â§Â gabriel-enchanted:
Willowâs presence never failed to boost his mood and tonight was no exception. Her joy was nearly palpable and easy to fall into as she took his hand and brought him out onto the dance floor with her. It wasnât quite the fever pitch heâd felt in the nightclub, but that energy she was talking about was still present, low and throbbing, and winding its way through everyone present. âI feel it, and I am happier than I know how to express to have everyone here, safe and enjoying themselves.â Heâd caught images of his friends drinking, laughing, dancing and otherwise allowing the darkness of the past weeks slip away from them for a night and he was so grateful they were being given a chance to do so.
He wasnât so good at it himself, but he did make an effort to stay in the moment, to allow the sense of warm and magick and happy fill him and guide his movements in a dance or two with his friend. For once, he kept the conversation light and cheerful but gradually, something changed. Either the atmosphere in the room had begun to decline or he was beginning to lose his sensitivity to magick. Things began to feel dampened and then became grains of sand slipping out of his grasp and eventually panicked him into an abrupt stop.
Turning in a small circle, he noted expressions of confusion and fear before turning back to check on Willow. âSomethingâs gone wrong,â he announced just before pain suddenly laced through his chest sending him staggering back a pace. Fighting through the aftershocks, he pushed it down and tried to narrow his gaze to Willow. âAre you okay? Maybe we should get out of here.â No, first he had to find Anthony. Micah. Automatically, he reached for Averyâs presence in his head, only to once again find it cut off and inaccessible. Apparently, this forest had no shortage of ways to work around their backup alert system and he was going to have to mess with the magick involved in the link as soon as this was over because fuck that. He tried to glance around to spot a familiar shock of red hair or tall Enchanter, but the second wave of pain meant he didnât have time to look anymore. âOutside, we should get outside,â Gabriel mumbled, forcing his body upright and taking all of two steps before collapsing.
âYou are a protector. It is admirable.â Acknowledging his words, Willow spun, bringing herself to the point of dizziness before stopping to gain a more accurate sense of up before she began to dance around her friend once more. Each step felt a bit more labored than the first as an invisible weight seemed to fall upon her shoulders. Perhaps she was only tired, but that seemed unlikely as sheâd slept two hours the night before, it was a record for her. She typically spent nights wandering the darkest portion of Arain rather than sleeping at all, in more recent days, sheâd been keeping an eye out for Hans. Despite her anger towards, him, she did not wish him harm. Her thoughts had caused her to check out long enough for her to miss the rest of the shift from wisp to human. Her light had dimmed entirely, but instead of being replaced by shadows, she remained at a neutral lighting similar to that of Greta Grimm.
So self-absorbed in her sudden loss of magick and the co-morbid panic that ensued within her, she failed to see what was happening all around her. With a quick exam of the dance floor before bringing her eyes back to Gabriel, Willow nodded quickly. âIâm...â Her eyes distanced themselves from reality momentarily and she felt similar to how one might feel on an island, alone, in the middle of nowhere. She was entirely separated from not only her magick, but all magick. âItâs all gone, Gabriel... Itâs gone... They were gone, and now I am. Am I even here?â
There were only moments for Willow to consider if she might be nothing more than a ghost of herself before she was moving towards Gabriel on the ground. âGabriel... Whatâs happened? Whereâs the magick? Can you feel anything at all? I canât feel it anymore... Can you stand? Gabriel. Please, get up. We have to go outside. We canât stay inside here. It can only get worse from here...âÂ












