Archive of Our Own

It had been a truly lovely day, before the reckoning came. 

They had known it was coming, of course--but not how to prevent it. Not when or how or what would happen. Not who would start it. But they had known, and still, they had not been prepared. 

Everything started with a parade, and a scream.

Echo had stood to the side amongst the crowd, with a ridiculous fake snake draped across her shoulders, and she had not been ready. She had been distracted, because the festival really had been lovely, and Ireena had been lovely, lit up with life and simple joy in a way Echo had not been privileged to witness prior. And even when that creepy old hag Eva had threatened to take that joy, refusing to read Ireena her cards, calling Ireena dead-eyed--as though Echo had not seen herself the spark and sparkle in her eyes, as though she did not collect Ireena's twinklings like shiny coins, locked in her chest--Echo had protected it. She would keep that smile fucking burning. That's what the whole farcical Blazing Sun festival was for, after all. 

So consumed, though, with feeding tinder to the fire in Ireena's eye, Echo had let herself slip. She had all but forgotten that today would end in calamity. Love will make you stupid, like that.

There is a muffled yell buried deep under cheers and laughter, as a procession of children dressed in little floral costumes skips down the center row. They each carry their own burning torches, which Echo finds dubiously wise, and perhaps that speaks to the fact that this whole event might've just as well ended in a pile of burnt children with or without nefarious intervention. One by one, they toss flames upon the wicker Sun and splinter off into the crowds, until gradually the whole nest of branches begins to catch.

And for a fleeting moment, it is beautiful. Sticks and torches jut out here and there from the woven ball, reaching out like sun rays, and the searing glow is mesmerizing to behold against the backdrop of setting night. It's such a flawless spectacle, Echo almost believes that the evening will simply close without event.

But then, there is the smell. What began as clean wood char takes on the sulfur stench of burning hair, then the grilled stink of flesh. There is screaming again, intense and garbled over the celebratory din, bleeding out from within the pyre.

Echo's gut drops. Around her, confused murmurs, anxious shifts, ripple through the crowd--and as another scream calls out, Echo recognizes: it is the voice of Lady Fiona Wachter, shrill as it was to the chaos when they broke into her home, unearthed every bit of sin and rot she had only barely bothered to conceal, made off with whatever their arms could carry.

There is horror at what she hears, but not sympathy. As she watches panic grip across the townsfolk, she feels sorry that they are made to witness the scene; sorry, too, for whatever is next to come--but that is where her pity ends. 

Her nails dig into her palms as another wail breaks loose, and parts of the sun begin to crumble to ash, and a glimpse is revealed of the woman at the stake within. Echo tries to scan above the crowd for coming danger, but behind her eyes there are flashes of her latest visit to Wachterhaus, only a night before. Of Stella Wachter, feral and weak in the dark: all matted hair, skin and bones, dirt and rags for clothes--of the chains lying hooked to her confinement bed, and the healed-over scabs wringing her wrists. Her nails had been worn down and split with splinters, to match the tracks torn down her door.

The tableau in the square is a gruesome precursor to ruin, but Echo will take her pleasures where she can. Good riddance. 

Perhaps her companions did not approve, but Echo is glad she struck out to rescue that girl. Whatever comes this night, at least she will not be caged. At least she will have a chance to flee.

The Burgomaster steps up in an effort to calm his audience, but all he does is call out that all is well, over and over, with a rictus grin stretched across his face. He seems almost oblivious to the chaos. Perhaps he is tranced, perhaps mad, but Echo doesn't care either way. Her only concern is for whatever threat comes next--and then, there it is.

All down the streets, a thunderous crack of wood rings out. Each of her companions is caught looking up and around, searching for a building collapse, before all at once the realization seems to hit: the gates. 

Between the sound and the understanding, there is almost no time before everything possible goes to shit.

It is as though every demon, devil, and undead in the city is awakened to action as a singular mass.

In an instant, there is fire, springing up amongst all the houses ringing the square. Lady Wachter is joined by a cacophony of screams, as people take in the onslaught and struggle to react. Echo, too, struggles with it, and she swings around to assess her companions before anything else can be processed.

First, she lands on Ireena: shocked still for the moment, arms clutched tightly around the overstuffed racoon-thing Echo had won her. Then, there is their one non-combatant, Acor. For what they lack in fighting, they make up for in running; Echo catches them already latched onto stage posts, swinging themself up til they reach a rooftop. Probably for the best. Echo wonders, briefly, if they will simply disappear into the night. Perhaps they'll have made Krezk by morning.

Next, are Macha, Belle, and Sköl. Sköl is predictably stoic, using his towering height to scan over the heads of panicked villagers, axe already at the ready. Belle, tiny, is suffering the opposite problem, twisting and craning to see anything past the sea of people before her. And Macha--Macha is singularly focused on a direction, and when Echo follows his sight she sees Billie and Dotty in their wildly out of place jester costumes running up on the group.

The two skid to a stop, and immediately, Billie is urging them, "She's back! We have to leave, we have to go to her."

There is a jittering, frantic energy to their proposal, and despite dreading, and most likely knowing, the answer, Echo shouts above the din to ask, "Who's back?" 

Dotty is the one who answers, "The Reverend Warden." 

Of course. How convenient. 

Instead of voicing her disdain, Echo just shouts back, petulant, "And why can't she just come to us?"

There's no dignified response to that, of course, but Echo decides that, if nothing else, they do need to leave. There are hordes of undead swarming over the streets, and as much as Echo wants to be able to stay planted where she is and fight, hold the line and shield every last villager--it's just not feasible. Here, out in the open, in the epicenter of the chaos, is entirely indefensible. They have to go somewhere.

Echo does not surround herself with complete idiots, and the unanimous decision falls upon them in silence. With a series of looks, nods, and drawing of weapons: they move west.

Their feet thunder across the cobblestones, each person ducking and dodging stray motes of fire and bits of debris, and then less-stray balls of fire and errant arrows as waves of imps and zombies and staggering townsguard clash along their path. Echo does her best to keep her eyes on Ireena. She places a hunting mark upon her, just in case: a spectral firefly that nestles into Ireena's hair and stays. She will not allow them to be separated. 

That taken care of, Echo resumes her wary scanning, and her careful eye reveals a shock of white slipping by on a rooftop. Acor. Echo is pleasantly surprised to see they haven't abandoned the group entirely; even more so when their pitch-black eyes lock with hers, and Acor swings out a hand to guide her direction.

Echo's ears perk, and besides herself, a smirk hits her lips. She barks at the others to follow their lead, and thankfully those big spooky owl eyes are good for something. From up high, Acor keeps them turned away from most dangers. A small blessing. She'll have to reward this, later.

Then, as they round a corner, something new from above catches her eye: a person, hurtling from the sky.

Echo's eyes widen. She immediately recognizes the dark robes and black hair of the Burgomaster's son, Victor: that freaky little wizard who'd rudely tried to electrocute her over a teensy bit of breaking and entering. Twat. Despite that, she doesn't need to think before she pivots her heels in the dirt, rapidly assessing his trajectory like an arrow loosed from the heavens. She determines roughly where he ought to land, and she rushes toward the target.

All things considered, Echo is really not equipped to handle this, but she knows that none of their party is, either. So, she does the only thing she can think of, in the moment, that would make any sense.

She takes in a breath through her nose, tries to block out the noise, and reaches out to spirits she has only called upon, experimentally, once before. 

She feels them, in whatever liminal space they reside: a thousand thousand sets of eight, crawling over her skin. She imagines herself coated in the ghosts of uncountable spiders, and in her mind's eye, they burst from her skin trailing a million silky tendrils of white. 

