her flames meet a barrier, but she'd been expecting it. goomy aren't combative dragons and her own are used for the same purpose. but so too does she know what happens when dragonfire meets the barrier - smoke plumes, stinging her eyes, gracing her throat with a welcome burn. 

"that's where you're wrong," she snarls with a laugh. her bones ache with protest, but lyune bolsters with determination behind her. cracks spiderweb around the doorway as he shoves his massive neck through the threshold.

practiced hands reach for the scabbard at her hip and the baxcalibur's aerial ace clangs against steel. sparks shower over her as she turns her wrist, shoving aside with all of her strength to follow the momentum of the leaping dragon. its attacks are powerful, but clumsy, and as soon as she's past it, she rights the blade and - 

is thrown back by a powerful wave of telekinetic energy. she manages to hold onto her sword, but only just barely, as her back slams painfully into lyune's snout. 

her dragon snarls and freya squares her shoulders, eyes narrowed. 

"i don't think so. this is the only way out, asshole, and lyune? docar." flames pour in a brilliant white glow from his maw. magma dribbles down his teeth and with the room enclosed, the heat rises to an unbearable intensity. her sygna suit flickers, glowing as the metal heats, but she only grins. 

freya now possesses draconic resilience, which grants resistance to elemental damage (fire, lightning, cold).

golden scales gleam beneath her skin.

mint frost

☉

they'll move quickly now because they have to. anticipation and adrenaline shudder through her. she shuts off her heart and does not flinch when theodore's desk goes flying away from the rocket avatar. decades-old oiled wood splinters. the circular stains from his mugs (because no matter how many times sophia chided him on using coasters, he never listened), the scratch makes from teething dratini, a history, a past, all of it broken in an instant. 

water gurgles towards her and mud sloughs down her front. mucky steam makes her cough violently and lyune snaps his jaws, quenching his flame as the gooey ball of a dragon slams into him. he does not give ground. 

not until steel clangs against steel. her sword meets his dagger, but she's at a disadvantage with her longer blade in close quarters. "zexenuma," she hisses when lyune shifts, but the gargantuan dragon refuses to be reduced to an armored wall. he steps back from the doorway. fresh air rushes in, but his massive head lingers and he snarls as he snaps hatefully at the person who had attacked his mistress. 

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☉

fae mist tickles lyune's battered nose. freya senses it too before she even sees the crystals shimmering over the dragon's skin. her mouth contorts. the fight is still somewhat in her favor, but that can change on a dime, and a fairy tera blast would do more to lyune than she's comfortable with. 

another snarl rips free of her chest, but the order is strangled as neon's helmet comes down against her forehead. the end of her horns protect her face from the worst of the blow, sword darting nimbly to block each stab from their dagger. 

they reach for her mane of silver braids and a grin hitches at her lips. predictable. she welcomes them, leans into the motion as they pitch forward, and pivots on one heel. her sword swings up to slash at their wrist while her leg rounds to knee them in the stomach. 

"i'm the one they need alive, beast." she spits. "can't say the same for you."

mint frost

☉

white light. 

rayquaza's black sclera swallows her golds whole. 

and then the winds are there, a maelstrom mind. they will be buffeted relentlessly, and they will struggle for purchase in this impossible, expansive nothingness.

freya is spun away, ripped from herself and flung as far from the intruder as possible. green scales streak by her, glowing a phantasmal purple, and then she is alone. 

until they stumble through mismatched memories. glimpses of people tinted sepia, stained with the energy of another realm. insufferably trapped, forced as a passenger, witness to ritual, beckoner with a jade bundle in her arms. 

the serpent's memories are over a millennia and housed within the expanse of their organ are their avatar's own. they act as white blood vessel, racing as quickly as possible towards the foreign body before it can witness too much. 

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it is quiet here, in the expanse. quiet in the dark. her knees fold. she sinks into spongey nothing. glimmers of light are distant and painful to squint at. her voice is smothered when she whispers, "i didn't know they were so far away." all these bits and pieces of her soul, strung along the dragon's - what was too much has been made scattered and small. will she lose fragments? will she become dust?

eva's green eyes, almost hazel with the filmy tint, rest affectionately on her. they sit in a swingset by the silver spire, fingers locked between them. snow falls delicately around them and freya shifts her toes, swinging closer, fingers reaching to grasp eva's sweatshirt. 

it's gray, crisp with newness. printed in a bright splash of colors depicting the spire, surrounded by dragons, on its front reads 100th draconid heritage celebration. 

a psychic power stabilizes near a cluster of memories and rayquaza spirals towards it. 

this one is not intoned sepia, but the edges are still blurred with wisps of pink. her hair clings wetly to her bare back. long silver tendrils stretch around her and steam coils at the surface of the bath.

her hands are soft and pliant on the councilman's chest. he says, eyes upon her, 'how do you feel? being put together.'

'thankful.'

water erupts. draconic fire evaporates the scene and smoke billows out. rayquaza's eyes are a furious, molten gold. merciless fire sprays from their maw and a strangled scream shatters the mindscape. 

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.

mint frost

☉