The air left the fighter’s lungs, as the stone fell behind him from the impact the beast had made with his body. His knee throbbed as he landed on it, refusing to drop to both of them.
His party lay battered and broken all around him, his force of will being the only thing that kept him.
They were supposed to be the last line. If they faltered, their people were doomed.
“Give in.” the beast hissed, “Join your allies and sleep for eternity.”
The fighter looked over his party……, no his friends, again. This fight had changed them, they were no longer strangers, they were Brothers in Arms.
Then he saw the Bard twitch, and heard the warlock sigh, and that was all he needed.
The Fighter pushed himself with everything he had, and lurched to a point where he was between the beast and his friends, focusing its attention on him.
“I don’t care what you say.” The Fighter sighed.
“We will be here all day, at this rate.” The Archer snidely remarked, having pushed themselves up against a wall.
“We’ll stay here till its over.” The mage had finally awoken as well it seemed, as magical energy flooded through the party, rejuvenating them all.
“Till the world’s out of sight….” The Warlock wheezed, finally regaining their own breathe back.
Finally, and most importantly, the bard sang and played their instrument, and with it, brought forth the fury of the friends, and the hope of the people they represented.
“We will stand, we will fight,
It’s not over Till Its Over.”
—————–
Why was she the target of this salacious sea god?
All she had wanted to do was travel to her sisters, on their strange and shapeless Isle.
Yet now the ship she had paid for passage on was still water, while hundreds of meters away a fierce storm raged.
And standing on the center of the deck, was the accursed Sea God who, like his disgusting rapist of a Lightning wielding god, refused to take a denial for what it was.
He commanded the sailors to throw her overboard into his true domain, and so they did, the strength having long since left her and having all but accepted her fate.
She didn’t blame them. How could she? They had assumed she was a normal girl, and she hadn’t told them of that which ceaselessly followed her, eroding any chance she had of being left to decide her own fate.
As she fell to the ocean floor, she saw the sun slowly fading away.
A fading light through an open door she was now denied.
Then she stopped, suspended in the dark and unyielding abyss, the crude sea god being kept at bay by something.
That was when she saw them, the faces in the water. Other women, some gorgeous, some plain, but all marked by the sea or lightning.
They were protecting her, as a new form appeared before her.
“I’m sorry for what my Uncle has done. I can’t stop him, but I can enable you to deny him, and any others who would choose to pursue you without your consent.” The helmeted figure stated, and pointed her spear at the young woman, and a power flowed through her.
“But what of my sisters?”
The figure smiled. “Who do you think gave them their island?”
And the power began to change the young woman, and a fury awoke within her. And as with any proper fury, she turned it upon the source of her frustration, and surged towards that formerly fading light, and the ship she knew was there.
As the Sea God watched from his vantage on the ships deck, confusion spread across his features.
He couldn’t claim her until she hit the ocean floor, but he also couldn’t see her within his domain.
But by the time he saw her again, it was too late for him to leave, and now her large serpentine form towered over the boat, serpents hissing from her head, as she gazed down upon the insolent fool.
“You thought you could keep me down.” she hissed as her stone-laden gaze focused on the would be ruler of the sea.
“That you could hold your breathe and watch me drown.” her now slitted eyes widening as something terrible was drawn from deep within her.
“But all you did was push me higher. Because you know what they say?” The power was now only being held back by her will, and it wanted her to petrify this fool of a god.
“It’s Not Over Till Its Over.”
—————–
“Why do humans always stand and fight, despite knowing the odds against them? When their fate is obviously doomed?” The eldritch being of tattered yellow cloth and fragmented biology asked, staring into the strange viewing orb.
I was bound behind it, restraint of every kind imaginable holding me in place, only my mouth and ears free to offer counsel to this mad king.
“This is what you gave us when you encouraged madness in humanity.”
An approximation of a frown scattered across its facial features.
“This isn’t what I wanted at all. They should’ve given in to their delusions, fallen to madness, and destroyed themselves and their race in the process.”
It paused, before continuing.
“Your race is so weak minded and feeble. Most of them can barely handle insanity, let alone what I offer.”
There was a slight slackening of my restraints.
The king drenched in yellow, whose power derived from believing itself, was faltering.
“Through the nights in the rain,” I pulled with my right arm, and the silk cord snapped.
“Through the time and the pain,” I thrust my head forward, and the thorny vine around my throat bit in then slacked as it was ripped from the wall.
“We’ll stand, we’ll never fall,” I snapped the chain binding my left arm.
“And then at the end of it all,” I lunged for the yellow crown, where the king had stored the power he had taken from me.
“We will win, we will chant,” I dove into his form, and found the knowledge I needed to return home.
As I was pulled through the vortex that had once been the King wreathed in yellow fury, I whispered the final frenzied phrase that I know what break him.
“Its Not Over Till Its Over.”