When she opens her eyes, the vision has more or less borne true. Her party had caught up in a matter of moments, already dragging a tarp, of all things--and now, each of them is bunched up beside her, coccooned together in a tight pocket beneath an enormous lattice of web. For a moment, Echo thinks her work is something still and beautiful, like the soft, otherworldly womb of a secluded snow cave. Then, there is a tearing impact above them, a body hurtling through layer upon layer of sticky threads until coming to a barely-slowed stop at their feet. Viktor's body lands against the stretched tarp with a sickening crunch, but not as sick of a crunch as it could've been.

He is bent, broken, bloody and twisted, but he is alive, and that is more than enough for Billie to work with. 

The cleric kneels down beside him at once, his blood the first to stain the whites of her checkerboard costume as it soaks over her knees. Thankfully, Victor seems mostly arrested with broken bones, and Billie is quick to loosely set them and put their healing to work. Field medicine is never pretty, but at least, with most things that are merely cut or broken, the mending is efficient. Magical healing gets so much messier when it is tasked with rebuilding skin, filling in gaps, separating out details in complex structures, but bones are nearly easy. They just snap back together, and who cares if it is jagged, fused together and ugly when it is hidden away inside you.

Victor must have blacked out with the shock of impact, but he comes to amidst the pain of patching, and when his woozy gaze lands on Echo, all at once he becomes attent with horror. Which–really? The entire fucking city is overrun with fiends, and he finds it in himself to fear her? Ridiculous, but… She can't help herself. She gives him a knowing smirk, a wiggle-wave of her fingers; and then when he is good enough to go, she hauls him up by the arm and delivers a warning. 

“Alright, fuckboy, ya pops' been up to some nasty shit, an’ we're headin' to St. Andral's. Let's hope you don't burn up if you enter a church, yeah?”

She's being cruel, but in her defense, she has no way of knowing this boy is not complicit in his father's demon-summoning schemes. And, barring that, he just has shit vibes. He ought to just be lucky she's the sort of person who'd bother to catch his sorry ass at all. 

Regrettably, Victor is no more composed against this disaster than he had been to a home intrusion. He displays brief indignance to her threat, but it stutters out quickly once the reality of their surroundings resettles. He goes into something of a fugue–perhaps it is shock, perhaps the fall rattled his brain–but it is all Echo can do to physically drag him along, barking orders, as his bewilderment threatens to render him static.

When they eventually come to a crossroads, the Vestals urge them again to flee the city, to which Echo responds,

"Fuck no." 

A brief, whisper-spit argument ensues. Macha, of course, sides with the Vestals; he tries to make a case that this will best protect Ireena, and digs into Echo with the presumption she means to have them all stand a line and uselessly rail against the wild hordes to no avail. In response, she hisses that no, we will do what we actually can do--we will take refuge in the church and afford aid, medically, magically, to whatever bloodied, staggering townsfolk manage to crawl their way to sanctuary.

Belle and Sköl express no preference, loyal to their group first and foremost. Then Ireena decrees that she can make her own damn choices, thank you very much, and she intends to stay and help, so the matter is swiftly settled.

Against "better" judgement, they pivot towards the center of town; and, surprising Echo again, Acor only shoots her an exasperated motion before they resume their tail.

They are busy, beyond busy, but Echo still finds herself a thought to spare for the unexpected development. Acor has been distant thus far, jagged in their judgement and harshly pragmatic; they had made no concessions in declaring Echo personally to be foolhardy, aimless, and doomed to reckless heroics. They had even gone so far as to insist they would not be caught dead braving the chaos should Vallaki come to ruin, yet here they are. Perhaps "braving" is a strong word for one scuttling over rooftops, but still. Echo will have to make positive note of this once they find respite--assuming they survive that long at all. 

Of course, they will stop at the Blue Water before they come to a rest across town. It's only a tiny swerve on their path, and it will be best to know who still stands, who's taken shelter, what protections they might need--but when that familiar section of road comes into view–their little sanctuary, an almost-home sheltered amongst the twigs and threads and peculiar, shiny bits of a were-ravens' nest--the vision is twisted.

Where once stood a handsome three-story building on a well kept plot of land, now there is mostly a blaze. The inn has grown into a massive, roaring fire, sprouting out of windows, eating away the walls, licking across dry patches of the Martikovs' lawn. And then, there are bodies--though not of were-ravens, thankfully. 

Strewn across the kicked-up dirt are the remnants of a bloody clash. There are city guards run-through with spikes, burnt to crisps, torn apart and limbs flung across the front steps, with red streaks and arcing sprays left to tell a story of their trajectory. And in equal measure, there are the bodies of assailants: crumpled zombies and piles of broken bones, the eerily stilled bodies of winged, underworldly things. They are creatures never meant to be observed lifeless on this plane, yet here they are; trapped within the fog like every other thing in the valley, denied to return to whatever home they were wrought from. 

Echo stops in her tracks to observe the scene, trying to take in any leads on what happened; but behind her, the rest of her ilk run on. Macha, then Sköl, then Belle, all rush into a hopelessly burning building, eager to singe their hands and poison their lungs scrabbling amongst the searing rubble. Billie and Dotty have enough sense to stand back, but Ireena--

She seems to have faltered for only a moment, before a gasp leaves her chest, and suddenly she is charging to catch up with those idiots. Echo's eyes widen; for Ireena alone, there is a lance of fear in her chest, and she calls out, "Ireena!"

But she is hardly heeded. Ireena's copper-red curls flow out behind her sprint, whipping sidelong when she spares a glance back at Echo. There isn't so much as a stutter in her step as she answers back, "I am going in." Stubborn as she is, her decree is final, and she disappears into the inn.

And then--there is Acor, a gloved hand striking out to yank at Echo's arm with a sharp reprimand, "You are not seriously going in there."

And, seriously, she is not. She turns her attention from the scene to blink slowly, dryly, at their affronted face, glances pointedly down to her own two feet planted firmly in the dirt.

"No, mate, I've not moved a fuckin' hair," she grates, ire rising in her tone. She then pulls her arm, roughly, out of their patronizing grasp. She is not annoyed that they are a coward, because they aren't: they are smart, tactical, and pragmatic. What annoys her is that they do not believe her to be capable of the same.

Her teeth grind. She will not go in, but she needs to be closer. Echo climbs the steps to stand before the broken-down doorway, as near as she can be without catching burns on her skin, and shoots a scowl back at Acor before she surprises them by doing something fucking intelligent.

Echo pulls up the skull-shaped pendant at her breast, presses a kiss to the forehead of her Medallion of Thoughts, and allows her mind to expand. 

She waits, a moment, two, feeling over the shape of the spell, before the knowledge snaps into place: there are no thinking creatures in the area which she has not already catalogued with her eyes. There are only the myriad worries seeping off of her companions, not a murmur more. 

She shouts, "Get the fuck out, you idiots! There's no one to save in there!" 

Even still, she hears the startle when Macha stumbles upon Urwin Martikov lifeless beneath a wooden beam; she hears the frantic science as Belle scans him over desperate for signs of life; she hears the strain and the burning pain on his fur as Sköl levers himself beneath the burning wood and lifts. And she hears the horror and the heartbreak when Ireena catches sight of the charred, oozing flesh that slips away from Urwin's back in moving, bits of skin and shirt melted together and fused to the board. Nevertheless, her friends band together to drag Urwin out of the blaze, despite how Echo yells that the effort is wasted. 

The four of them come stumbling out with a corpse carried between them, pushing past Echo to drop into a heap beyond the porch. 

Echo lets them have their panic, as Billie runs up to try their magic in vain. Of course, Billie is only so old, and her fledgling spells cannot hope to coax Urwin's spirit back where it has certainly had time to drift far beyond her reach. Echo knows this: it is only the simple souls of birds and bugs and crawling things that can be so easily commanded through novice appeal. And those, Echo knows, only hear her for the fact that they do not pass on to the gods: instead, their spirits linger and permeate the air like heavy fog.

