Late Night

The wild beast hunted alone. It fed from death, but now was not the time to eat. It was in a frenzy, at that moment killing was a reaction, not an instinct. A beast had two reasons to kill, either to survive, or to assure its pack's survival. The latter took priority at that moment, so it charged into the herd.

They were sheep, the wool they wore would not protect them from its claws. Some were cut up, others had their neck broken. Layered on the floor, the narrow hall was slowly filled with their bodies. It leaped between them until they stopped coming. Yet it was not done, there were more.

The last room was filled with them. They screamed at eachother, lining themselves up to be slaughtered. It was already night, only moonlight reached the room through large windows. It illuminated their backs, the full moon rose in the beast's sight. It had arrived at the birds nest. The avine princess stood before its thrown, the feather dress fell to the ground in elegance.

Maybe the beast would dine that night. It jumped into the rows of meat. The weak tried to stop it, but they would fail like before. They had only one hope.

The bird began to sing that moment. Her silent voice reverberated across the room. The bird added more and more volume to the moving sound. It felt louder every time a sheep fell. The beast felt stuck in the moment, she could hear no sound. The soldiers only fell with faces of pain. The feeling in her had been lost, the vibrations slowed her body down.

In an attempt to stop the princess, she could only take a leap of faith. The numbness in her body kept growing. She could not feel it, but she saw herself jump over the many armed soldiers. The vibration came closer, her skin rippled. She held her claws before her body to shield it, but they had turned into human hands.

Before she had arrived, her conscious was lost.

Like only a second had passed, the dream was over. Alya felt cold and sweaty. She saw hundreds of souls moving around in the distance. She wanted to see, but her blue eye could not see.

She had felt this way before, she realized there was no sweat, no cold inducing panic. She was bathed in blood, the hard stone became slippery beneath her body. Her arms burned in pain and it was obvious.

She was the beast. She layed on the staircase in front of the throne after she had leaped at the princess. She had somehow murdered hundreds, alone. Alya had killed before, just like this time it was always for the welfare of the world, but this time it felt different. In one of the hallways to the throne room, the soldiers corpses blocked any attempt to traverse it. One death to save many was justice, but how many was inhuman?

Alya recovered quickly. If the enemy was the source of severe suffering, if they were too evil to change, she had to kill them. It was not a matter of how many, she would have to come to terms with her weapons. But she needed to become conscious of her ability, the spells of her tome. She still carried it with her at that moment.

She rubbed her palm against her leather armor. She felt the blood on her blue eye, but she regained her sense of vision. She looked at the room around her. It was dark, a hue of blue covered the walls and floor. Dead soldiers turned to fresh meat were scattered across the front of the throne room.

Blood stained the floor, only the red carpet hid the liquid below her body. She was drenched, her armor, her face and her hair was stained.

She took out the magic tome. Reluctantly she opened it and flipped through the pages. She found the new spell, she had felt like she understood the page for a longer time. Like usually, the actual spell behind the feelings and stories the page told was a mystery. It seemed that she had figured it out. With a calm mind, she tried to become a beast. A calm and cold mind, unlike the fury from before.

Black smoke rose out of the ground. It covered her arms and created wolf-like legs on her body. A faint red glow was emitting from within. She felt her legs steadily become solid. They touched against the ground and pushed her upwards. They held her body up, now she only had moving left.

At a slow pace, she treaded carefully towards the souls, they were still fighting. Aside from the unmoving cyan ones, a large mass of different souls moved into and around eachother. The cyan souls were likely to be citizens, she had no reason to kill them. She even hoped they would join the revolution once the fight was won.

For now she had to make sure the fight would actually end in their favor. She had no control over the sea battles, but she could make a difference at the opera.

The most important factor was the location of the princess, Alya hoped she had not joined the fight yet, otherwise it would likely end soon. She could see one larger mass of people moving deeper beneath the throne room than the rest. Cal could still be moving around with his men.

She left the throne room through one of the open hallway and came onto a large balcony, she could see the fighting down in the large main street. Soldiers with blue garments fought close to the palace Alya stood in. Facing them was the revolutionaries, they carried differing weapons and wore light armor, but seemed to be winning. The city's army was slowly retreating and beaten by the flood of men and women.