Pride could certainly live up to his name at times, but this horrified moment was not one of those times. Silver eyes, snapped wide, stared at the rain and wind cutting out the blaze that had damaged the trees. He felt relieved rather than insulted, offering Shango a wordless nod before managing a muttered "Thank you."

He'd entirely lost track of Dread, which was also a horrible start. But for now he focused on the tree, wincing.

Maybe... the healing magic Tenzin had passed on? He hesitated; did that even work on trees? One mental shrug later he made his best attempt.

He wasn't sure if it'd worked, or not. The sensation of being drained, of his own health sapping, was certainly there. But the tree... cracked, further. It was odd. Does swifter healing cause them damage..? Should I have left it alone to mend in its own time? he fretted.

That draining sensation intensified, then, and Pride buckled abruptly; knees gave way and he blinked as he found himself prone in the dirt, confused as to how he'd gotten there. A slow pain was seeping through him, like tree bark through his muscles.

Or maybe they take more healing than I can provide. Maybe... I gave too much. His next thought, though wordless, was more deeply concerning: what if he returned to his gemstone here and now? His consciousness was flickering, a bone-deep ache thrumming through him. The fires would no doubt take him if he fell asleep in Eridanus now.

Silvered antlers tipped forward, then back, as Pride fought to remain conscious.

Beside him, the tree withered a little more.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

crickets and creatures will come in the night
keep my back from the reaper
who's hunting or running, you gotta decide

With the dragon firebombing from above and the fires very quickly being put out, September thought that maybe now was the time to turn it up a little bit. Spread the fire around a little more. Things were pretty under control right now, so he didn't see any problems with this.

A spot where there were still a few flickering flames, September made to grasp them and move them away, to dance along some other areas of mold, but the spell slipped right out of his control and, instead of following his mental directions, the flames instead jumped the opposite direction, catching right onto some perfectly uninfected leaves and branches.

Oops.

september

GRAY SOUL AND STATIC IN MY EYES

Trying to keep himself from flinching at the sound of fire raining down and definitely exploding some parts of Eridanus, Huckleberry began to turn his attention to some of the fire getting out of control - like the one that had just moved to some uninfected plants. He glanced briefly at the deer before zeroing in on the flames and willing the air to leave the space. It was a pretty small area so it wasn't hard to move the pressure in such a way that the flames no longer had oxygen to burn and, within a couple seconds, was completely killed and put out.

He looked around again for the next place to help with and noticed Pride struggling. For a moment he thought to turn his head away, but then the stag faltered, almost slipping forward and his eyes widened as he realized something had gone quite wrong.

"Pride!" he called and, before he could think about it, he was rushing forward, standing up next to the deer and offering a shoulder if he needed to lean at all. He glanced between him and the withering tree and frowned. "Are you okay?"

TRY TO SEE THE FUTURE,
BUT I'M NOT SURE IF IT APPLIES

@Pride

Oh she should have shut her big fucking mouth, huh? The dragon was helpful, at least, targetting the most heavily-infected areas, but the rest. Wow.

The Overseer watched in horror as the tree Pride was working on (failing on?) just started fucking withering from his tampering. And the deer she'd been hauling around proceeded to set fire to a tree with no white on it. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect herself. They were all going to die.

"Stop. STOP!" she bellowed as she opened her eyes and charged forward towards Pride. She struck out swiftly with the side of one of her trunk-like forelegs, aiming for the collection of diamonds at his neck to try and stop the spell before it could do any more damage, but not so hard that she broke his neck. She glared at him and tried to shove herself between him and the tree that he was fucking up. "Just leave it. You're making it worse! I don't need you slinging spells around blindly while you're in this state! Take a breather or something, or just leave. You're putting all of us in danger." She frowned and then turned to September. "I thought you said you had control! Just. Stop. Go get one of the ones that can regrow - they'll fix the damage." The amount of incompetence on display at the moment was maddening.

@Pride

As Moros flittered along, she found herself sharing her Overseer's irritation. Bumbling idiots.

Either way, she had a job to do. In the space between two stands of trees, fresh green shoots were poking up through the soil. A patch in the white. Safe ground.

She lands there, on the tallest of them, fanning her wings wide. Then she'd call out with her magic, to form dancing lights. If the others cannot see her fluttering wings and shining stone, they surely could not miss the purple, harmless flames.

