Equinox's gaze was suddenly on the rat. She stared at it as though trying to chase it away with willpower alone, that growl still reverberating within her. It was unnerving her, and suddenly, with a squelch as fluid poured off her in waves, Equinox loomed down towards it, the rumble in her chest like thunder as she peered closer and closer. This didn't seem right. it couldn't be right. No, Equinox couldn't remember, in the short hours since her re-emergence, seeing anything like this.

The wolf, the cat, the dragon-wolf, the rat... it all became too much for Equinox.

Then suddenly, a voice echoed inside of her mind, and that was just enough to push the great dragon over the brink. The great creature threw back her head and suddenly roared a gurgling, shrieking roar, as her skin writhed and trembled, and her skin heaved and oozed foul-smelling filth. her red eye flashed in anger and her spines pushed themselves to the surface, standing up from her back and making her tail a barbed whip.

She hissed, first at the black wolf, and then at the rat, instinct causing her to try and place her towering bulk over Rinaotei and Aaliyah to protect them from the horrors outside. And yet the dragon continued to roar until its chest convulsed, and suddenly she was vomiting black fluid in putrid globs between hisses of breath. She spat it, in particular, at the rat, and it would seem at a glance that the terrible happenings were somehow, in some way, intentional.

With a final shudder trembling up her spine and throat, Equinox felt heat rising.

And suddenly, every blob of filth that emerged was engulfed in liquid flame, and suddenly she was spitting and screeching as fire curled and crackled in the back of her throat. Where it hit the ground it spread, and where it hit her slime it devoured and sprinted and climbed like a monster.

Suddenly, more terror. Equinox reared up on her hind legs and once more screamed, spouting the fire from the back of her throat that clung to her saliva and was crawling down her long swan neck, and up her wings, and making its way hungrily through the pools she'd made, burning her flesh as it went.

Though it might have been in vain, Equinox felt something rise to the forefront of her mind, something she'd long since lost to the folds of time. Was it instinct or memory? She'd never know. "Run!" an alien voice screamed, although never knowing what it meant. "Run! Run! Run!"


---

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."

tags: @Rinaotei @Aaliyah @Astaroth
notes: here

The rat, now deeply scarred by these crystalline tendrils digging into its skin, seemed to hesitate. Trees were shaking, predators were staring, and realization of the presence of a massive black creature was dawning on the lesser gembound. The voice of instinct was screaming now, almost as loud in its head as the voice from nowhere and the alien impulses.

In the end fire erupting from the black wall and the wall revealing itself fully as a manifestation of death was enough to snap the miserable creature from its haze once again. It could still move. The strange new constructs hurt but they did not impede its movement. Taking advantage of its moment of lucidity the rat turned around and ran as fast as it could into the underbrush and away from the chaos.

- Exit Rat -

Astaroth's eyes widened as the large black creature freaked out. Dodging a glob of black fluid he ran to the side. Reaching inward to the power he hadn't used in so long he attempted to slow their heart rates and calm them. When he felt that he couldn't he shouted over the roaring, "Stop! You're going to kill us all!" He ran around, weaving through the flames, trying to avoid them, quickly making his way back to the cat and the wolf-thing. "If you want to live you may want to come with me." He said before starting to sprint, avoiding the fire all around them, his breath ragged and heavy as he inhales the smoke throughout the air. His running falters as he gasps for breath his vision blurring around the edges from lack of oxygen and strain to see through the haze.
"Speaking."
Thoughts.
tags:
notes:

Keeping a watchful eye on the wild rat as the horrors perpetrated on its body, but it was ephemeral as the feline appeared to be undergoing a panic of sorts themselves. Rina takes one step towards them in concern but doesn't endeavour to breach their space as that probably wouldn't help, so she still kept her distance from them to perhaps be respectful. Heedfully Rina endeavours to visually perceive what's bothering them, and what they verbally expressed marginally discombobulated her. Who were they imploring not to hurt them? The rat? That would be understandable optically discerning what it just did to the feline, but it sounds like their words directed at everyone.

"Please take it easy... I have no intention of harming you. Should I just leave?" Rina endeavoured her best to console the feline, verbalising softly to them. She doesn't know whether just her leaving will assist, but her presence did seem to initiate some fear in them earlier.