And even still, in this domain where souls stay trapped, where they may very well join together within the literal fog, Echo knows Billie is not loud enough to reach him. 

She has allowed herself to space out for a moment: without focus, all of her companions' words and the jumble of their many thoughts receded to a hum, but she is drawn back by their newest plan.

"We shall take him with to the church, that he be interred in holy soil."

Macha's words break her passivity. 

The implication is that they must drag a literal dead weight all the way to St. Andral's just to ensure he will not rise undead, but Echo knows a more efficient solution.

"Why?" she scoffs, "He'll slow us down. 's just as well we let 'im burn."

In her mind, this is only practical. A burned body will not reanimate, and they cannot afford to act on sentiment while the entire city crumbles around them.

But, clearly they disagree, as the little vampire dares to tell her, "That is monstrous," in the same breath as Ireena gasps, "That is horrible!"

So, outvoted, she is only to wire her jaw and watch as Sköl hoists their dearly departed patron over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and Echo dares not turn her attention on Ireena. Hearing her outrage already twists something in her gut, but still she cannot afford sentiment. She doesn't have time to waste second-guessing and wondering if she ought to be contrite, any more than she has time to further argue with her obstinate team.

Echo chances a glance over to Acor, and that, at least, curls something spiteful and satisfied in her breast. They are casting over the display with utter disdain, and Echo can hear their thoughts approving hers. At least someone here understands the severity. 

Despite how Echo will never grow tired of listing the many lessons her people drill into their Loreguards which are toxic, cruel and unwise--the themes of this moment do not count among them. Precision. Decisiveness. Grounding. Practicality. All virtues Echo will always uphold. 

In that line, as soon as Sköl has done testing his carry, Echo barks at them all to fucking move--and, blessedly, they listen.

----

The final push to reach St. Andral's is fraught with bloodshed.

They stand only a street's width from their glowing cathedral. What is really only a modest work of arching stone might as well be the Spires of Morning itself in this moment, grand as it is to see light spilling past the stained glass of the Morning Lord's rays, unharmed and untouched against the soot-dark skyline. 

Between them, though, is chaos. There is a swarm of fiends and undead circling the area, preternaturally drawn to the one space they cannot enter. Likely they know this safe harbor will draw survivors like bait, and so they wait, as a spider does at the edge of her web. 

They quickly determine that the only way past is through, so everyone makes ready their arms--all but Acor and Victor, of course: one who could not seemingly throw a punch to save their life, and one who is likely concussed and drained of magic besides. 

The plan is to rush past, insomuch as they can, but the tide is so thick that this rapidly proves futile. Zombies are slow, dumb creatures, but they have not gathered here. Instead there are mostly minor fiends and skeletons, only things with sense having flocked to this tactical hunting ground; they know how to swarm in tandem, guard a chokepoint, pick off strays. Echo will ensure her strays are safe. 

It is with this directive that she stays close to Acor and Victor at the rear of their pack. It should be a relatively safe option, when Echo is so accustomed to keeping herself away from the fray, protecting from distance as she fires down the threat--but no. The enemies are too thick, too scattered, to be pinned down by Sköl's axe: their strategy is simply to flood the lot of them, and Echo has nowhere to hide from the onslaught.

She is forced to defend with spear in hand, a bracing, twisting bar that hopes to block off the cowering twinks at her back. It is mostly successful, though Acor bleeds thickly from a sword gash in one arm, and there is a scuttling imp that gnaws onto Victor's leg and tears through cloth with its claws. 

By design, it is Echo who takes the brunt of the damage in their place. She commands them each to stop, to run, to duck and dodge, and in her eagerness to see them hale, she forgets to do many of these things herself. She takes fire. She takes an arrow. She takes claws. Her forearms ache where they take the force of blocked blows, and she feels blood wetting down her side and soaking into her pants, more than there ought to be, though no one will notice but her.

But, eventually, they are safe. Echo shepherds her lambs into the Morning Lord's embrace, dragging herself through the door once those sheltering inside recognize her pounding on the wood as a woman's fist and not some clawing thing from the streets.

All fucking eight of them (nine if counting Urwin) miraculously manage to pass the barrier in one piece. A pair of skittish villagers rush to bar the door as soon as it's cleared, and all at once there is a heavy stillness draping over their shoulders. 

Outside, there are still the muffled growls and yells of countless mortals and monsters struggling to prevail, the wails and cries of villagers in the midst of succumbing, and the crackle-creak of so many homes consumed by flame. There is a shadow-play dancing against the clouded windows, embers and ash that bounce against the glass and silhouettes of fiends rushing past. Everything outside shines in undulating, ugly orange, while the candles inside flicker dim in their sconces. 

One by one, her party collapses. Echo feels the adrenaline leave her, and she braces against her spear as a crutch. She feels a subtle hand pass over her shoulder, as Ireena dazes forward to settle in a pew--but when Echo goes to follow, her balance sways, and she allows herself instead to fall against an armrest and splay her legs into the aisle. 

Echo watches as Sköl suffers the same drop, falling to the floor beneath the weight of the corpse he insisted on saving. Victor stumbles against a wall, slides down and shuts his eyes. Belle and Macha flutter over Sköl, attempting to disentangle the massive wolf from the dead limbs wrapped around his neck, and Billie and Dotty stand stock-still by the entry, surveying their disarray or perhaps shocked they still maintain eyes to see with at all. Acor hunches over the rear of a pew, glasses skewed, fingers dug tight against the wooden backrest to keep themself righted.  

They have lived. For now.

A moment in settling, then Billie is rushing around to do what she does: she bends down and holds her hands against one of the many wounds littering Sköl's pelt, allows healing light to seep into gashes and mesh them closed with shiny, pink skin.

Once the wolf is fit to stand and dragging Urwin where directed, Billie crosses over to Echo in offer of healing. At first, Echo tries to deny her. For all her wounds dangerously bleed, she is at no risk of dying; healing magic should be saved for imminent cases, not wasted on a woman who can do with binds and stitches. 

But, they only grip her wrist and insist, and Echo hasn't the energy to argue. She lets Billie do as they will, and steadies her gaze at Ireena's back. She sits half-curled on her pew, shoulders hunched down in defense and misery, fingers gripped tight to her own arms in soothing. There is blood blending in with the ruddy curls down her back, clumping the strands as though wet with rain.

Echo allows Billie to seal up the wound on her side, but denies anything more to waste. She is impatient now, as she hoists herself standing with the help of her spear. Ireena needs her. That is all that can matter, for the moment. 

Echo drags herself to stand before Ireena, soaking in her downcast expression, the haunting behind her eyes. She sheathes her spear in its enchanted compartment. Echo has never been the greatest with words; she is at a loss for how to start; but as soon as she opens her mouth to try, an announcement cuts into her air. 

"I hath been blind," Macha professes, taking an awkward stand before them in center nave. His black-tipped fingers fiddle lightly with the laces of his doublet, though his face is set and determined.

"I... realize, now, what faith and goodwill I hath afforded my grandsire may have indeed been misplaced. Perhaps... the lord of this land is cruel as you say. Perhaps my benefit of doubt hath been wasted." 

Silence meets his revelation. 

Echo, all at once, feels fit to fucking scream, at this idiot, for being such a confidently naive little lordling. How dare he suck the precious air in this moment and waste it on such a depressingly obvious observation. Echo knows he has not listened to word she's said before, nor swallowed a drip of their meaning. She has told him, Strahd von Zarovich is a fucking monster, a rapist. She has told him, what a violation it is to have one's will stripped away by command.

And, she had told him that the people around him were not fucking livestock and could not be treated as such, yet he had not listened. He claims to care for Ireena, has seen her suffering, has seen the entire fucking valley suffering, yet it is only this cataclysmic night: of wanton chaos, senseless bloodshed, an armageddon of fire, that has been enough for him to open his eyes. It makes her boil. 