Pride was in something of a daze. He felt the impact of Tectus at the junction of his chest and throat, stumbling him backward, and even then he knew that she hadn't meant to harm him--if she had, he'd be dead or dying. As it was, it still hurt, and the unwelcome contact jarred him from his state. She'd cut off the worst of it, before it'd kept draining him--and that was good. But he still glared at her for a moment, furious (arrogant pride searing up through him like choking fire) that she'd hit him. He shook his head immediately, struggling to push that feeling away.

It was embarrassing, too. Certainly a hit to that same pride, because he usually did have control. Part of him wanted to grasp at straws: to wonder if Order had done something to harm their use of magic, here. But it was always chaotic. He knew that. Sometimes he could rampage through a situation with powerful magic, unflinching and seemingly endless in its energy. Other times-...

He looked around, and grimaced. Other times, it was like this.

And--ahh, Huckleberry. Pride sought him out with his gaze, finally finding him not far off (and that went to show how bad his state was, really). He started to shake his head to assure that nothing was wrong, but then his brain caught up with the question that had actually been asked, and he nodded. "Fine. Thank you. Both," he amended, with a wincing glance at Tectus.

His neck was going to bruise.

Pride gathered himself, trying not to wheeze. "It's just the chaotic nature of magic." His pride still rankled at having to admit failure, but he had failed. "I'll see what I can do that's less... destructive."

If he was going to keep screwing up, best to mess up while trying to control others' work rather than backfiring and blowing up the forest.

Rather than directly strike at the fungus, then, he turned his attention to finding patches of it, and guided bright, flashing arrows of light to pulse above the thickest areas. "I'll keep them marked as I can."

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

This roll can't actually destroy any Order in the tally, but uhh. Maybe best not to keep crit failing :D

Shango moved off a bit, his own way. At least the others were starting, or at least it seemed like they were, to get a handle on what they were doing.

He himself had been focusing wind and rain to keep the worst of the damage contained to where it was meant to be. But a storm could certainly destroy things, too.

He did his best to summon up a few strikes; he hovered, moving toward the glowing arrows (getting an idea of what they were meant for) and feeling the crackle of energy around him. Electricity sparked and danced along his fur and mane, and then-... fizzled out.

Shango squinted as a bolt of electricity shot along the low ceiling, a ripping BOOM of thunder following close behind, but it didn't hit anything below at all.

Just light and sound, meaningless so far. He hissed and shook his head, already preparing to try again.

"STOP RAINING," Dread bellowed with irritation. He circled, wings banking, struggling to maneuver in the tight space between cave ceiling and the highest canopies of the forest. He shook himself, jaws clapping shut once, the spined fins along his neck rattling with the gesture of annoyance. Then he was half-folding his wings, banking low into a gap between the trees.

A thick carpet of white mold, webbing dangling from the branches, lay ahead and he felt satisfaction ripple through him. An inhale, a deep heat glowing in his chest, an exhale--and a broad, loudly crackling swathe of perfectly-aimed flame roared out to engulf the stinking white. Fire rose from the fungus, its white webs blackening and smoldering into nothing.

The black dragon exuded power and grace as he snapped his wings back out, a thudding beat lifting him in a glide that carried him neatly from the clearing--now a raging inferno--and back above the trees.

With the wind as you fly away
Give a smile from your lips and say
"I am free. Yes, I'm free. Now, I'm on my way"

September glared at the Overseer but then gave up the irritation a second later, shrugging and giving her an "Alrighty." before turning to prance off, making sure to take a nice order-heavy path away, turning all the fungus he touched to ash. Since he could.

September wasn't gone for long, returning some time later with Rift behind him, looking very pleased with himself and also mildly exhausted. "Got him! Aaaaand burned some shit on the way in. No healthy plants affected! It was real great, I think!" He turned to the cougar and nodded before stumbling to the side, letting himself turn a bit to jelly against a tree as he took a moment to rest.

september

Rift came bounding in after September, eyeing the burned devestation of the forest here. Thankfully, this had been an area of heavy infection, so it didn't rub on him any worse then if it had been an area of boundless life. His eyes settled on the tree he'd been brought here to fix and immediately stepped over, eyes widening at its state. It was cracked, burned, withered, goodness what had happened to it?

He stepped up next to it, brushing past Pride as he did (and he spared him a glance, at least, but he would unpack his own forgotten memories regarding him later) and pressed a paw to its bark. Focusing forward, he called on his magic to heal it, at least a little bit, or regrow what was lost, but the spell seemed out of his grasp for the moment. There was something in him that thought he should be stronger then this, that this shouldn't be as hard as it was, but, alas, he felt powerless.

He breathed out, mildly disappointed, but not defeated. "I'll do my best to fix this. Hopefully, it can be done."