Rina got more concerned as the draconian appears to have snapped as well, as they relinquished a loud screeching sound that made Rina's sensitive ears pop. Albeit Rina wasn't too fazed on how their body started to vicissitude even more since she already established that this one could virtually shapeshift themselves. What was concerning was how the eccentric rat made their reaction so truculent. When the dragon endeavoured to shield her, and the equipollently agitated feline, expectorating liquid blobs of a sort at the rat Rina realised that her words alone aren't going to do the abundance of assistance here. Contemplating how she can help calm everyone while consistently keeping an eye on the dragon and the feline, Rina noticed that a spark appeared in the fluid, giving a similar scent to the scent she smelled earlier yet so different.

Plumes of fire started rising as the sparks landed on the other pools of slime. Smelling the same just like the scent, only much more vigorous it made Rina feel ill.

So that's what it was: fire, which commenced to burn about everything it made contact with, causing the wild rat to flee. The others such as the dragon started fleeing as well, verbalising to her and the others to run. Albeit the peril right now was indubitably taking effect on them physically as much as it did to Rina, probably even worse since the smoke is getting rather dense just as dense as the fogs of Cetus. Rina, however, didn't flee. Instead, she neutrally stared down at the fire as it ploughed through the land, leaving eradication in its path. She can handle this. With that final decision, the draconian-wolf immediately swooped into the air.

Wings were flapping she circles herself above the fire in some attempt to keep pushing it back with the winds from her flying. Prepared she concentrates on her Gem with the intention to douse it with her water. But sadly, trying to hone her Magick after so long while working to fly above the fire safely means she can hardly draw out any Magick. OK... Don't panic, don't get brash just keep circling it and give it another try. That is if the smoke doesn't make her pass out first....

_____________

words| 549
tagged| @Aaliyah @Equinox @Astaroth
ooc| ---
muse| 7/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

.

Li had stilled her constant slashing and was back to crouching down, almost as if trying to hide among the black creature. She could hear the winged wolf talking to her, but she ignored them. But when the black creature shifted and began to spat globs of the thick black fluid at the rat, she began to slink away, enough that she wasn't so close. And it was a good thing she did, because not long after, it all shot up in flames.

Some of the flames caught her pelt, and she yowled, leaping away. She didn't continue, however, despite her instincts screaming at her to run. Or maybe that was the black creature, who was now screaming. Everything was more chaotic before, and she found her muscles seem to freeze. She tried to move, but didn't seem able to. She was stuck, crouched down, eyes wide.

Among everything that was happening, she hadn't even noticed that the rat had fled. And it seemed the other wolf had as well. She couldn't see the winged wolf, and didn't even bother to look. Her gaze was on the fire that was spreading, spreading toward her, the smoke curling as it rose up and around, getting into her lungs. Yet she still couldn't move.

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."

tags: @Equinox @Astaroth @Rinaotei
notes: here

Equinox's words soon blurred into mindless sounds once again, as the fire began to burn through her oily covering and into her flesh. She was briefly aware of the black wolf trying to speak to Aaliyah, and snapped briefly in its direction before it disappeared, still frightened of them on account of their bawling hallucinations. The draconian creature watched the winged wolf take flight and circle in the air, and the dragon cried out pitiably after them.

Suddenly she and Aaliyah were alone again as before, yet this time the chaos and confusion was her own fault, not Aaliyah's. A hazy stirring in her brain made her hide tremble and her shrieks became whines as an unpleasant feeling stirred; sentience. Guilt, and shame reasserting itself in her primal fear. The flames reared around her, ever climbing higher up her legs and wings.

The dragon sank to the ground with a muffled crash, her hind legs buckling beneath her as flame crept and ate.

She gave a whimper and a hiss towards Aaliyah, begging the cat to stay whilst her eye, bright with pain, begged her to run. Equinox's head sank down onto the ground, and her taloned wings curled amidst the ash. She looked around, wondering if she were to die here. Then, she raised her head and began to move, dragging herself along the forest floor. She wanted to get ti the creek, the creek that had saved them the first time.

---

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."

tags: @Aaliyah @Rinaotei @Astaroth
notes: here

Astaroth coughed and gagged on the smoke as he padded through the underbrush, before he slipped, tumbling into a deep crevasse and landing in a creek at the bottom, he paddled to keep his head up as he gasped, swimming over to the bank and laying in the shallows with his head out of the water, his chest heaving as he crawled slowly out of the water completely before passing out from exhaustion, his vision blurring as his body went limp and numb. His body compensating for the lack of oxygen. After a couple minutes his vision returned. My head... He moaned and stood up, looking up to see the smoke billowing over the crevasse slowly as he started to follow the stream.

"Speaking."
Thoughts.
tags: @Equinox @Rinaotei @Aaliyah
notes: Maybe Astaroth and the others meet back up following the creek?

