(( OC: Cassiopia Cinderbloom, Thalassian Elf. ))
With a suction of air, a faint purple shimmer, and a pop – the diminutive blonde appears out of thin air, standing in the well-appointed marble foyer of the grand mansion she calls home. The man-servant by the stairs bows deeply, “Your Ladyship is late, this eve – Lord Cinderbloom will be expecting you in his study.”
Great. All those late nights partying in Dalaran, and I come home to being treated like I'm forty-five again... it's only EARLY evening and I still have to check in?
And why is it so damnably hot in here?
Slippered feet carry her down the hallway past venerable visages of the powerful men and women of the Cinderbloom name in ages past.
...When was the last time she even felt sweat? She hadn't stood in the Dawnrider garden all that long, and the weather had been nice.
Last time I had an episode.
Her steps hurry, at this realization... and as her head starts to feel light and swimmy. It's Khaz'ron – the little, purple Arcane familiar that bustles about her ankles in perpetuity - that shoots the office door open with more force than is truly necessary, 'sounding the alarm' with his own harmless Arcane expulsions as he spins in a frantic circle, just before the young woman rounds the doorframe, herself.
The voice calls out softly, as if far away.
And in the instant before she goes boneless, there's a snap of metal, and a pulse of Arcane energy that slams into his chest – and her diminutive form drops as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut all at once. He hadn't been fast enough – he knew what that behavior from Ron meant, but he still hadn't been fast enough to keep his daughter from hitting the floor, limbs askew.
Servants rush, and the small familiar 'paces' in circles – but Lord Cinderbloom knows that popping sound. As servants and priests tend to her and move the girl to her room, he heads for a locked cabinet in his office to remove a pair of enchanted bracers, “Come on, then, you two.” He gestures to the looming water elemental in the hallway, and the little Arcane familiar she hasn't been without in more years than he can count. They're practically family, now... even for him. If the familiars weren't around... it would mean she wasn't around, after all.
The shattered pair of bracers she had been wearing are already left in pieces on her side-table, when he enters her room – where mana is being siphoned from her sweat-soaked body in a myriad of ways already; mana gems rest at various key points of her body, glowing softly... casting her pale skin in that sickly blue glow he's come to hate, over the years. Mana wyrms hover over her in the canopied bed, circling in the air – dipping and diving above... feasting.
And still, she breathes shallowly when he approaches the bed – his steps slow, as if moving with too much force, or speed, might set some chain reaction off. But it's not hard to slide the new pair of enchanted braces onto slender, sweat-slicked wrists. And as soon as both are locked in place... the gems at her wrists glow... and the fever breaks.
It never stops being harrowing.
And it happens more and more, with time. He had thought it was bad, when she was a child... but they'd gotten it down to a science, how to handle the constant overload of mana in her little body... they were always ready, now... but the raw Arcane energy was tearing her apart, all the same. It was going to burn her up from the inside like a lit wick, one day, at this rate.
For now... there was always an extra pair of stabilizers. All around the estate. At her work. At Magister's Terrace. Hells... half the reason the Magisters wanted his girl was for her power. The power that would eat her up, in time – but they just saw a battery, or a tool... or a weapon.
When he lifts one of her eyelids, her unseeing gaze glows too bright, still, but the stabilizers are working. A cool, wet cloth is pushed into his hand, and like far too many times before... he moves it gently around her sweat-soaked face, while pushing her damp hair back so she won't whine about it sticking to her, when she wakes up. They've been through this enough that he knows the routine.
The little familiar is... hiding? Under Cassiopia's desk, but slowly hovers forward, as the master of the house speaks once more, “Did something happen, tonight, that caused this... surge?”
The little thing affects a 'slump', and spins in place before coming to a stop and reluctantly projecting an arcane image that plays back an orange-haired Elven woman in... rough sort of armor approaching the speaker, “I do not believe you understand the danger running your mouth exposes you to.”
“No, I don't think this other woman quite realizes the danger that running her mouth exposed you to...” There's some war between grief, and anger in the way the older man's brows knit back down at his only child. There is, of course, the impulse to boil the other woman's blood in her veins... but at the end of the day, what mattered was making the best use of one's time... and how much would there ever truly be with her? Hopefully an endless amount, as any parent might wish... but practicality and emotion alike insisted that his time and energy were better spent here at home, focused on what family he had left to him.
“My Little Phoenix... you've burned yourself up again.” He tucks her in, gestures for the Arcane lights to dim, and rises to head for the door, “Rise from the cinders, Little Bird. Shake the ash from your feathers, and spread your wings... there's still plenty of people out there that you haven't bossed around yet.”
baratheonpilled
romaincrisis
amandla
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
