Lamprey Valkhound Improves Lawn with Shiny Oil Droplets

James struggled to breathe, wings flapping fruitlessly as he spiraled down to the ground after Aethereal. He crashed and skid for a few feet, panting, before forcing himself to bruised legs and continuing the chase. He galloped as fast as he could, ears pinned. He just... needed... to stun her...

He staggered and the spell went awry, his lungs begging for breath. He shook his head and ran forward even so, ears pinning.

"YOU WON'T HAVE HER, MOTHER!!", he cried, sacrificing most of his breath to shout.

He panted, gasping for air, legs numb as they faithfully kept running. He was going to be sore as hell after this, he just hoped that they could herd Aethereal forward and towards Vargas.

Or, even better, that Isra would arrive.

Isra emerged slowly from the doorway--the ruckus had drawn her out. Her lessers were migrating closer to the palace to avoid the fast moving cluster of bodies and spells. Thick rump sat heavily on the stone landing, a fat paw reaching up to her teeth to dig at a piece of meat stuck there, claw working like a toothpick. Aah, they were fighting beyond the river. There was some shouting, but she could not hear what was being said. She relaxed against the stairway banister to watch. Might as well.

Isolde blinked. Run or fight? "Why?" She questioned in her naïve way, four eyes blinking out of unison as she took in the scene. The bolt- she jumped at it, flinching, dancing back with light steps.

They were... They were yelling. And they were fighting, and the little deer had blasted up into the sky. She didn't understand the order of run or fight. She didn't understand why James was battling, but as she took a step forward, she froze.

Her spiracles had flexed out as air pushed out of her gill-lungs- with trachea-like cartilage surrounding them, they had no lungs to actually collapse with, but she could still feel the effects. Her head went dizzy quick as she stepped back again. 'What's going on?' She had attempted to cry out, but nothing but a loud buzzing came as no air could fit through her spiracles.

That really got her panicking. When she struggled to step back again, her leg misstepped in the lack of atmosphere, her hoof sliding back farther than she intended it to. Her head flicked to James- James. He was stumbling, he was heaving, and Isolde's muscles shook.

Run or fight. Steeling herself, Isolde took a struggling step forward, twisting about in an alien fashion to get her gangly body into motion. Run or fight. Her head dipped as she pointed her crest to the ground, wings unfurling in the pain of forceful depressurization. "RUN OR FIGHT." What could have been a rallying war cry was overlaced with the buzzing of a broken computer, monotone and loud- though, only as loud as it could be.

She would not bare to see beings unjustly hurt. She may not know the situation, but when the first thing she had seen of this being was battling, and with James not having fought her before, she took a stab at what the enemy in this situation was.

One hoof shuffled in front of the other as she squinted up at Aethereal. "RUN-- or fight--" she buzzed out weakly- when she moved, she could feel the winds more, and she wheezed out a soft buzz as her next step collapsed under her. The long creature went down- one hoof, then the other, before she was half-kneeling under Aethereal.

"Run... or fight," she struggled. Not even her head could barely reach up to the rising Valkhound as it bonelessly dipped back to her back defensively.

Tahi-shei heard Isolde's voice, drawing in a gasping breath as the spell finally let go of him. Thank the Caves, he could breathe. It seemed there was some small mercy, but he was still light-headed from his experience with a lack of oxygen and a little bruised from his fall. "Because Mother has her, and I don't want you to get hurt." Then, he returned his focus -- he was close. Mercifully, he couldn't see Isra, because if he'd been able to, he'd have probably been vibrating with fury (no matter that she literally could not hear them; it would have been misplaced anger anyway).

"I know you don't believe me," he growled, lunging towards her, "but this is to help you." If he managed to hit her, Mother would be drawn from her body and into the soil with a painful and all-consuming sort of pain. (He'd kill it and/or apologize to Isra later; this was more relevant at the moment.) But if Aethereal managed to pull away before he touched her, whitecaps would simply sprout harmlessly around his feet.

James stumbled forward and breathed in and out, lungs shuddering. He'd always taken air for granted before now, but he suspected he never would after this.

He let out a cry and suddenly dug his hooves into the turf, grabbing onto the Valkhound mentally and desperately pulling her back, trying to slow her down even more, trying to help Tahi release her of Mother's influence. He pinned his ears and snorted like an angry bull, mind straining.

"Be... free!", he gasped.

His eyes were drawn sideways as he heard wing flaps and absolutely furious honking, his brows raising just a bit as Darling came flying all the way from one of the ponds. He could feel her rage and would have laughed at the cause, it being that Aethereal was harming her swan-horse.

She flew around the beast and honked as loudly as she possibly could, causing an annoying (and painful) distraction as she grabbed hair and yanked, fluttering and flying all over, just being an absolute nuisance. She flitted in and out, hissing and spitting, her rage spurring James on to pull harder.

While she didn't know who Mother was, she had an inkling of what they were meaning. But- it didn't make sense. Weren't mothers supposed to be Good? Well, then- who had even said mothers were good? The thought-process brought her to a halt. Should she fight mothers? James was fighting the... Mother one, and James-friend was fighting, and-

Quietly, Isolde shut her eyes as she stood. She had to think about this one. Fighting alongside James sounded best- she didn't know any mothers, good or evil, and so she didn't have anything to really go on for Aethereal. James? James was the first person she met, and she liked him. He was nice.

And so, Aethereal must not be.

Charging forward, Isolde let out an embittered swan-hiss, interlaced with a noise that could only be compared to nails on a chalkboard. Whether or not the others yelled for her to stop, she had reared her neck back like a kingfisher, lining up her shot, and attempted to pierce Aethereal's back half, wherever she could aim.

If Aethereal wasn't already out of her reach by now.

He heard the sound of flesh-on-flesh, and saw Isolde collide, and heard Aethereal cry out. "Don't kill her!" he pleaded, starting to realize that maybe this creature was doing him more harm than good. A beat later he thought, Well, not unless you have to, and cringed slightly before returning his attention to the battle at hand.

The Valkhound had struck out at him, and the hit interrupted his focus long enough that the spell didn't go through. His inky frills were hit, though, and some of the sticky, black mess very likely came away on her paw. He grit his teeth and planted his feet, quickly calculating how close he was to the others. Isolde... might get caught up in this crossfire. And potentially Darling. He hoped not, at least, but the exact distances of this spell were a little iffy. "Sorry in advance," he muttered, and to anyone who wasn't able to see the spores, it would have looked as though he suddenly just... stopped.

Luckily, due to how weak the cast of the spell was, it was unlikely that Isolde or Darling had gotten caught up in the crossfire after all.

Darling honked and flew away as she was flapped at, hissing at Aethereal before retreating. She had no defense against the valkhound.

James breathed out and finally jumped forward, trying to just purge her of Mother once and for all. Then they could drive her into Pegasus and ask Vargas for aid.

"Darling!", he cried, "Go to Pegasus!"

He sent an image of the cave and the route towards it, the swan honking and heading towards the tunnel. James would send further orders in a few minutes, probably to go to Draco to find Vargas and try to get him to come to Pegasus.