. Only the commotion below his hands managed to break him out of his stupor. He released Aurora from his hold, letting his arms flop to his sides. "That hurt." He said, much to his surprise. He figured that he gained human vocal cords, but wasn't sure whether he gained the ability to use them. He knew now. "You okay?" His voice was quite deep, though not so deep that it was unusual coming from someone of his sort of stature. His voice was smooth, too, surprisingly so in fact, for a creature that could only manage different kinds of growling just a moment ago.

The screams became ear-splitting, fire burning through flesh and fabric alike; soon enough, she was left unconscious from the pain alone. The fall broke her, the wings twitching uselessly between them as the muscles and nerves spasmed from the last pulsing sent through. In seconds, the form seemed to disintegrate, breaking apart into wispy bats that swarmed. A sudden purple pulsed between them, and they disbanded, fading into nothingness, leaving only the floating, winged, purple soul in their place.

On his chest, the creature sniffed around, barely moving for several seconds before it seemed almost to jump, fading to a gold and purple. Beside him, the plasma reformed into Aurora's human self, and she stared at him in shock, a striking resemblance to Glyndwr, though clearly not him --- this one smelled like scales and fire, his breath like peanut butter and bologna. As if the rest of the events and smells didn't tell her, already, his breath confirmed it: "Yurio?"

After Glyndwr had landed, a flame raced from the bottom of his body to the top, turning his features from those that belonged on a dragon into ones that were a sort of in-between. Honestly, one of the most noticeable differences now was that the hair on his head was spiked up and backwards and also very, very purple. He didn't really know, though, since he was watching Neoma's body deteriorate until all that was left was her soul. How the fuck was he going to tell Aurora the he just killed her mother. 

As Aurora turned into her usual self and the thing that was of the top priority to her was making sure of who he was, Yurio felt that he had done a good job of keeping her out of harms way. Sitting up, Yurio looked over himself and the strange baggy trousers that seemed to be pretty much solid fire. Apparently the witches factored this into their spells. "I don't feel like me, but yes."

Her eyes ran over him several times, blinking in confusion as she sought a confirmation of his identity through her other senses, including her Soul Perception. By all accounts, he registered as she already knew that he would, but the sheer shock of the events had not yet been wrapped around by the logic of her mind. "....h.... how...?"

Unable to figure out a suitable way to break the new to Aurora, Glyndwr fell to the ground, kneeling. He tried to see if he could still talk with Yurio, something he very much hoped didn't change and something that he found actually hadn't. A very brief exchange of information rather than words brought the two up to speed. Both knew what was going and where the other was.

On Yurio's side, after talking with Glyn, he fixed his attention back on the girl. He scratched at his head, running his hand through his long hair afterwards. Weird stuff, hair. He liked it, though. "I don't know, probably a magical surprise from the witches that linked Glyn and I. Probably not important. Not right now." Yurio said as he stood himself off of the ground, a little bit shaky on his two legs, but managing well enough. "C'mon, Glyn's this way." He said, turning to the direction he knew his partner was, along with Neoma's soul.

The girl looked over curiously, stretching a hand out to grasp the dragon's currently human one. Her eyes still seemed somewhat haunted, a side effect of simply recognizing her mother; using perception on her soul would bring to the light the sheer distortion of it. Gold flickering like sparkles and flashes along the witch-hued purple, the healing aspects of her wavelength seemed far more muted than normal, disrupted by the encounter.

As he led Aurora towards Glyndwr, Yurio felt almost like he was leading her to a set of gallows, or more fittingly the stake above a bonfire. He couldn't predict how the girl would react to seeing her own mother's soul, but it was an unavoidable certainty that Glyndwr would have to show her. The only way he thought that he'd be able to live with himself afterwards was to have Yurio lead Aurora to him, so that she could see for herself. Glyndwr wouldn't touch the soul. No, he had done enough already. He simply knelt a few feet from it, head down, looking at the sand which had partly turned to glass from the sheer heat of his previous onslaught.