Ireena, though, only glances over her shoulder with a tired expression, something weary and pitying that tries to be kind, and has the grace to say, "That is... great, Macha."

For Ireena's sake, Echo wants to climb over the pews like a rabid beast and take this boy by the collar and shake--because she knows, she knows, that whatever compassion Macha has unearthed is little more than what one feels for a pet. People are still not more than cows to him; and had Strahd only continued to systemically cull and cage and milk and breed his flock instead of razing them to violent ash, all would be well. 

But still, she remembers, Macha is a child, and a dubiously raised, cloistered one at that. Children are cruel by their ignorance, and an adult must know better than take offense to it. So she breathes deep. Now is no more a time for her theatrics than it is for his, and it is by these graces that she does not rage into the animal he sees her to be. 

She tells herself that at least it is growth, if nothing else. It is something.

Instead, she balls up her ire. She swallows thick and practiced around it, knowing it is of no use to her, until it sinks into the pit where all of her angers have always been kept. She places her hand on Ireena's hair with a sigh. 

Maybe Macha comes around to sit by them, but Echo doesn't have attention to spare for it. She focuses only on the shuddering breath Ireena takes in her nose, the warmth beneath her fingers, the moment where Echo's knees knock against hers and stay there for grounding.

Quietly, Ireena mourns, "I lost my raccoon-thing." 

And--now Echo realizes, the fucking sock-snake is still around her neck like a scarf. How it managed to stay there, brushed with soot but barely bloodied, is surely a miracle, and it must have been meant for this very moment. By the Giver of Gifts, she thinks, as she unwinds the mangled thing and lays it over Ireena's shoulders. 

Ireena takes it and pulls the ends into her little arm-hug, greets the floppy button-eyed face with a watery chuckle that breaks off in a sob. 

"I'm sorry," she says, and it is so cracked and hollow. Echo pulls her in to lean against her sternum. Almost-a-hug, but not quite. 

Echo is always wary to actually touch Ireena. She knows that she is... ungentle. She disrespects space, she manhandles people. But for Ireena, she has tried to be in line, because she thinks she knows something of the control Ireena's lost and the intent of the one who took it. And Echo has not been perfect in this, but she has tried, to leave this woman feeling un-ogled, unmolested, and unconfined by Echo's affection.

But in light of today, Echo hopes a breach of conduct will be forgiven, so she pets Ireena's hair to soothe, "I dunno what you've got to be sorry for, love."

For a moment, Ireena is still and silent. Echo catches the way the snake shifts, as Ireena pulls tighter into herself.

"It's just--," Ireena tries, "everything is so horrible. Everything is ruined. All of these people and their homes, and, and Urwin, and everyone..." 

Ireena sucks in a breath, continues, "I can't help but think--if I hadn't been here. He wants me. If I hadn't been in Vallaki, if I had just stayed at Death House, if I had stayed at home--none of this would've happened."

"It's my fault," she begs, "I'm cursed. I should--" she chokes.

"I should've just let him have me." 

For a moment, that sickening thought makes Echo's ears ring. Macha is trying to say something reassuring, but it's all tuned out. 

Echo kneels down until she is eye level with Ireena. She has these big, beautiful brown doe eyes, shiny with unshed tears, and she's cast them down at her knees. Echo takes her hands and slides them over Ireena's arms, then uses them to cup her cheeks. She hopes her hold is gentle, but she worries the indignation must stiffen her grip.

Gods, this woman. It is madness that she thinks so, but Echo knows she must love this woman. She is so strong, and beautiful, and smart and wonderful, and as much as Echo has treasured all of the new expressions on Ireena's face today--this one, she cannot stand. 

So, with a forceful, "No," she tries to banish it. 

"Look at me," she commands, then whispers, "Ireena." 

And she does look up, if only to prove her disdain. Past the hurt in her eyes and the cloud of despair, there is still that ever-present spark of defiance. She is sharp as knives even now, irate that Echo dares contradict her. 

Echo might've smiled, were it not wholly inappropriate.

Staring down the fire in her eyes, "None of this," Echo insists, "is on you." 

"You are not a burden, or a curse. You are not to blame. 'N I'm not gonna let you feel guilty for what that bastard's done." 

Echo can feel the shift in Ireena's jaw as she chews on the urge to argue, but Echo won't let her. She will support Ireena in just about anything she wants to do, but not this. 

So she leans in, and she does not do something fucking weird and dramatic and insulting like kiss her, even though she wants to, someday. Rather, she comes in and rests her forehead on Ireena's. They are both still sweaty and crusted with dirt, and Echo can feel where grains of grit press into the skin between them. 

"Vallaki pissed him off with the sun bullshit, he's prob'ly been plannin' this for months. All these schemes n' crap been in the air long 'fore we got here. It's not your fault. We coulda left, 'n all this woulda gone down anyway."

"But," she reasons, "we are here. 'n 'cus we're here, me 'n Belle 'n Billie 'n Dotty're gonna heal people. 'n cus we're here, Urwin's gonna get a proper rite. 'n if anythin' else tries to get in the door, you're gonna stab it 'til it's dead. So, you stayed to help. You are helping." 

After a moment, Ireena sniffs, then nods shakily, "Okay." Her cheeks bob in Echo's palms. Their foreheads roll together, tacky.

"Trust me," Echo promises, then a whisper, "Our lives are better for you." 

She hopes the implication is clear, my life is better for you, but Echo wouldn't dare to presume her own individual bettering would hold so much sway.

Slowly, Echo makes to stand, but she pauses half-bent.

Curled over Ireena with her face in her hands, Echo remembers similar moments of tenderness. The day they had found Acor, and Sköl had died, and Ireena had bent down to smear blood away from Echo's forehead and laid a kiss in its place. The night when Echo had awoken to Ireena, half-asleep, half-possessed, attempting to fling herself from the second story bannister. Echo had torn her down from her unsteady perch, held her through the fall, and cradled Ireena's cheeks with shaky fingers as Echo's horror mounted. Ireena had only stared back with tired resignation. 

Carefully, Echo rests her cheek atop Ireena's scalp. The perch she takes is greasy with sweat and dusted with rubble and reeks of smoke, but that doesn't stop Echo from rolling her nose in an odd sort of nuzzle. Even if her lips brush against messy auburn strands, it is not a kiss, cannot be a kiss. She hasn't earned that. 

She finishes standing, pats Ireena's crown, and promises to ask Father Lucien where her efforts will best be placed. 

Echo has come to like Father Lucien quite a lot. He is a kind man, in the way that true-to-god priests are meant to be (at least she assumes so of Lathandrites). He has attempted to provide Echo with guidance, where her own faith seems to encourage its antithesis. She is glad the Hallow has kept him safe here. 

Lucien has sent Billie and Dotty to fortify the wards downstairs, and he gives Echo a directive upstairs. The infirmary is predictably packed with injured, and what medicalists they have are spread thin. Echo warns him that she is by no means a healer by trade, and her magic is in the grand scheme of things very little to scoff at, but he assures her that even a few threads of clumsily plucked Weave are worth more than a hundred sutures. She wishes she could offer more.

Just before she makes ready to climb the stairs, she asks him what's become of Stella in the hours between this and Echo's spiriting her away. He smiles, and he very nearly tells her.

But before he can answer, Father Lucien trails off. His lips stop moving; his expression goes slack. 

Panic only has a moment to tingle down Echo's spine, before heavy dread settles impacting her vertebrae. 

Everything is suddenly, intrinsically, wrong. 

There is a feeling to the holiness of this place instilled by the bones of Saint Andral. It is a pervasive warmth, a quiet calming, some intuitive, soul-deep understanding that there is solace to be found. One feels it at the threshold like a blanket over the shoulders. It is subtle, but unmistakable. 

Now, the back of her neck feels cold. 

