Coaxed off of the golem by both the fish snapping at him and the strange-looking — kettle meet pot — hybrid butting him off, Vinea shrieked shrilly, scampering up to the rock pile's peak. "H-hey! I think—" he murmured, cut off by the beating of wings and angry screaming. Hearing the familiar sound of his kin, he widened his eyes, nearly whinnying: "it's a fin beast, I think." Then, he lowered his voice and whisper-yelled to her, "stay back though! Please!"

Mother henning successfully completed, Vinea barked in the direction of the dragon, casting ice upon the strange fish. Just as he went to crawl back down the golem's front, he watched as the weird hybrid—again, kettle meet pot—made to put the fish back into the water. "Hey, wait!" Stretching out a paw to make contact with White, he wheedled, "don't put it back in yet. It feels... weird." He gestured vaguely, hoping she'd understand.

sorry for taking so long to reply aksldjflkasdf ;n;

The golems do not react to being climbed on, nor to all the noise around them. They do not react to anything, in fact, until Asimona shoots forward like a white arrow, opens her jaws, and fires a blast of freezing, icy magic toward the fish.

Then, their bodies slowly groaning with the sound of grinding rock, both golems turn toward the dragon. Perhaps they are attracted by her use of magicka. One lurches into motion, rapidly lumbering toward her, its thumping steps shaking the earth beneath as it reaches great stone arms up for her. It would probably be wise to avoid it.

As White drops down the steep embankment to try and drag the huge fish to water, she would find that she's saved it from the brunt of Asimona's frosty spell--for better, or for worse, as the fish snaps up like a beartrap to try and seize her by the snout. Still, parts of the back end of its body are sheened with ice, and its thrashing appears weaker.

A banana, out of nowhere. The yellow fruit thumps down off the fish, bouncing unhelpfully off of it and past White, floating away on a new adventure down Polaris' river. Skeena's magic attracts the attention of the second golem, which starts to stumble toward her, swinging at her with a rocky fist.

- One Stone Golem is chasing Asimona. It has not yet reached her.

- The other Stone Golem is swinging a fist at Skeena; she must roll at least a Barely Successful (Other) to avoid.

- The ancient Fish is attacking White. She must roll at least a Barely Successful (Other) to avoid.

- Both golems are currently ignoring any passengers that happen to be riding on them.

@Vinea @Asimona @White @Skeena @Talion

The old fish was a lot heavier than White initially expected and her entire focus went into just trying to drag the damn thing. She'd managed to pull it away from Asimona's magic and close to the water again, half out of breath.

When she heard the golems moving, she stopped and lifted her head to look after them-- only for her muzzle to be grabbed by the fish she had just saved. What an ungrateful bastard.

"DAA--" she managed to wail before her head was submerged under the icy water, her cries for aid turned into mere gargling and bubbling below the water. She pulled and jerked her head, whining and choking on water.

Both wings unfurled again, flapping hard as she tried to pull away from the fish. Her movements grew more frantic as she began to taste the drops of blood drawn from the fish's teeth sinking into her skin.

Skeena did as her Brother asked, scurrying back from the ledge. She trusted him to protect her, always did, even with the Voice whispering poison about him in her ears. But things didn't go well, and she was forced to scurry forward.

With a loud groan, the big rock monster things came to life. One began to head towards the Big-White-Thing-With-Freezing-Breath, arms reaching out. The Bird-Dog was pulled beneath the water by the fish, and her Flying-Yellow-Thing seemed to draw a Rock-Monster's attention, as it swung a giant blocky fist at her. She attempted to leap clear, but the fist caught her, sending the hybrid flying. Skeena slammed into the rock wall with the crack of breaking bones, and eolled down until she was half-submerged, stunned.

It was very clear that nobody except for his kin—bless her soul—would listen, and Vinea made to help the bird-dog with her present situation of a fish clamped about her face. Yet, Mother's words echoed in his mind as he heard a shriek. Whirling around, stopping in his preparations to leap from the golem he resided on to find that the monstrous thing had swung an immense fist in Skeena's directly, catching her in her escape attempt. "NO!!!" He yelped, a sensation similar to the one he felt when he was so close to the fin-beast rising in his throat. Similar to the pulsating layer of magicka being nearly tangible above his head. The golems hadn't done anything until someone conjured something out of thin air. Perhaps...

A shimmering bundle of bananas manifested above Vinea and he sprung off towards the wall as they fell; hopefully, on the golem. Gathering up his poor stunned sister by the scruff, he scampered up the wall with ease, racing to get as high as he possibly could as fast as he could.

