They were trapped quite literally between a rock and a hard place. They were running out of air to hiss with, their 'threatening' display dissolving into little puffs of air and the fearful clamor of their tail-blade against the rock. Their mind ran through the few options left to them (Bite??? Try to squeeze past??? Curl up and die???) when the catsquirrel was suddenly torn asunder, only it's grasping arm left behind as the rest of it exploded into shards of crystal and scraps of desiccated hide.

It was the single most awe-inspiring, terrifying, beautiful thing Eulogy had ever seen.

It took a moment for them to respond- still catching their breath, still shocked into silence by what they had seen. "...I okay." They'd stick out their head, so it was just barely peaking out of the crevice they hid in. "You.. made it go away?" There was a silent question attached to that- How did you do that?

@Callista

Unbeknownst to Coilean, he was currently getting absolutely babysitter mogged by Callista, who'd literally blown up the guy trying to murder(?) his charge. Coilean, on the other paw, was trying really hard not to die.

The huge snake was still stuck to his claw. Its insides were dry. He was not sure if this made things better or worse, psychologically. It definitely made the journey to killing it dead less clear.

The basilisk chewed uselessly at the blade, as a second was thrust forward in the direction of its head.

Aurelle reached out and found Lichen's hide. It was warm and damp beneath her hand. "I'm here," she told her. "Are you hurt?" Presently, it didn't occur to her that other people other than Lichen might be hurt, too. In fairness, her limbs and head were still buzzing from whatever she'd felt when she tried to connect with one of them.

She nudged Lichen in a direction that seemed quieter, away from the sounds of combat.

@Lichen

At last, Coilean's blade caught on a sliver of the Basilisk's body that ripped it properly off of him, breaking across the sands in pieces, its mouth still open in its desperation to sink its fangs into flesh.

There was only one remaining, the caroller that held onto Dread's tail. Even the force of his slamming into the water didn't seem to disoldge the creature, far stronger now as a crystalline zombie then it had as a lesser in life. The many-teeth of the inside of its beak clamped hard onto the tail, now more desperate to simply hang on then do any further damage, for the moment at least.

The fire that rolled over it did little, just as it had done with the Kyte. Skin and feathers burned away, yes, but it simply revealed more of the epidote skeleton beneath the surface.

CAROLLER 12/15	CATSQUIRREL 0/15	KYTE 0/35
BASILISK 0/25	LAVA RAT 0/30

@Aurelle @Lichen @Coilean @Eulogy @Callista @Dread

Normally, she wouldn't be opposed to being ushered away to a quiet spot. However, today she stood her ground against Aurelle, seemingly reluctant to be taken away. "What if more come? We should stay with..." She no doubt meant the group, but her rebuttal was weak, especially as adrenaline seemed to wane; the sizeable chunk of missing shoulder was making itself very known.

Eventually, she let herself be moved however Aurelle wished; the one with the voice that was close to Aurelle had said they were dead. That it was okay. "My shoulder hurts," Lichen relents, perhaps underselling the amount of damage done to it.

Distantly, the back of her brain itched as it reminded her that there was another dragon here. So, when she next spoke, it was a little louder. "But, I can still fight and stand, it's not so bad!" After all, she had a peacock to protect her treasures. Even if she felt awhile and still had the head of that wretched creature clamped onto her shoulder.

"Is the younger one okay? They didn't seem to care much about attacking the blind, I doubt they'd stop to think about attacking a child either."

As the rest of the Gembounds began to talk and regroup on the beach, Dread the dragon was floundering in the ocean waves. He thrashed, turning around on himself, wings flailing. He could swim, just not... really well, but it allowed him to coil round and snap at his own tail, at least--something he couldn't easily do in the air. Not that he'd planned this; he'd assumed the weird stupid bird would fuck off when he hit water.

He'd been unaware it was... different. Changed. Unnatural.

Only now was he starting to realize something was very wrong.

From the shore, if anyone wasn't too busy counting wounds and survivors, they might've seen him pop up above the water's froth and then back down, snapping as he fought a bird a hundredth of his size--or tried to.