Echo snaps her attention towards the frontmost pews as her gut curdles and drops. The sudden loss of protection grips tight at her lungs and spits ice in her veins, gives her this woozy, out-of body feeling that flutters her pulse like hypoglycemia, like emesis, like a hemorrhage. 

Before her, the entirety of the parish has gone still. Moments ago there'd been the murmuring of families, the weeping of children, the shuffling of so many desolate bodies scrabbling for comfort against stone floors and bare wood. Now there is silence inside. Beyond the windows, there are crackles and screams; down the aisle, breathing has stopped.

Everything has stopped. There is a mother leant down to console her child, but her arms and jaw hang slack. The little boy still has wet leaking down his cheeks, but his face is blank. In the middle of a million little motions, everyone taking refuge in the church has frozen. 

All, except for one. 

Ireena stands from her seat amidst the statued sea, and Echo recognizes the posture. 

Just like that night where Echo had not kissed Ireena, but had felt the warmth of her pulled tight against her chest, her weight pillowed on her breast, the brush of their knees together on the hardwood floor and the deceptive clamminess of her carefully guarded face. Just like that night, Ireena is gone, and someone else has taken her place. 

When Ireena stands, Macha addresses her with confusion, tugs on her arm to ask where she's going, and finally Echo's focus begins to kick in. Her eyes scan over the crowd, assessing. 

Macha is still present, disoriented. A twitch--Belle's head whipping toward the commotion. A heavy step--Sköl rounding the corner of the nook where he'd laid Urwin. Then, two sets of feet, shuffling from behind. 

Very many things begin to happen all at once. 

Echo doesn't need to see to understand the shuffling. The sound is from the direction of the crypt. Billie and Dotty had been the ones to go down. That is where the wards originate, and the wards have fallen. Billie and Dotty have taken the bones.

Ireena in the middle of the chamber throws her hand out of Macha's grasp, shoves him aside, takes a step. 

Macha's ass hits wood; he looks around for an answer; his eyes land on Dotty. 

Then, they are running. 

Echo knows the moment he sees Dotty, that he is going to go for her. It isn't a matter of sense or strategy; it's rather the absence of both, but Echo sees it, the moment Ireena is vacated from Macha's thoughts. It doesn't matter that Echo, Sköl, Belle, are all closer: he will come sprinting. Such as his teenage crush demands.

That means Echo must transpose him. She's the next closest. The second fastest. The most decisive. 

The heels of Echo's boots wrinkle the light carpet surrounding Father Lucien's desk. Adrenaline takes over her blood; her wings sprout, and propel her forward. She doesn't spare a glance for the red streak passing by as she and Macha cross one another down the aisle. This moment doesn't provide the luxury of feeling irate over his miscalculation; it only is, and her response must be to counter. 

Her weight thuds into Ireena's lazy drift at full force, tumbling them both over the gold-and-red runner and cracking Ireena's elbows against stone. She would like to be gentler, but something tells her she will not have that luxury, either. At the very least, the padding of Ireena's leathers will stop the bones from splintering.

Their falling momentum crashes against an empty pew, forcing it to grate across the floor by several inches. It lets out a thundering peel as it scrapes over stone, sends a stack of hymnals tumbling down in claps. The church is no longer silent.

For a single moment, Ireena does not react, and Echo almost thinks she will blink herself awake once more, and everything will be fine--that Echo will see Ireena brought back to her senses, and be able to lean down and bring her into a crushing hug--but no. Suddenly, there is malice. 

Ireena's vacant stare morphs into a vicious snarl, and she begins to struggle hard. Echo scrambles to try and seize her wrists, but it's too slow. Ireena's full body weight goes into bucking Echo to the side, and they go rolling when Echo locks her legs around Ireena's knees. Her wings spasm against the stones, kicking up dust, while she tries to clamp her arms around a writhing torso. Ireena is claws and fangs, flailing elbows, as she twists to escape Echo's hold. She claws her way over Echo's shoulders and kicks at her shins until something is forced to give. It is ugly, messy grappling, and Echo grabs for anything she can reach--hair, skirts, laces--but whatever she grasps only tears away as Ireena thrashes. At a certain point she growls over Echo's struggle, glances back, and drives her knee up into a snubbed nose. 

Echo sees stars. Going for the nose is an obvious choice in any circumstance, but hers is an especially sore spot, and the floodgates open immediately. Her skull cracks against the floor. Her face gushes blood. Her nose is probably broken.

Ireena leaves Echo in a daze long enough to scrabble standing, but she only makes a few steps before the cavalry is upon her.

Sköl does not bodily rush her as Echo did, perhaps reticent to actually crush her with his bulk. Idiot. Echo pushes herself up through the pain, pulling herself to stand with the help of a pew. She blinks one eye, then another, and glances toward the building commotion behind her. 

Macha and Belle have intercepted Billie and Dotty. All four of them are locked in a similar standoff near the pulpit, though if nothing else the Vestals don't seem nearly as feisty. Mostly, her companions are trying to block their egress, and Echo sees Belle frantically flip through her strange spellbook in a race to test every scrap of irenic magic she has--dispulsions, charms, restorations--only for them all to fail. 

She hears them both panicking, hears Macha yell something about removing their pins, but her focus must lie elsewhere. 

Sköl has essentially lifted Ireena into a bear crush, leaving her legs to flail angrily with her arms pinned to her sides. This almost seems like a reassurance, but Echo ought to know better. Ireena bucks wildly in his hold, thrusting her skull up into his snout and forcing it closed with a painful clack--but even so he grips on, despite how blood drips from his bitten tongue. 

Still, though, this blow must have caused a moment of slack, and Ireena is able to worm an arm over his hold. Her still-pinned hand claws roughly at his forearm, while her free hand reaches up for his maw. In the moment Sköl gasps, her fingers slip between his jaws, hooking behind his teeth and stabbing into the roof of his mouth. A deep growl rumbles out of his chest, but he refuses to bite down and mangle her fingers, as Echo is sure he should. 

Sköl staggers. Echo calculates 

This is, of course, bad. Ireena is not that strong, should not be. Sköl is struggling. Echo is struggling. Belle and Macha are--

Her head swivels back to whatever other chaos is unfolding, and what she sees makes her stomach turn all over.

She had allowed herself to check out of their scuffle for several moments too long. What she returns to is insanity. Dotty has glided forward with her set of bones held like a ring bearer. Belle and Macha are yards behind, both struggling against Billie who is not much larger than either of them. Belle is braced against Billie's chest with a vice grip around their arm, and she is yelling, yelling at Macha to do it, just do it!

And Macha has Billie's hand in his, the hand with the pin, and his kopesh at her wrist, and with a heavy, wincing swing, he chops. 

He must have magicked the blade, because it goes through. 

Billie's severed hand comes off still held in his grip, before mortification and startle compel him to drop it. For a moment nothing happens, whatever they wanted to happen doesn't happen, and they both stare at the hemorrhaging stump, and at Billie's placid face, undeterred. 

Then, a sickening thing. Echo hasn't caught it until Macha staggers a step backwards, but there it is--some putrid, stringy tendril of black that tethers Billie's mangled forearm to her severed hand. It looks almost like a vein, and it pulses like one. There is a moment of stillness, and then Billie's hand begins to reel itself back by its tether, like there is a spider burrowed deep in her marrow, and her fingers must be filled with liquid viscera beneath the swaddle of her skin.  

Billie's hand reaffixes itself with a bubbling, acidic sizzle that smells like rot and cauterization all at once. 

And just as soon as Echo has catalogued the event, she understands it is unimportant. 

The bones. What are they doing fucking around with the pins for? They need the goddamn bones. Put the bones back, the Hallow goes up. They buy shelter. They buy time.  

