Blind she was by the time she reached the gates of town, and ran herself into someone's horse. She screeched, attempted to run back, then fell over onto her knees, sobbing and shaking her head back and forth, hair flying. "Cry your pardon, cry your pardon, sai, I am--"

The horse's owner - or so she assumed - grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her up. She expected a yank, but it was gentle.

"What are you doing?"

She didn't pay attention to the voice in her lunacy and despair, only rambled on: "I am ever so sorry, cry your pardon, sai, I was not looking - I have forgotten the face of my father, I truly have, I know it to be so, but there is something desperate, and I cannot see--"

"You never told me you were blind, ma belle."

The figure pulled her closer and her body turned to rigid ice. Her blurry eyes shot forward, hair spraying backwards, and it was him.

"Blessed be," she murmured. "I, I am not. I was crying, and could not--"

Her voice caught as he kissed her cheeks, pressing his lips delicately to each tear. On the last few, he flicked his tongue, and pulled her closer, squeezing her tight. Her eyes stayed on his face, astonished, and all but the smallest bit of air knocked from her. The wind did not fly.

"Am I dreaming, my Oni?"

"Nay," he whispered gently, turning his head to her and brushing his nose against hers. She shivered, smiled, almost giggled, and leaned more of her weight on him.

"I thought you'd left."

"I was leaving, some things held me up..."

"Were you going to leave without me still?"

"It seemed you wanted it that way, ma petite."

She began to cry again. "No, no, gunslinger. No." She clenched one of his forearms and wrung his shirt in her other hand. "I only wanted you to come after me, and was afraid to fight you on it - afraid of scaring you away. And that would've been and ever so much worse way for you to leave... And when I thought you really were leaving, I fell in a mad rush, a manic thing, and had to follow you." She breathed again, and all of a sudden found it to be a revelation, this breathing thing. When had she breathed last? It felt cold and well inside of her, this breathing. "What things held you up?" She looked up at him now, doe eyes, scared eyes, glossy-trying-not-to-cry eyes.

"People. Stupid people."

She kissed his collar bone.

"May I not come with you?"

"I want you to come with me."

"I wish you'd told me so before - but at the same time, this is lovely in itself."

"Do we need to get your things?"

"Can we do that? I did plan on following you in just this..." Her dress blew gently in the breeze she brought towards them. It tickled his ankles, and he smiled at her.

"We'll get a blanket. I wasn't bringing one with me--"

"You were going to go without a blanket, my love? With no warmth from me or even a blanket? I'm ever more glad I caught you."

He smiled still, then went on: "--and more clothes with you. Any weapons you may have, I should think. Would you need anything else?"

"My horse, if you like, and only because I really shouldn't leave him behind, though I'd love to ride together with you."

"No, that will be good."

She kissed him, then snugged herself against his chest. "Thank you. I love you."

Shafts of light broke through the swirling clouds and smoke from above. Gaping mouths that belonged to featureless faces screamed from the sky, moaning to abandon all hope. Beneath, the numerous fires glowed like blush on a young girl's cheeks, swooshing and growing against the falling buildings and piles of debris. The clock tower rang.

Bong...

Nevia looked up now, to face the collapsing bridge before her, her left hand twitching against the hilt of her rapier and her right slipping below her jacket to check her gun. Good.

Bong...

The bridge was likely more than unsafe for most forms of heavy transportation, but ninety pounds of thunder would be harmless. Madam Thunder began her walk.

Bong...

And when the clock tower ceased, Nevia concluded that it was sometime around three in the afternoon. So far as she could tell, it was not dark out - the shafts of light were doubtfully searchlights or anything unnatural. They were made of real light, and she felt it on her tough skin about three-quarters across the bridge. It felt like dusty fairies were dancing about her, and some new life took her. She stood still briefly, soaking, and shot her eyes to the sky.

"Hear me now," she bid it softly, "I've naught but the best intentions, and naught but the saddest hopes. I pray to the moon but now pray to ye, and I hope you'll take me into your company." Wicked Day Star, she thought bitterly, thinking to spit then thinking better. She had enough curses on her already - need she add to her troubles and curse her own self?

