Topic: An Outsider's Perspective: A Battle in the Marketplace

Tasha Van Blaudin

Date: 2011-09-23 17:12 EST
((This is a re-telling of the scene in the marketplace last night from a resident of the area. Some literary license will be taken as it is from this character's perspective. If this offends please shoot me a PM and I will find a way to re-write the scene in which there is no mention of your character's participation. After all, P.O.V. can be adjusted.))



Sleep toyed with me; flirtingly it indulged me for only moments of respite before I would find myself staring with eyes wide open at the light that glimmered through the parted curtains of my bedroom window.

Stubbornly I drew my eyes shut and willed myself back to sleep. The pressure of the stars throbbed against my closed lids incessantly and with a soft sigh of discontent I pulled the sheet from my restless body and slid my legs from their warmth.

The silk robe fluttered easily across my shoulders and draped sensuously along the lines of one of my favorite negligees. Kitten heels claimed in the dark was a simple task with the starlight guiding my passage.

Sir, disgruntled by my vacation from our warm bed, unfolded his no longer small body with an indignant air, arching his back in protest and the luxurious stretching of every muscle that only cats seemed to possess. I said nothing to his reproof and instead made my way down the hall for the balcony window. There I would find the cigarettes that I placed so inconveniently in hopes that my habit would lessen if I had to work for it.

The night air was crisp and autumnal and I smiled in appreciation. Lingering on the balcony, I threaded a match free from the box and lit a cigarette. It was a quiet night and just as I questioned the warning insistency of the stars I was struck by the vision near the fountain.

The young girlish figure draped across the fountain seemed vaguely familiar and I stepped nearer the rail of my balcony and peered closer. Who was that hovering above her?

The persistent warning buzz of sound drew my attention skyward and I was fair game for the bolt of light that seared my retinas. A startled cry tore from my lips as I threw my arm up instinctively shielding myself from what suddenly became an explosion of sounds. The swing of my arm used as aided momentum in spinning me about as I dropped to the floor of my balcony and huddled against the railing. Somewhere along the way I had lost my cigarette and I felt an irrational surge of loss.


I remained frozen, blinking rapidly to regain my vision for I knew not how long before I realized that the images I was seeing were not the after-effects of the light but the reflection of the courtyard in my glass door. A battle had erupted in the marketplace. A battle that had my thoughts pulling from the self-centered focus and leaning forward to squint in growing certainty?

?.I recognized those people.

Tasha Van Blaudin

Date: 2011-09-25 11:07 EST
There, in the middle of a hazy hue of color that spoke of magic, was the brilliant red hair of the young man who had earnestly sought answers during my visit to the Institute. And, appearing from the very air near him was the pretty sylph-like Mage who resisted my talents. I didn't necessarily recognize the others that appeared with them on a personal level but knew with a sick certainty that these were my sister's students.

Their youthful exuberance was palpable as they blinked into existence and bravely confronted what could only be mortal danger.

What could they be thinking? I wondered even as I pulled myself up from my unseemly huddle. The silk negligee did little to protect my knees from the stone of my terraced balcony as I kept my riveted gaze upon the images reflected before me.

With the youthfulness of teenagers they boldly faced off against the monstrously robotic forms suddenly engaged in combat. I marveled at that inability to recognize one?s own mortality even as I frantically considered my options. As if to mock my concern, a student stepped slightly aside from her companions and before my shocked eyes began to shift, white fur sprouting and muscles growing as the lycan took on her more powerful form. And another grew in height, his skin taking on a crimson sheen as extra limbs and wings sprouted demonically from his sides.

The thumping sonic distortion of heavy wings upon the night sky drew my gaze upward again and I was not above a bit of gaping at the sight of a dragon with a rider approaching from the South. Suddenly convinced that I needed to offer a warning I pulled myself to my feet and leaned upon the rail of the balcony. My shout, however, was drowned out by the lycan?s bloodcurdling howl and my own cry died in my throat as the very ground began to buckle. The glowing hue of golds and greens pouring from the fingertips of the one I knew to be Vliss Arcanum. The cobblestoned streets of RhyDin groaned in protest before splintering and breaking in response to her summoning. I knew her to be a powerful elementalist and as the reverberations carried through my building I recognized the precariousness of my position.

A mewled protest from Sir took my attention from the streets momentarily. Did I attempt to gather him up and flee? To leave I?d have to enter what had become a battleground.

A shout ?Cover Mystri!? drew my attention again and I admittedly was stunned into speechlessness at the progression beneath me. Little girls had flooded the streets. Little girls with guns. Metallic bodies crashed against each other on rolling ground, straining for the upper hand while the ground itself was shifting into icy patches directed beneath the feet of some and avoiding the touch of others with an eerie mastery that spoke of magic. Two men engaged in sword-fighting and the agile leap and dodge of a girl carried a figure closer to the woman upon the fountain.

From overhead the stars beat their pressure down upon me and I knew with a sense of thick foreboding that there would be great loss and grief from this night?s events. I felt powerless despite this knowledge. Foolish for not seeking to warn someone of such a dreaded fate.

A thick fog obscured the area, billowing outward and turning the scene before me into the surreal. Fire, Ice, explosions of Light, snapping and growling jaws, the whiz of bullets, all of it was suddenly drowned out?


........the screams.....

Tasha Van Blaudin

Date: 2011-09-29 11:13 EST
Disorientation made me nauseous.

"Mew?" Sir's sweet sound was accompanied by a rumbling purr as he brushed against my face. With considerable effort I was able to open my eyes despite the blinding agony in my head.

A moment passed before I realized I was on the floor of my balcony in my nightgown. A moment more before I remembered what had put me there.

The screams. Children dying. Children with guns facing off against children from ... "the school!" I gasped and pushed frantically upward. My sister's students paramount in my mind.

Dizziness assaulted me and I could only manage a seated position, but it did grant me the sight through the railing.

The marketplace was in shambles. Flames were hissing and sputtering out their dying steam. Buildings nearby were rubble and the streets themselves had buckled and broken. Strangely discordant with the scene were large blocks of ice that were melting into puddles and in the center of it all, the beautifully majestic fountain of Rhy'Din's marketplace. Untouched. Pristine.

I saw no bodies. I saw no movement.

The screams of the children had pushed me into unconsciousness and I had missed the end of the battle.

Weakly I gained my feet and was forced to cradle my head in my hands as I stumbled for the balcony door. Reaching for the wall I was surprised by the stain of blood that appeared upon my hand. Trembling fingers determined that my ears were bleeding.

Had I ruptured my ear drums? Was there more to it than that?

I could progress no further and slid limply onto the divan just inside my loft. Darkness beckoned and within its inky grasp I knew I would find respite from the throbbing agony of my head. Answers would have to wait as I gratefully succumbed to its insistence.