The girl remained close to the beast-turned-human, the ghosts in her eyes refusing to fade away as she walked. Some part of her knew what had happened, some part of her was more than well aware that none of them could have gotten out of there if her mother hadn't fled or been killed... and Glyn would have pursued a threat against her, let alone Yurio, to the ends of the earth. She knew, but she dare not speak the words, dare not activate the additional sight that would have, already, confirmed the thoughts that swam idly at the back of her mind. Instead, she kept her focus on her steps, each pass at lifting a foot seeming harder than the last, shoes seeming weighted, heavier with each pace.

Hearing a pair of approaching footsteps, Glyndwr still kept his sight to the ground. Only when he heard them stop, did he raise his head and stand up off of the ground. Slowly, he approached Aurora, but only stopped when just behind her and to the side, facing away. There weren't any words for him to say. He did what he had to to survive and to save the two people most dear to him. He couldn't think that he would do things any different if he had the chance. That didn't stop him from feeling guilt beyond anything he had ever felt before. There were no words, but he still had to say something. Only two words seemed appropriate...


"I'm sorry."

The girl looked up, something between trauma, pain, and relief flooding her in waves the crashed like tsunamis and choked back her vocals. Lifting a hand, a rush of air seemed to encase the soul that she knew too well, circling it, leaving it at the eye of a storm that she tried desperately to be unable to see past. She couldn't make it go away, couldn't stop the words that it's haunting presence seemed to scream at her, echoes of a past impossible to be left forgotten. She swallowed, hard, and after a long while, the wings stopped. Her eyes couldn't focus on the orb, though she knew it to be there, and she was powerless to look away. After a long while, she stepped closer, grabbed it in an angry fist and stuffing it in the bag at her hip. The haunted look seemed to fade the orchid of her eyes to grey, even despite her Soul Protect snapping back into place the instant her spells had halted. Her lip quivered, her skin paled, making the freckles that marked it stand out all the brighter. The witch knew not how to feel, though she was not quite numb. Neither, though, was she entirely alive. Looking back at them, tears rimming the lower lids that framed the darkening eyes, she fought against herself to speak, trying several times before the cracked, shaken syllable finally escaped: "Glyn..."

Hearing his name said by Aurora in such a state made him breathe in sharply, like he had been physically stabbed. Really, it felt like it, too. He stood there, unable to say anything at all anymore, stiff as a board. He felt like he had no right to even try comforting Aurora and at the same time was hard pressed to keep himself composed; he had hurt Aurora, badly. Moments passed before he was finally able to say the same two words he had said before, but more desperate than before, as if pleading to be forgiven for what he had done.

She knew he couldn't see her --- hell, as the dams broke lose and the tears began to fall, her vision blurred too much for her to see him, either --- but her hand reached out to him, nonetheless. Her body shook, her knees quaked, and she was hard pressed to catch her voice, once more. Once, twice, three times without a charm and she struggled to repeat the name, struggled to speak again. When she did, the word was a plea, a desperate cry. She felt isolated, trapped in this dessert, alone, chained and weighed down to its sand by a force unbeknownst to her. Everything felt heavy, too heavy too carry, quickly becoming too heavy to stand. Around her, the sand and glass became stained by her tears, painted with shimmers of gold, though she knew not how.

Regardless of his feelings, he couldn't stand idly by and let Aurora cry like she was. After she had reached for him, he spun around on his heel and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. He had no right to be like this, having been the one to cause Aurora's distress in the first place... Yet, he also didn't want to let go of her. It's like he was afraid that she would crumble away like the sand on which they stood on if he did. It was quite inevitable that this turmoil within his head and the fact that he was the one who had done all of this would cause his own emotions to tip over the edge of the pot...

The next apology was just as hard to get out for him as his name was for her; his own tears had gotten in the way, too.

"Not..." she spoke through quivering lips, syllable broken and nearly impossible to stretch into intelligible sounds, "...mad," she finished, shaking in his arms. Her tears continued to trickle, catching and creating lines down his clothes while she buried her face in the familiarity and safety of his shoulder.

Hearing those two small words meant more to Glyndwr than he knew. While it didn't change the fact that he was the reason for the state she was in, the relief he felt was immense, though not even close to enough to make him let go of Aurora any time soon. It didn't seem to him like Aurora would want him to let go either.