At a brisk, determined pace, she crossed the bridge and reached the other side, relatively content. Nevia sniffed the air, and though no wind blew, the smell of the fires and their smoke easily drifted into her nostrils. The smell of death was not far behind, and she need not seek out the smell of destruction: it lay before her other senses plainly enough.

She kicked at the dusty grounds, boots biting into the battered cobblestones, and went on through for the beginning of chaos, discordia, and the take over of the Decrepit Queen.

Aneveri's arm sizzled and leathered like a piece of old bacon. Gripping it near the top, where it had not been scathed, she staggered along the dunes, brown pants dragging, hair twittering, shirt flailing. Her entire left side was wounded - her arm, and the leg that she pulled along behind her. She grimaced at the world ahead of her, teeth a'snarl.

Despite the damage, her revolver was still secured to her left hip, bouncing with each slow, painstaking step. It would hurt like a bitch, but with both arms focused on her left side, it was safer to have her weapon there. Pain never stopped her, besides.

On the horizon stood a building that, she figured, could be just about anything - coffee shop or bar, restaurant or saloon, empty or full. All that mattered was that inside was shade, however, and she was guaranteed at least that, by the looks.

As the dune crabs began to crackle there way from underneath her feet, she cackled at them and shook her head. "Oh I am in no mood." She spat at the sand near them, a fat one, breaking up their little cluster temporarily before they swarmed back towards her shin. "Ohnoyoumotherfuckendon't! Arrrrrrahya!" She swung her good leg at them, sending up enough sand to cover them again, if they'd only been slower. Their claws and pincers giggled at her as they ran back, let the sand settle, then set upon her again.

Aneveri sighed and watched then cover her body. They moved upwards, at first avoiding her scalded arm then flocking to it. Using their delicately sharp pincers and small antennae, they began to pick her skin off. She winced, whimpered, but waited. When she saw virtually none on the dunes, she yowled and shot off a bolt of electricity through her arm. They fried (her arm fried) and fell. God. What the hell else, huh?

In her white dress of harmony, she swirled down the cobblestone street, skirts flowing and twirling above her knees. Her hair flipped in ribbons and smacked back at the wind in a playful tug of war.

Light up with me my dear,
Light up.
Under stormy night, tell nobody.

She sung in a whisper the bits and pieces of Blue Ridge Mountains, by Fleet Foxes, that she knew and loved. And she spun on, tears flowing down her dusty cheeks and crashing onto her white dress like broken iceberg chunks.

You're ever welcome with me any time you like,
Let's drive to the country-side,
Leave behind some green-eyed lookalikes,
So no one gets worried - no;
So no one gets worried... no.

He'd gone and she didn't think he'd back again but that wasn't going to stop her. She had no other life, no other reason, no other anything but him and nothing was going to stop her. She felt him beating with her and nothing was going to stop her but the stop of that.

In the quivering forest...

Oh, had she; and had the wind shook the world about them and how they'd rung the world into a minute of inexplicable happiness and wrapped the darkness in a bundle of sympathy and pity. She would not, could not let that kind of thing go. How could she have let him ever leave without clawing after him? Oh, but she had; and had he not stopped her with his words she feared she would have harmed him with her desires, or demands, whichever they were.

She should have fought.

Where the shivering dog rests,
I will do it grandfather,
Wilt to wood and end.
And the river got frozen--

--but she thought to herself how she would do it, she would follow, and nothing would stop her, and her heart got frozen--

And the hole got snowed in--

--and her mind was snowed in, it was scrambling, it was crushed like a spider--

And near the moon glow ride,
'Till the morning light.

She would - and she would, until the days ceased to tick-tock and the moon not light her way at night. She'd banished moonless nights - or she would when the time came, she'd bring the wind and oh she would work her magic and nothing would ever stop her, nothing.

Loud or quiet,
Truth or running,
I didn't ask you and I don't care.

I'll take your smack,
But only at a better time,
I didn't ask for it and you shouldn't care.

Whether or not you agree,
If all you're going to do is protect your ego,
I didn't ask you and I don't care.

I'd bash you down,
I'd take you down,
I'd bring you down,
But I didn't ask me and I'm trying not to care.