This time, Echo spares a thought for wanting to scream, because her party is a bunch of useless, idiot bleeding hearts. Here she had trusted them, and here they are flailing to free the only people in the fucking valley who Strahd cannot actually kill. Why? Why, does none of them understand priorities, why can none of them assess a fucking situation, why can't a single one of them focus--

Ireena. Echo needs to focus.

There is commotion up front, as Ireena discovers a new angle. Echo whips to catch the feral hiss where Ireena leverages her hold on Sköl's freckled soft palate. Ireena locks her elbow and presses into Sköl's upper jaw like a handle, shoving herself down through his hold and forcing Sköl's head to strain upward in turn. With her lower reach, she silos in on Sköl's flank, on one of the many barely-knit gashes still lingering. Without hesitation, she jams her fingers past the scab, and with strength she should not reasonably have, she hooks her fingers underneath the skin and peels. 

Echo knows that Sköl has sampled countless flavors of mortal wounding, but perhaps he has never had to steel himself against flaying before. Perhaps no one has ever brushed their fingers against his fatty linings, tickled his organs and pulled. Perhaps he has never had someone he trusts attempt to skin him alive. 

Whatever the case, this breaks him. An anguished howl startles out of his throat, and his hold loosens plenty enough for Ireena to burst past. Her fingers leave his side with a sickening squelch, and her feet meet the floor with a thud. Sköl blindly tries reaching for her again, managing to catch an arm with his claws, but she only uses this hold to pivot. Ireena whips herself around by his axis, and uses the momentum to launch her shin under his groin. That one knocks out a whining exhale, and Sköl's grip is just loose enough for Ireena to wrench free. She leaves behind bloody shreds of fabric and skin.

Ireena is loose. Dotty has bones. Echo is only one woman.

And there, in the corner of her eye--Acor. Braced. Afraid. Aware.

Acor isn't compelled. Acor isn't compelled. That's it. Acor isn't moving, but they fucking can--and so can Clyde, maybe, if his blinking on Acor's shoulder is a tell. 

Echo makes a quick executive decision. Acor is closer to Dotty, nimble, and they know how to run.

Mind set, she pushes herself off from the pew. Wings flap, another hideous scrape rings against the floor. Ireena has turned again towards the door, taking measured steps to reach it, and Echo has only a back to latch on. 

So, she does the obvious thing. She punches forward and reaches for a firstful of auburn hair. She yanks. 

Ireena does not yelp as she probably should, but her head snaps back and her gravity falters. Echo uses this leash to pull her in close, but Ireena twists in her hold in an attempt to push her off. They go around in circles, knocking into an iron torchere that topples with a deafening clang. Echo's heel crushes into one of the rolling candles, and she slips in her step over the wax. Luckily Ireena comes along with the fumble. One of her shoes catches among the candelabra's arms, and Echo has an opening. 

When Ireena sways, Echo centers her gravity. She braces one leg behind her and lowers her stance, and lets Ireena's own inertia complete the motion. She falls backwards into Echo's chest with her feet still tangled in iron. Echo wraps one arm around Ireena's throat, keeps the other in her hair, and leans her gravity onto Ireena to keep her bent and scrabbling to stand. 

Her breath comes heavy. Ireena's shoes keep slipping against the forced incline and banging against iron bars. She has only moments to make anything happen.

In a voice more shaken than she knew she felt, Echo begs to Acor across the aisle, "The bones! We gotta put the bones back, Acor, fucking move!" 

But Acor doesn't. Acor doesn't respond whatsoever, but for the way their eyes snap closed, and the mounting rise and fall of their chest grows rapid. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

She lets out a few more shouts, venting anger alongside her peril. She is struggling to keep Ireena's head from cracking her teeth, watching as Dotty glides forward step by step, and when Acor still refuses to budge, does not do anything at all besides stand there in shock, Echo feels fit to wail.

Desperate, she pleads out in Draconic, "Clyde you piece of shit, I know you can hear me! Please. Help. Do fucking something."

That is finally compelling enough for one of them to act. At her begging, Clyde nervously takes off from his perch on Acor's stiffened shoulder. He soars up and loops around the scene as though scanning for an opening, and when he's found one, he swoops down. He dives in a hurtling arc that hopes to swipe past Dotty with the bones in tow--but as soon as he hooks a claw into the bag, her reflexes seem to kick into overdrive. She goes from vacant to vicious in an instant, and she swats Clyde out of the air with a violent backhand. The blow punts him straight into a pew, and Echo catches the ugly snap where Clyde's wing breaks over the hard seatback. 

And with that, something cracks in her, too. 

After copious struggle, Ireena manages to wedge her heel against the uneven lay of two stone bricks, and she finds her footing. All of her strength then goes into a wound-up shove against Echo's gable, and the structure is forced to topple. Echo goes stumbling back several steps as Ireena continues to push against her, til eventually Echo's back thuds against the heavy wooden doors sealing the church. Echo grunts as the lock bar digs into her spine, and the knockers on the outside rattle, but her clutch to Ireena stays true. 

By now, Echo's fingers are hopelessly tangled in Ireena's hair. That's a good thing, because when Ireena predictably lunges back to further crunch Echo's pouring nose, her hand is already right there to stop it. It's a close thing, but she beats back Ireena's lurch with a huff, and when Ireena tries to do all the other things she's expected to do--biting at Echo's forearm, stomping her toes under heels, clawing at her hair--Echo is ready to grit and bear it. 

At this rate, as Ireena thrashes, as the door behind her creaks, as Sköl pushes himself to stand and Belle and Macha wail over Billie and Dotty keeps walking and Acor is rigid and Clyde is all crumpled in a heap--

A stale sense of malaise pools in the back of Echo's skull, welling up and clogging her ears.

All of this, this godawful fucking mess, suddenly feels as though it is happening somehere faraway without her input. It's all in front of her, but it's like she's captive to a stage play. The things she is witnessing are out of her control. 

Her body is still being jostled. Her head bangs against polished wood and iron fastenings dig into her wings, Ireena's salty red hair gets caught in her mouth and sticks against her tacky lips, and there's too much blood pouring out her nose for Echo to smell the smoke and sweat on her scalp. Her chokehold tightens. Surely, even enthralled, Ireena will eventually pass out from this. Surely. 

Even if everything and everyone is falling apart around her, this is the one thing Echo can clutch with her own two hands. She just has to keep holding, squeezing like a constrictor snake, like the stupid fucking sock-boa discarded on the floor, until finally something gives. 

She never gets to find out if Ireena would go limp. 

Echo had forgotten the half-healed wound on her side. Ireena hadn't. 

Ireena cannot reach and claw her way under Echo's skin the way she did Sköl's, but that doesn't matter. She can still line her elbow, choose a delicate spot on Echo's sternum, and crack down with both arms so hard her ribs might bruise or break, so hard a bubble of blood pops past her lips when all of the air vacates her lungs. 

Stunned, Echo's hold on her prey goes numb, and Ireena plunges forward. Echo's arm falls away from Ireena's neck like an unclasped string of pearls. Stubborn strands of auburn hair trail behind and snag around Echo's faltering grip, but Ireena only takes her own hair in a fist and rips until every lock is made to give or go. She leaves copper rings looped around Echo's fingers. 

Then, she spins around for another lunge, and Echo is only just quick enough to brace her arms against the assault. Her hands meet Ireena's shoulders; she grips onto the fabric of her blouse and tenses for another grapple.  

But then, for the moment, Ireena stops. Ireena stares. 

Echo can feel her heart thumping in the tips of her fingers, in her gums and her teeth. It's hard to catch her breath through her mouth against the blood trickling down the back of her throat. She's never felt herself tremble in a fight before, but here she is, strung out on adrenaline and terrified, jerky fingers clenched tight to keep them still. Echo usually likes it when Ireena looks at her. Not like this, though. Never like this. 