Asimona growled when the dog began to drag the fish away. "What are you doing? We need to stop it moving!" She gasped when it tried to attack the dog, but then there was a rumbling and groaning and she turned herself around.

She knew there had been something strange about the stones and now, to her complete shock, they were moving. Without really thinking about it, she flapped her wings harder so that she was higher in the air and opened her jaws to breathe ice down on the one that was going after her. However, the magic was stuck in her throat and she spluttered, a few shards of ice dropped from her jaws. The others didn't seem to be faring well and she realized that she had messed up.

"Failure. They're going to die because of you..." It was him again, whispering smoothly in her ear, but she didn't have time to listen. She had to do something soon.

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags:
notes:

The old and battlescarred fish continues to struggle, but it is growing weak. The freezing spell is showing its effects, the thrashing no longer quite so violent. The fish fights with struggling jerks to maintain its grip on White's muzzle.

The golem which struck Skeena pivots slowly as its target is snatched away from beneath it. The bananas that hurtled toward it, or perhaps the magicka used to summon them, draw it on further, but it finds Vinea clambering quickly out of reach. The other golem plods dutifully on beneath Asimona, reaching for her--still unable to pummel her from the ground. It stands impotently below, seeming to stare up at her with a face of blank and empty stone.

- White is still being attacked by the ancient fish, and must roll a minimum of Barely Successful (Other) to break free.

- One golem is distracted by Vinea, and is pursuing him but cannot reach him.

- One golem is distracted by Asimona, and is pursuing her but cannot reach her.

@Vinea @Asimona @White @Skeena @Talion

Talion dispassionately watched the catastrophe unfold before him.
He didn't notice the tiny Gembound upon the golem until the fish snapped at it. Another small Gembound appeared, as if summoned by its comrades' precarious situation, and yelled something about the first being its 'brother'. Since he didn't recognize that word, he wondered about its meaning, and why it was used in reference to another Gembound.

The dragon suddenly taking to the air again pulled the owl's gaze, and thoughts, away from the strange pair. It did not study the fish like before though. Instead, the dragon seemed to decide to end this whole ordeal by blasting a stream ice at the fish. That might have worked, if the golems hadn't been around, and Talion might have informed the ragtag group as much if he'd had any time to do so. Unfortunately, he was forced to watch, just the others, as the golem suddenly came to life because of the use of magic.

The white hybrid diving for the fish drew Talion's gaze away from the golems for a few seconds. He watched, unsurprised, as the thing thrashed up, and clamped its jaws around the hybrid. It had already attacked the tiny one, why did the bird-dog think it would react any differently to it? Because it was helping?

One glance at the pair of little ones said they were at least distracting their own golem. The dragon hovered in the air, jaws parted as if to let loose another blast, this time at the golem approaching her. Since it was big, and was at least out of range of the golem, the owl turned his attention back to bird-dog. It needed help now.

Talion unfurled his wings and pushed off the rock in one fluid motion. He glided over the water, and then began a slow ascent in a wide circle around the group. As soon as he thought he was high enough, the owl twisted and dove straight at the fish.
"LET GO!" He screeched as he twisted again, slashing at the fish with his talons.

Skeena moaned quietly, feeling bones creak. Her fur was wet, and something stank, and she felt like she was in pain.

'Let me loose, let me loose! I'll kill it, maul it, make it suffer for harming us!' the voice whispered and, for a moment, she contemplated letting it.

But then something was grabbing her by the back of her neck, holding the hybrid up by the loose skin of her scruff. No, she couldn't let the Voice have control, it would hurt Vinea, hurt her brother, and she wouldn't dare let her kin be endangered by herself.

'Coward, we don't need him! Let me loose, let me kill, let me show him we don't need his protection!'

She felt her feet touch ground, and her brown eyes opened, struggling to get her bald feet on the ground. Once she felt solid ground beneath her, she would squirm to be let go, turning to look at Vinea, wincing as her ribs protested. "B-brother Vinea, we need to help them."

White couldn't do much more than flail and try to hold her breath. The fish had a good grip on her muzzle and she was beginning to panic as she tasted more blood dripping into her mouth.

She moved to thrash backwards, wings beating down hard against the ground as she made an attempt to break free. She quickly found, however, that as soon as her head was just above the surface-- and she managed to catch a single breath --it was brought harshly back down by the fish.

Wings still frantically beating with repetitive little whumps, White found herself still trapped by a stupid, ungrateful, magicka-filled evil fish.