Zoey's steps slowed as she crossed the threshold into Draco. The sound of screaming, roaring, rending and slamming was not one of a simple spar or training session. Something like that still would have caused her quills to rattle, but this was different.

Because...

Mom?

The gutteral screams were of a sound that she should have never laid witness to, akin to watching a Master shed tears of genuine sorrow. The agony of her mother, howling like a wounded beast... no, it was a wounded beast. Zoey saw that as she rose upward on to two sets of limbs, craning her head back to look with panic toward the sound.

Flashing colors, violent and angry and glowing neon cherry and lime in the putrid voidlight, a solar system going nuclear. It was an accident, an unmistakable cruel twist of fate that made no sense other than an accident. As though somehow, her sibling and her mother had simply ran into each other at mach speed by accident, ramming tooth and claw into each other accidentally, because it simply could not make sense to her--

It did not matter why, in that moment. Only that it was happening. A horrible scene that she could not tear her eyes away from.

And what will you do? The thought was barely more than a whimper.

Forelimbs hit the earth again, a belly full of quills rattling at full force like a serpent giving one last warning before it struck. Suddenly it was transformed into a train, a bullet, thundering talons surging in a reckless stampede.

What will you do when you reach them? The demand roared through her blood.

Something slipped away. The taste of acidic metal stung the scrambling insect's tongue, sharper and sharper with each breath as it barreled into the fray. There was a dizzying sensation, one of two hands pulling this way and that at the wheel. She would be the third car to join the pile-up.

No. A slam of the breaks, nails squealing as they were grinded down by the stone, momentum sliding the bullet forward even as its limbs locked and braced for impact. The Zoisite's front legs slid in the slime and ichor that splattered the earth around the fray, and it stumbled into place, body falling into the thrashing, struggling beasts that screamed and howled and bayed words that made the grub's inner ear pop with the pressure change. The pathetic softness of its weight hitting the writhing combatants was laughable, easy to ignore at best.

With no sense of grace or balance, hands flailed upward, talons climbing for purchase on the two larger forms: she was nothing more than a child, frantically trying to squeeze between two adults, two monsters who had always towered over her, unsuited to even be witness to the horrific scene.

Say something, say anything, only panic answered, frantic, stop stop stop you're hurting each other stop and no amount of desperation could form into the words that would end the senseless fighting. Help me.

A gargled sound came from the Zoisite's jaws, something between a snarl and a sob. Talons tried to hook around the forelimb of Khavur, heaving with what little mass it had to shove the two-headed behemoth back but found no purchase, its effort only throwing its palm into the mass of quills that lined the Khavur's throat... and another limb reached toward the Orthoclase's face, toward the open jaws, to try and push the jagged row of teeth away, or... stuff it full of violet carapace. It did not care if it was impaled or had its forearm snapped in half by the jaws of its own life-giver. The grub squirmed regardless, worming its way with its remaining limbs clawing to get between, trying to drive itself: a fragile wedge between two unyielding mountains.

And Zoey, she could not, could not, could not even begin to summon a single word. Reduced again, yet again, into nothing more than a worm in the face of conflict.