Ireena is staring so harshly at Echo, and it is no longer angry or animal, but it is frigid. It is hard as marble, sharp as glass, and somehow still, empty. Dead eyes, Madame Eva had said. Echo finds in her breast a sudden, bottomless hatred for soothsayers.

Echo knows what and who stands on the other side of the door at her back. She has been trying to un-know it since the very moment Father Lucien's flock went still.

But there is no un-knowing it.

Echo does not cry out with her voice begging Ireena to stop, do not go to him, do not let him take you--that would be pointless. But she can't help but plead with her eyes. She can't help but peer into dark, soulless pools of brown and try to find sparks.

She does not find any. There is no life left behind Ireena's eyes, and Echo is not even sure that her steely gaze is fixed at her. It is just as well that Ireena is peering straight through her, to the other side of the heavy oak door, fixed towards the only thing which beckons her body to move. 

All at once, Ireena surges to action. Echo's reflexes are begun to falter; the strain of her Shift is already nearing capacity. It takes far too much of her energy, too much magic, to maintain the speed and acuity of her animal, and she can only keep up the edge for so long. She is dull against the onslaught.

So, Ireena has no issue reaching past Echo's hold and fisting a hand in her hair to pull. Echo's head drags hard to the right. The chapel doors are decorated with hundreds of little cross-shaped clavos wrought in iron, and one of them digs a gash into her scalp as she goes. There will be skin and hair when she leaves. 

Echo's neck ends up strained and stretched to the side, and distantly she marvels at the parody on display--a vampire has taken hold of Ireena's body, and what now? Is his instinct to have her drink? Echo has seen Macha tear into flesh with his fangs, and she wonders if the pain will be better or worse with blunt teeth. 

She tries to leverage herself against the door to push Ireena off, but she doesn't budge an inch, and all the effort rewards is a harsher pull on her scalp and a little piece of metal scraping her skull. Echo only has time to wince before Ireena strikes. 

It is a special, intimate sort of horror, to feel your throat split, and to notice amidst the pain a cold sensation where air tries to suck straight into your trachea. 

Echo does not know where Ireena got her knife, when she drew it, why she had not used it to evade them up til now. She does not know if Ireena will remember having done this, if she is ever relieved of her trance. She does not know if this is the slice that will kill her, but it feels like it is. 

There is not a second of remorse, not a moment of recovery, not even time enough for Echo to let loose a pathetic, bloody gurgle, before Ireena is using her grip on Echo's scalp to fling her bodily to the side. 

Somehow her legs do not immediately give out, and she stumbles over them a few steps before knocking her weight into a wall of white fur. There are arms keeping her upright; she is clamping her own hand to choke around her throat, and she feels waves of warm blood spill over her palm with every beat of her heart. She is surely dying. The flow is almost scalding against the ice in her fingers. 

Stupidly, panic asks her to try and breathe, but there is no such thing as oxygen anymore. There is only blood, clogging her windpipe, sputtering past her lips viscous with spit. Her fingers clutch harder, dig crescents into her skin, and she remembers all at once that Sköl can do nothing for her. 

As ever, she only has herself. 

Her tongue feels numb in her mouth, but she has to use it. Her throat cannot carry sound like it should, but she has to use it. Her healing words are barely a whisper, croaking and wet, but she can use them.

Warm sunshine tingles in the palm of her hand as she buries life into her skin. She presses together the edges of the gash, holds the wound closed like it is ready for stitching, and finally, the skin and muscle begin to knit together from the inside out. Once the rupture is sealed, and Echo no longer feels her breath trying to seep through the wrong hole, she takes one, long, drowning gasp into her chest. 

Then, she hacks. The air brings in blood, and the blood is another sort of drowning, and she spasms in Sköl's arms as some ridiculous impulse from her hindbrain reminds her that Sköl in combat is a source of danger, and if she stays grouped with him, she is going to die. 

She flails forward out of Sköl's hold with a peal of terror, crunches her knees on the hard floor and begins to cough, violently, spraying globs of blood and spittle over the backs of her hands and the nice, polished stonework. Her chest rattles and heaves; her head pounds; she gags against the punching expulsions of air; and she falls to the side in exhaustion, half-curled and ragged and coated with dust. She tries to steady herself, she tries to come back to the room, but her thoughts feel like shredding paper.  

Her bleary recognizance of the scene reveals Ireena has thrown up the latch which kept the doors sealed and allowed them to swing open, and now, in the open entryway, stands Strahd Von Fucking Zarovich in the flesh.

Just the sight seizes her muscles. 

He is saying fucking something and beckoning for Ireena, with his sallow skin and hot-poker eyes and his awful, ugly, slicked-back hairline, and then Sköl is howling.

Echo struggles to sit up while awe and horror play out before her. A massive wolf comes leaping forward, hulking over Strahd with palpable fury, with blood and spit frothing pink on his maw, and he has no chains upon him. Everything, it seems, is unleashed in a flurry of headsman's swings. Sköl hoists his axe two-handed, a battle cry echoing off the walls, as over and over, his blade looks as though it strikes true. 

But, not a single swing makes contact. 

Every time, it is not a spurt of blood that bursts forth, but a spark of crackling scarlet energy. Sköl's blows land thick, red gashes all over Strahd's skin, yet none of these scars is a wound. Each one just fizzles itself away like mist, and where Sköl is left spent and panting, Strahd stands composed, utterly unfazed. 

The lord of the land has some smarmy quip to offer for the effort, but Echo has ceased to listen, because they are all going to fucking die here. 

Everything until now has been play. This is fun for him. The Vestals come sauntering down the aisle on measured feet, and they filter out the door to flank beside their master. They each bow in offering, presenting their pilfered bags of holy bones on bended knee, and Strahd takes his gifts gently to store. He pats Billie, then Dotty, with a hand on each head, and he smiles to congratulate their job well done, and they are going to fucking die. 

She and Macha and Belle and Sköl, and Acor and Clyde, and Father Lucien and Victor and Stella and every other sorry soul they've protected, they are all going to be killed--if not directly by the careless flick of Strahd's wrist, then by the rend and tear of a hundred emboldened fiends swarming like waves over the hall--and Ireena, Ireena--

Echo feels a shutter in her throat. Ireena won't be killed, she will be taken. She will be held, for who knows how long. Potentially years. Potentially eternity. She may be turned, she may be erased entirely, she may be puppeted along the entire duration, or she may even be allowed to return to her senses, granted her precious will to rebel and the freedom to be punished for it. He will cage her. He will drain her. He will rape her. 

Desperate, Echo clutches onto the skull-shaped pendant at her breast, grips the pewter as though she means to crush it, and brings it up for a quivering, blood-dipped kiss on the forehead. 

When her mind expands, much of what she hears is static. There is Acor off to the side, whimpering. There are her friends, racing thoughts, rising panic. There is Strahd, or rather there isn't; his mind is so heavily sequestered that it is all but imperceptible. And there is Ireena. On the very surface, Ireena's mind feels like mirrored glass, asking for Echo to slide right off. It is eerily calm, a pool without ripples, silent and stagnant as death--and if that were all there was, if Ireena had truly been emptied, then it would be a mercy. But Echo knows she must reach deeper. 

She plunges in, and beneath the surface it is all salt water, despair, drowning. Ireena is there curled tight beneath the waves, and she is weeping.

It is more than Echo can bear. She cuts the connection, but the tears don't stop falling. They leak freely over Echo's dirty cheeks, streaking through blood and soot and sweat, and she pulls her spear out of its enchanted quiver. It is her crutch yet again, taking her hand as she shakily stands. 

There is no reality in which they do not die today, and there is no reality in which Ireena is allowed to be taken, but does not suffer, does not spend her days bound to a monster, does not rot away knowing that everyone who was meant to come for her has perished, and anyone else who is fool enough--blonde enough, beloved, fruity brother enough--to try will die for the trouble.

There is no reality, but for one. 