The situation is absolute chaos right now... And she has to fine-tune this right now to keep everyone safe, not in a minute not later, right now. During her circling, she detected that the agitated feline wasn't fleeing if anything seemed frozen in place panic worse than ever.

Well, that may be one reason besides an immensely big crowd that got this one so stressed, the supposed fire from earlier. But this is quite a quandary if Rina can't take out this forest fire right now with her Magick, the feline will be in astringent danger than ever before. If this next endeavour of putting it out doesn't work, she may have to save them and take them to a safer distance expeditiously. Hopefully, that won't be so, and it will, in fact, work this time.

Briefly giving the fellow unorthodox draconian being an apologetic look as they seemingly call out to her, probably beseeching her to flee. Hearing their voice change to whines, she got concerned once again for them as they are in extreme agony from the fire burning away at their flesh. She's going to have to endeavour and extinguish the flames of them additionally, as the outlandish substance on them seems more flammable than the foliage around here.

Oh dear... Eridanus here is in quite the predicament right now. Watching as the other draconian one collapsed to the ground, the wildfire perpetuating getting more intense. The one she's circling is marginally in control as the air from her wings is remotely pushing it back to ascertain it doesn't spread more. One can't say the same for the flames around the draconian one. The heat was initially wasn't too stinging on Rina, her scales appear to repel the pain of it just a little at first, but it's starting to bite at her nerves now.

The other dragon being managed to move a little towards a creek. Please reach it in time... Hurry...

She hopes the other wolf is safe; they appeared to have managed to elude to safety. She hopes so anyway; they did decide between fleeing instantly, so they most likely are. But even so with the way this wildfire is spreading, it's still possible for them and others from afar to be a moral hazard from this fire.

So she endeavours in putting it out again... But still, once again nothing comes. No... She must do this. Determination surged, seeing the repercussions if she fails this. She won't let anyone die here.

_____________

words| 431
tagged|
ooc| ---
muse| 7/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

.

Rina was virtually about to stop for a quick second to endeavour and pick up the feline onto her back to take them to a safer place, then return to the fire but she could feel it. An ascendant force of puissance pulsing through her veins, virtually like the plug in the bathtub has conclusively been unplugged on her Gem, letting the Magick in it be free and pool around her whole body. Knowing this was it, she had this one chance to do this to be sure to put the flames out before anyone ends up killed.

Rina opens her maw; a mighty stream blasted out from Rina's mouth, the high pressure of it made the specks of flames be expeditiously mowed down to little embers, then eventually nothing in a matter of seconds the moment this vigorous jet stream hit them. She aims at the edges at first and circles around the fire until Rina determinately got to the centre of the wildfire. An enormous path of ash remained where the fire initially was smoke still stayed alongside steam, flapping her wings with vigorous might once again to blow the smoke away, just about gone and safe away from the feline.

Now it's time for the fire on the other dragon...

Making a quick turn, Rina flies over to the other draconian being, expelling the hose of H2O from her jaw again as she showered them with the water. Extinguishing the flames that are biting at their body and the fire on the ground that they lay on until it was determinately all gone, the other draconian being now at last safe. Phew... Conscientiously Rina goes to land back on the ground, feeling a little dizzy from that stunt and a little thirsty from utilising that particular Spell, maybe that's why it failed at first.

_____________

words| 311
tagged| @Aaliyah @Equinox @Astaroth
ooc| ---
muse| 7/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

.

Aaliyah vaguely noticed the state Equinox was in, collapsing and flames climbing on them. She was more focused on the flames approaching her, seeing, feeling them as they licked at her face. She could feel the burns, knowing what would happen if she didn't move, but she still couldn't force herself away from the flames. They slowly moved higher and higher, enveloping her face, until...

Until a blast of water pouring on and around her stopped them. She hadn't noticed the winged wolf flying above, trying to help them, to put out the fire. As soon as she felt the water, she jumped slightly, and without sparing the others a glance, darted away. Her paws seemed to move of their own accord, and it wasn't until she tripped over a sprawling root that she stopped. Letting out a yelp, she fell, falling into a crevasse and into a creek.

Struggling to reach the surface, it took a moment for her to realize which way was up. Eventually, her head broke the surface and she let out a gasp. Taking in deep breaths, she looked around. Seeing the wolf on one side, she began to paddle that way, struggling to stay afloat. Soon, her paws touched solid ground and she heaved herself out of the water before collapsing, barely conscious.

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."

tags: @Equinox @Astaroth @Rinaotei
notes: here