Beyond the Faerie Ring; In the Claws of Morwen

He knew this was going to hurt and it was worth the cost. Blow after blow lands, nearly a dozen cuts open on his pale skin and the blood spray is visible as it leaves his body. When the paralysis drops from Peg, triumph fills his heart but drains as one of her spells is countered and the other resisted. Aloysius looks upon the shadowy flame of his wife and puts his faith in her, staying right where she needs him though it might cost his life.
 
The battle reaches a fever pitch as Aloysius, choosing to disregard his own safety, presses the attack on the elder Hag, bringing her down under a flurry of blows. The various Haglusions continue their vague cackling, somehow, despite the unconscious Hag, her wounds already beginning to stich back together the damp and swampy flesh.
 
Shadows gather around Violet for a moment, as they did around Nel earlier, but a mere shake of the head from the Confidante is enough to dispel them with ease.
 
Sensing that their 'granny' is dying, the Redcaps scream in frenzy. They lack the co-ordination of Gertrude directing them, their attacks becoming erratic, but what they lack in finesse they more than make up for in the sheer volume of of reckless, frenzied, strikes.
 
Violet's blade flashes and the swarm of Redcaps on Aloysius grows, the Monk shifting this way and take to dodge what blows he might but they surround him on every side.
 
There is a moment,a single moment, where the pace of the battle freezes as Peg calls out "Enough of this!" and a single, thin, beam of green light darts from her finger. The Elder Hag, slowly beginning to get back to her feet, has just long enough to scream - her Haglusions screaming in eerie echo, before they vanish and the Elder Hag, Gertrude Grindelwald, is reduced to little more than a pile of vaguely swampy smelling dust.
 
One of the Redcaps goes to join the swarm on Aloysius as he falls under the weight of the combined attacks and is stopped by Violet, but she cannot stop the second one - tiny clomping legs join massive ones as both the redcap and Nel race towards the warrior monk - one in hope of life and one in hope of death.
 
The first thing that prickles in at the edges of awareness is the thorns.
Pinpricks spark white against the black void. The thorns snag in clothes and hair. They draw thin, brilliant lines of pain across his hands and cheeks. When he opens his eyes, he finds barbed vines embracing on all sides, like the myriad arms of a verdant lover.
Aloysius Esch, the Relentless Gale, lies entombed.
 
He shifts, feeling thorns pierce and dig into pale skin. It hurts, but he doesn't mind so much. Thorns are a memory of home. Of life. Of love. Her. He relaxes into the pain, blue eyes in the dark, reaching out with every sense. Heart aching so hard it knots in his throat.
The air here is still, silent, but not stagnant. The scent of his own blood warms the back of his throat with a burn like iron bourbon. But this is not Aloysius' drink of choice - at least, not without her here to share it. So he reaches beyond it, searching for any other sign of life.
 
He finds it in the distant, slow throb of wingbeats. Whatever creature possesses wings large enough for those incomprehensibly slow, concussive beats, it is far away yet. He gets the sense it will not remain so far away for long.
 
"Are you coming for me?" he asks the darkness. It takes an effort to make the words, not from fear, no not that at all. That burning at the back of his throat, the hurts of a body and heart that have been asked for too much, they slow him. But he asks more because quitting isn't in him. "Is it that time?"
 
That distant, inimical presence slows. Pauses. Turns - and Aloysius feels the weight of a million years of inexorable darkness in its regard. "Have you finally decided to give in?" Morwen's voice rolls across the space between them like distant thunder. "If so, then lie still. I will come to you, and we will finally make an end of your suffering."
 
Aloysius feels the weight of that build. That pressure of ages that no mortal could ever resist, so he doesn't and lets it pass through him. Whatever fears and hurts he's ever faced, emptiness hasn't been his burden. It's just nothing. "Give in? No." he replies. "It's just pain. The memories of love and life are so much bigger than that."
 
The concussive ripple of wingbeats draw closer across the void. "They are nothing beside me," he growls. "You think you will be remembered? Dust does not recall its time as flesh. You think your love a bonfire, when nothing will ever come of it but ash."
 
He remembers, feels. Eriu showed him so many lives. Each ending in death and loss... so much loss. But so much more than that. "Everything ends, it's part of the cycle. Ash makes for new growth afterward. Don't you remember?"
 
"Then you do surrender." Morwen's wingbeats are the languid thunder of a summer storm, low in the sky and closing in. "Whether you admit that to yourself or not is of no consequence to me, but it may make your final moments easier to bear."
 
He finds a laugh in him somehow. "You're not listening. The only thing I surrender to is Her and that's a sharing, really. Don't you remember growth? What it's like to make something?" The questions are offered in kindness. He tries... tries to hold space for Morwen's heart.
 
The vines whisper more tightly around Aloysius' limbs, seizing any chance of escape along with them. They cradle him in their shadowy arms, caressing him with a touch that stings and burns, for all that it seems to wish to be gentle. "I do," rumbles the Dragon at the End of the World, as his shadow falls over the entombed monk. "You cannot comprehend the wonders I will craft from your bones. Do not pity that you will not live to see them." World-devouring wings flare over Aloysius' head. They blot out the sky. The thorns bite at his hands, his wrists, his arms...but the blood that flows from his wounds is flowing, suddenly, back up the assaulting spines, gathering at their nodes, bursting into roses as red as blood.
 
It is just roses at first. Red like his blood. Then vines. Green like her skin. The vines that bind him are suddenly filled with a familiar presence...his wife. Peg's magic is unmistakable to Aloysius. He has felt it burn his skin and reverberate as it tears into their enemies. Now, he feels it rush into his body. It surges into his veins through open wounds like fire...fire that calls him home. It is not a gentle healing, not the kind that comes with soft words and softer touches. It is a healing of fury, of defiance, that demands the push through the pain to what is on the other side. His wife's voice echoes around him as shadows swirl up to meet the darkness that blots out the sky. "Give me back my husband!"
 
He knows the touch of Her power. The woman he loves, has always loved, is no dewy-eyed thing of unmarred porcelain. A river of life and blood and danger rips through him and he screams in pain, in love, in ecstasy, reaching with his heart for his torrent of shadow and flame.
"Tell me, Morwen." his hand extending to Peg, power flowing into him, life in his veins. "Have you ever been loved like this? Have you ever been kissed? It changes everything."
 
Whatever Morwen might have answered, whatever rage he might have brought down upon them, is lost in a dizzying whirlwind of shadow and blood-red rose petals.
There is no kiss to waken Sleeping Beauty from his bed of briars. But there is the fire in his veins and the darkness about his shoulders, the thorns biting at his heart - and there is the promise of one waiting for him when he follows them all home.