As Echo hoists herself up, her hands slip along the wood. Her palms are messy and slick with the wash of her own blood, but her only recourse is to grip tighter. Strahd has finally stopped fucking talking, that arrogant, whimsical, insufferable piece of shit, and his delicate hand is outstretched once more. A shy, vacant smile is plastered over Ireena's lips as she extends to meet him; the hand she drapes upon his palm is light, airy and poised. Ireena has done that move with her before, when Echo has leaned down after a spar and offered a knightly hand in condolence, and Ireena has always taken it with a roll of her eyes or a put-upon flutter. Strahd doesn't even know her well enough to paint her face with a smirk. 

Echo rights herself to step directly at Ireena's back, raises her spear at the shoulder, and screams. 

Just like the first man she had ever killed, in an accident of strength, the tip of her spear skewers through flesh and bone like butter. 

Ireena is utterly silent as the blade punctures in one side and out the other. Her form only jostles with the motion, as the gleaming point of it bursts from her front, as the spill of blood blossoms down her blouse. Echo's thrust comes to a stop just inches away from Strahd Von Zarovich's stony face. Her breath is held. Her ears pound. Her arms quake. 

Then, a gentle shift. 

Strahd has chosen to lower his stance for a subtle bow, lax and unbothered, and in so doing he allows the end of her spear to tickle beneath his chin. There is no glow, no crackle of magic. There is only a soft indent pressed into his skin, a smear of Ireena's fresh blood on his throat, and a smile stretching his lips. 

He brings Ireena's clasped hand to his lips, lays a chivalric kiss atop her bruised and dirtied knuckles. His eyes are lidded sweetly as he savors the romance of the moment, as he nuzzles her wrist, as the tips of her fingers brush his still pulse. But when they open again, he does not see Ireena. Instead, over her shoulder, his eyes lock upon Echo. It is indecipherable. It is terrifying.

Then, he straightens up, folds one arm behind his back, and begins to pull. His hand in Ireena's lifts and tugs her forward, and she goes fluid with the motion. It is as if Echo's spear has not pierced her at all. There is a sick, watery squelch as she slides smooth down the shaft, a gentle shlick to punctuate where the tip slips free, but there is little else in the motion to betray the weeping hole in her torso. 

Removed from her pike, Ireena's hair curtains back in place to cover the wound, but it takes only moments before her curls grow sodden with blood. It pours out heavy among her tresses, mats them thick to the curve of her spine. 

Strahd takes her into his arms, pets the side of her face, tucks a ragged lock of hair behind her ear. The stain of blood is reaching her tailbone. Echo is sick. 

The way Strahd gazes into her eyes is a putrid fucking parody of affection, but with the way he has her parrot him back, the way his compulsion has her swooning and sparkling, beaming with blush, you could almost believe that he believes them to be both, truly, deeply, in love. 

He leads her out the door and into the street, where screams and ash still float on the air, and dying flames reflect ripples on the sky, and together they begin to dance. Echo cannot feel her extremities. They twirl happily amongst the soot and filth, weaving through rubble and skipping over bodies, all to please the adoring crowd of fiends circled round their fortress. Strahd leans her into a dip so deep that the tips of her hair trail over the dirt. His spotless, filthy hand slides sensuously over her ribs, up her sternum, where he strokes his fingers between her breasts. Over her wound. 

There is a glow of magic beneath his palm, and when he finally lifts her back up, nothing but a stain on her blouse is left to betray her impalement. He dances her around in one more elegant spin, and then he ends their number with a practiced bow, hand-in-hand. An inky portal rends itself open behind them while bent, like a curtain being drawn, and the two straighten up with a flourish. There is an overlarge grin ripped across Ireena's mouth, as she waves eagerly to her audience. Strahd seems pleased with the show. He looks up to the haggard crowd of fans stood dumbfounded on the steps of St. Andral's, and addresses them with aplomb. 

"It has been a most lovely occasion," he preens, "but I fear I must be going. There is much catch up to be done when one reunites with his treasure, you understand." 

With a hand upon his cold, unbeating heart, he says, "I must sincerely commend you all for taking such good care of my Lady."

A nod of his head.

"My thanks," he professes, "are eternal." 

And then, without another word, the dark portal consumes them.

For several, haunting moments, no one moves so much as an inch. The void cinches closed as though nothing were there to begin with. Fiends do not immediately descend upon the chapel, zombies do not crash through the windows, fires do not catch on the edges of Lathander's many hanging tapestries. Nothing happens, but for an acrid breeze to brush Echo's hair as it whistles down the nave. 

Neither she nor her companions are dead. They are not even at immediate risk of dying. This had not been the plan. 

Horror and rage and desolation all descend upon Echo in a building, ruinous plummet, and with a volume that scrapes grit across her sensitive, barely-healed throat, she screams, "FUCK."

The expulsion rattles off the walls, startles tens of static thralls into waking from their trances, and Echo cares for none of it. Her hands and her spear are all-over coated with Ireena's blood, and the sight makes her want to break her own fucking fingers for what they've done, but she can't do that, so she settles for the next best thing. She whirls around with another anguished shout, brings up her knee, and cracks the neck of her spear over bone.

Now that she's begun to yell, she doesn't want to stop. She wails again, spits curses into the air, takes the two jagged, bloodstained halves of her weapon and launches them at her feet. The back half clacks and splinters where it catches on grout, spraying shards of broken wood at her ankles. The other, metal-tipped, goes face-first into slate with enough force to chip, then clatters to the ground with a roll. She is crying. She is kicking things. Her head and her body and her every fucking thing hurts, hurts, hurts. She wishes they were fucking dead. 

In the midst of her tantrum, a sudden hand on her shoulder makes her startle, and she whips towards the source with a sneer. Her own reflex reminds her of one of Sköl's customary snarls, so of course it is Sköl she finds at her back. He peers down at her with his one, steely good eye, and grips her shoulder tightly, grounding. 

Despite his wounds, despite the tragedy, Sköl remains a bulwark. He is a rigid thing etched in stone, a towering fortress. She knows that he has his limits, is not immune to instinct, fear, fury, is not incapable of letting face slip--but still. In this moment, he is stoic, and he is strong, and the sight of his composure emboldens her to reign in. Echo swallows thick around raw new skin, curls her twitchy, angry fingers into aching fists. The night is not over. There is work to be done. 

Sköl seems to nod his approval when her body stops shaking, and he tells her, deep and rumbling, "Understand your anger, learn to wield it. Hone it like a blade. And when the time comes--we will use it to cut that bastard's head clean from his shoulders."

And--yes, that's the spirit, isn't it? Echo had tried her damnedest, yet not one of them was felled in this church tonight. They are still standing, and that means victory is still possible. Even if they are beaten and broken, even if they all understand firsthand, now, that they are nothing more than ants to be crushed under Strahd's boot--even then, they are alive. 

Ireena is alive. Echo is alive. And by the Traveler, she means to see that the two meet again, or else she intends to die trying. 

Echo sucks in an ugly, gurgling sniffle through the fractured mess of her nose, dips her head, squeezes her eyes tight as though this will force them to stop welling tears. She bites her lip, and, gods, there is so much snot sloughing down her fucking mouth, mingling with trails of half-dried blood. The snuffling is worthless, and she is disgusting, and all she has is her one, mostly un-bloodied forearm to work with. So she scrubs it across her face, mindful not to rupture her nose, and hopes that whatever ruddy stains remain should be passable. 

The night is not over. There are fires still to douse, injured people to be healed. They do not have the luxury to grieve here, and perhaps it is an insult to a woman still breathing that she attempts to do so at all. 

A deep breath, and Echo raises her head, and she meets Sköl with a grimace, or a watery smile, or some other, twisted thing in between. 

She nods, and she agrees, "I'mma run my spear so far up his arse it comes spitting out his fucking mouth."

And she believes it. She has no choice but to believe it.