It might be true that the thing couldn't really do him much harm, but it was certainly embarrassing: one wing rose high, water streaming from it, then slapped back into the water. A tail, bird attached, lashed out as an upside-down taloned foot kicked for it, and missed. This latter maneuver repeated three times as Dread tried and failed to dislodge the damn bird; his tail was his counterbalance, and holding it still in the water was hard.

He swore, tried to roar, choked on water. He wasn't stupid enough to inhale, really. He wasn't at real risk of drowning, but he sure looked incompetent.

The blade sunk home, driving the spine from the head and sending the rest sliding off to clatter lifelessly on the beach. Coilean slumped forward onto the sand soon after, studying the wound it'd left on his calf.

Even though it had been a dry bite, the placement of the Basilisk's fangs wasn't ideal. It'd torn through muscle, though not quite deep enough the risk the many veins and arteries running through the leg. Still, blood pulsed lazily from the two ragged holes, and he didn't have any way to treat it himself.

"Can... Can someone help?" His voice was shaky, the shock had begun to set in. "I don't. Don't know if I can walk." Not without help, that is.

I used to think that the day would never come
I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun

Callista sighed in relief when the snake poked her head out, miraculously unharmed. She lowered a paw (not the gauntleted one) if Eulogy wanted to climb up. "Yes, I did. My magic can do stuff like that. Come on, the others are-"

But she paused when the dragon beyond them roared, her head snapped around to look and saw him floundering in the water, with the last of the Lessers attached to his tail. Whether Eulogy climbed up or not, she'd quickly stand, cursing to herself and began to head back to the others, glancing at Coilean.

"Somebody help him," she begged as she focused on the bird, raising a paw to line up her magic. She didn't want to accidentally hit Dread's tail with this. She tried to follow the motion, tried to pinpoint a shot to straight up rip that bird into a little burning star (and Dread would be fine, right? Dragon's could handle fire?) but it was moving around too much. The tail was going up and down, slamming into the water and coming up again. She couldn't get a clear target without fearing she might hit the dragon's tail instead.

Her paw lowered and she grit her teeth. She needed to come up with something else.

That my life would depend on the evening moon
That the night would never comе

The tenacity of the caroller was something to be admired. It gripped tightly to the dragon's tail, despite the thrashing, despite his attempts to throw it off, as the geode-teeth burrowed deeper every chance it could get. It bit harder and harder, grinding stone against the scales until...ah!

One caught and slipped into the space between the scales, piercing the skin. At last! It's task was nearly complete, its tenacity had not been in vain. It continued to hold to the tail, despite its current state, merely a skeleton now, with bits of flesh and feathers clinging to the crystal bones.

CAROLLER 12/15	CATSQUIRREL 0/15	KYTE 0/35
BASILISK 0/25	LAVA RAT 0/30

@Aurelle @Lichen @Coilean @Eulogy @Callista @Dread

"How tall are yo--" A question no doubt directed at Coilean before Lichen's attention was snatched away by Callista's plea. "I'll be back to help you." She made the promise vague in the direction of Coilean before promptly doing what someone with an open wound likely shouldn't do: jump into open water.

She was a half-decent swimmer, certainly better at it than she was at flying where nothing could be felt in any direction, and the noise Dread was making was more than enough to locate the flailing dragon. Naturally, the main issue was locating the bird that she could not see with magic.

First, she bonked into Dread, her nose squashing against his flank. Then she paddled further down to the main source of splashing, where people were presumably struggling to get rid of the little creature. All the while leaving a red bloody trail behind her after she hadn't given Aurelle time to tend her, swimming towards a struggling gembound double her size: what could go wrong?

Jaws snapped shut first on air, then on a mouthful of water, then something bony. She couldn't tell if this was the creature or Dread she was biting; it wasn't as if she had a description of either of them to work off of. But she had her teeth on something that wasn't nearly double her size, so perhaps it was the pest.

@Dread (mention)