Vaengard: Lucretia's Story ch2

Chapter 2: Lost in the Woods

"This is your fault you know." Lucretia stood, her back to the wall. It was made of a rustic colored stone with vines growing all over it. Breeg stood next to her, his hands up, and his feet spread in a fighting stance. The dense foliage of the southern jungle shook with the coming storm. Birds flew in panic, trees shook. Breeg looked over at his partner with an incredulous expression,

"Is not." He stated simply, "Besides, it's not like I didn't anything against the rules."

"New rule— if the Abraxas is sleeping, do not poke it!" Breeg rolled his eyes.

"I don't see how I'm supposed to keep up with all of the rules when you just make them up on the spot, Lucy." He retorted, aether visibly crackling around his hands as he began weaving a complex pattern with the water vapor in the air around them.

"On the spot?!" Lucretia retorted, adjusting her shoulders to the weight of her blade as she drew it, "I only come up with new rules when you put our lives in danger."

"Oh pshaw, it's just one little abraxas with it's long snaky tail and human body, her face wasn't actually that bad looking though…"

"Breeg! Bird faces are decidedly not attractive." She shook her head, and then stilled herself for battle as the rumble in the jungle stopped.

"Bird?" Breeg looked over confused just as the creature erupted from the foliage towards the ruin they had backed themselves up against. The thing was several times bigger than Lucretia had been expecting. It reared up on its massive coils, staring down at them with reptilian eyes as cold as the memory of a lovers death, arms folded as though in judgment.

"Breeg!" she yelled as a massive yellow-green tail slammed down between them against the wall. Lucretia rolled to one side somewhat gracelessly, while Breeg lept up onto the wall, "Echidna is not abraxas!"

"So?" he called out as he finished his weave and a great fog materialized around them, "Big snaky thing is a big snaky thing; right?"

She bit her lip, restraining from calling out an answer, which of course would have rendered the fog screen completely worthless. Not that its real purpose was to hide them. She could sense the massive muscular bulk of Echidna slithering on the ground in front of her. A heaving mass of flesh, it exuded strength and power. She could hear the stone of the ruin crumble as the coils slid their way up and over. Engulfing the vines in its bulk.

"Any time Breeg…" she whispered to herself. As if on cue the water in the fog condensed into hundreds of needle shaped constructs, not quite ice as the Isoli didn't really understand the concept- and gods knew she had tried to explain it –but not exactly water. With the flick of his wrist he could turn the target into a living pin cushion. But something was wrong. They weren't firing. And then she looked up and saw him, limp in the claw of the Echidna. The water fell around her like rain as the creature tossed her partner to one side, his body falling limp to the jungle floor. Echidna slithered, as though in slow motion, down from the ruin towards Lucretia. The blade mistress dropped her sword, her muscles as limp as Breeg. Echidna made her way purposefully over to the warrior, rearing up to her full height and staring down condescendingly at the little human.

Judgment would be swift and crushing for those that trespassed in her domain. This was not the first time she had thwarted would be trespassers. But there was something different about this little human. She did not turn and run at the sight of her defeated partner. Their gazes locked, and for the first time in its life the ruin's guardian felt the grip of fear. Something was amiss. Purposefully the warrior drew her second blade, the aetheric waves in the area exploded into a writhing black mass. Echidna felt a small cut open up on her front, just across her belly; and then heard the distinctive sound of the blade being sheathed once more, its aura again concealed.

Lucretia Sforza walked passed the giant creature as though it were not there, left it in stunned confusion as she approached Breeg and knelt down beside his body, checking him for a pulse and making sure he was breathing. Coming to its senses the predator came up behind its prey, ready to strike the death blow. Lucretia Sforza did not move. Halfway through its strike Echidna stopped, wracked by a sudden unidentifiable pain. The skin around its eyes began to sag, its flesh went slack. The golden main which adorned its head began to grey, and then turn white, and then fall off entirely. The light in its eyes dimmed. As the seconds passed decades of time devastated the creatures body until nothing was left behind Lucretia by a skeleton and dust.

She cradled Breeg's head in her arm as his eyes blinked open.

"L…Lucy?" he muttered, coughing up blood from what was probably a broken rib.

"New rule— you're not allowed to die."