Your Loyalty Or Your Stubbornness

   “No…. n-no Ellie you’d never fail me, you hear..? Now hang on, I’ll make a nice fire for you when we get home…”

“No....Rae...I promised I’d protect you...” 

She nearly has to shout above the noise of the sled. 

   Alright, that’s one problem solved, but heat would replace it. Rae isn’t exactly the warmest of witches, and this environment didn’t really provide a lot, so they’d have to somehow get to their home. For now, they grab their cape and wrap it around Ellie to hopefully do something. It wasn’t the thickest of clothing, but it was better than nothing.

“R...ae?”

     She can barely raise her shaky voice above a whisper. God dammit, why is she so susceptible to the cold? Even after all this time, she’s still easily disabled by these low temperatures. Stupid! How did she ever hope to protect Rae like this?

   Her voice sounded slightly panicked, and they KNEW that the jellyfish wouldn’t do that for nothing. Something must’ve been wrong. Grabbing their cape off of the chair, they dash out the door to find her.

  It doesn’t take them long to reach the source of it, and it was clear something went down here. There were holes all over the ice, possibly from some sort of small blade, snow thrown everywhere. From the look of it, a fight happened not too long ago. But where was Ellie..?

   That question wouldn’t stay unanswered for long, when the witch nearly fell into a rather large hole in the ice. There was another one not too far, about the same size. Before they could step away from it and continue their search, something caught their eye. A shadow was there… a person from the look of it….. Wait.

     Black spots are beginning to appear at the corners of Ellie’s vision, and she’s losing feeling in her extremities. Where the hell is Rae? If something doesn’t happen soon, Ellie is going to freeze!

“What the hell is wrong with you? If ya really thought I was so dangerous to them, why would ya call her to come here? …Tch. This fight was over too quickly, anyway. If ya wanna be the one who keeps her safe, make sure you can beat me, next time. There’s way worse people out there than me, y'know..”

      With her warning given, she redirects the knives once more to aim at the ice beneath Elodie’s feet. There weren’t any wires directly beneath her, so breaking the ice would send her directly into the water. And if Rae was going to show up here.. She makes incredibly quick work of cutting the wires and collecting her knives, running off seconds later to break her own ice and swim away.

“Shihihi..figured it out, did ya?”

      It didn’t really matter at this point. With how many had been set, and with how she wouldn’t know where they would be until it was too late, there wasn’t much that the jellyfish could do. If she could pull one more trick out of her sleeve, she might be in the clear, but if she didn’t do it quickly..

     Replenishing herself with more knives from her pockets, she prepared for one last hurrah. Twisting and pulling new wires, rows were once again sent out to hover over Ellie, forming multiple arcs that were ready to be sent down and skewer the jellyfish.

    Maybe....if she could just get a signal out fast enough...It was a gamble, but what other option did she have?

“I’ll tell them myself. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

     Her scream was backed up by a sudden burst of light, artificially amplifying her cry for help to echo across the entire floe. With any luck, the ice witch would arrive long before Kahra had a chance to kill her. And if not...

      That spell was going to be something to watch out for. If she allowed it to really knock her off her feet, it might give Ellie an advantage in the battle..especially if it ended up disorienting her. She couldn’t take it lightly, anymore. Moving quickly before another beam could send her upward, she began working on setting her trap.

“...Wires. You’ve laid down wires.”

“Oho, tryin'a play dirty, now?”

      She knew where that stinger was meant to go. It was a clear shot that she was trying to go for, but it left two options for the shark. On one hand, she could let the other hurt her, and then the real fun could begin, or she could play on her delusions.

      Or maybe, she could just do a little bit of both. It was only one hand, after all, and with her idea, she might just get that hand back, anyway. Allowing the other’s tentacle to wrap around one wrist–and giving a shaky, wheezy laugh at the pricks of pain it gave her–her other wrist gave a flick, and a few other knives were sent towards the now attached appendage.

      Though the knives make a clean slice, they go right past the stinger, instead diving to stick into the ice below. However, the stinger still gets cut. While the shark knows the cuts were caused by the wires attached to the knives, it would look on the outside as though the air the knife cut through had instead cut the stinger. Let’s see just how much she can trick the other’s eyes.

“Come on, Ellie..if you’re really gonna fight me, you’d better make it interesting for me..”

“Guh...Believe me. I’ll give you the fight of your life. You’re not the only one with magic tricks.”

       Though it’s clear to anyone that would look that she was absolutely pissed, if they only looked to the wide, sharp grin that spread across her face, they might could be deceived. And really, she probably was going to actually enjoy herself in this fight. It would all depend on if she were victorious, in the end.

“Aahaha..no, no..not Rae. They don’t have to fear me.. But you..maybe you could do to at least learn your place.”

       Pulling the knives from her pockets, she gathers them together in her hands, before preparing them for the surges of attacks. Incredibly thin and nearly invisible, but sharp as the weapons they were attached to, she turns her fingers to lead the wires into their many, convenient positions. A few rows of her seemingly floating knives are sent out to surround her target before diving down. She was already seeing red, but she was staying level enough to form a plan. If the other dodged the knives, that was fine. She could always send more out..set a trap, if she really wanted to..

“Floating knives? Don’t tell me you’ve picked up a little magic of your own. But you’re not the only one who’s trained since we last met, bitch. I had to, you know. To protect Lady Rae from people who might want to hurt them.” 

     A stinger whipped forwards, aiming for Kahra’s dominant hand. If she could injure it enough to stop the shark from throwing any more knives, she might be able to turn the fight in her favor.

       The response she actually gets, however, is what finally sets her off. It was always the accusation that pushed her over the edge and into the boiling rage that sucked all sense right out of her. Her glare darkens, sharp eyes trying to cut the other familiar down where she stood.

“Right. Ya want me t’say it, don’t ya? Ya want me to look ya in the eyes and say how right you are, how your clouded judgement was clear, all along. That I had been standing above one of the most important people in my life, and that I was just a mere second away from cutting her down. If ya really wanna hear some bullshit like that, then you can stay in your damn dreamworld.”

“Open your ears and listen, dammit. Everything I did, everything I changed was for her. I knew there was gonna come a day when I had to protect her, and with how I was, I’d never be able to do that. What you saw was a demonstration. I was showing her what I’d changed and what I’d learned. Don’t you dare stand there and call me some kind'a traitor, when I’m the one who was tryin'a do good for her.”

“A demonstration?! Ah, so that’s what it was. You wanted Rae to be afraid of you! You wanted to push them around with all your fancy new assassin skills and your pseudo-tough-girl speech patterns. When all along we both know that you’re still the sniveling ninny coward that you always were. In fact, even more so because now you’re trying to project this atmosphere of being tough and scary.”

      She had put herself through a huge amount of change over the years, under the idea that she needed to become stronger to protect them, and completely change from what she used to be. Her friends were the most precious things she had in the world, and now here stood one. She’d wanted to protect her. She’d changed herself just so that she could become a protector–or, so she thought. She was a killer, and looked the part. Though it was a misunderstanding that had initiated their fight, it was the lingering tension and anger of a protective familiar and a hotheaded assassin that carried it on.

       For just a short moment, as she stares out at her old friend, she wonders if their conflict will finally settle and come to an–

“When the hell ‘re ya gonna drop it? What ya thought ya saw was not what happened, why can’t ya just get that?”

“Don’t fuck with me! I know what I saw! How could you, Kahra?! After everything Rae did for you, this is how you repay them?!”