!!! La Mort d'Everly

[Kale]

The castle had dropped her room. The castle had...dropped...her room. Od had said Everly was some sort of fitful sleep when the accident happened, but... In theory, then, Everly had dropped her room....four floors. The harpy was seething silently as she walked down the hallways, a chilled breeze in her wake.

How dare she.

Kale had found it within herself to finally find the library suitable enough in repairs and was making a long postponed visit. Coming upon the door to the Headmistress's rooms, the winged woman quietly opened the door. Looking around and listening carefully, she entered and crossed into where the comatose woman lay. It seemed that no one was present. The doctor, Od, had already spoken to her, they having decided about his plans for leaving the island and was probably already long gone to the mainland by now. Kale, without hesitation, approached the bedside of the other woman with an angry purpose. She observed the other's form and scoffed, chin lifting in disdain.

[Everly]

Loose hairs clung to the former Headmistress's sweat-soaked temples in a way that would make the woman, were she to wake, appalled. Her skin had lost its color in a way that could vaguely be referred to as translucent. Her pale lips hung slightly open, unmoving. Her chest did not move up and down in a way that would suggest breathing, her lids did not flutter and not even the deftest stethoscope would catch the hint of a heartbeat. In fact, to any human doctor, the woman would be pronounced quite dead based on the thoroughest of observations.

Moments after Kale had entered the room, however, the Headmistress gave a sudden gasp, even though her eyes and body remained, respectively, closed and still. As if triggered by the gasp, a vase full of flowers, that had been sitting calmly on the bedside table, flew off its perch towards the harpy before feebly falling and crashing on the floor. Everly's brow furrowed painfully before she re-entered her death-like sleep.

[Kale]

Kale had flinched, both at the noise and at the vase that was rather suddenly a projectile. Her wing had come around almost like a shield in reaction, though it may have been a bit delayed, but the harpy heard a crash with no impact upon herself in any matter. The feather appendage moving back out of the way let ebony eye glare at the destroyed decoration before turning unimpressed on the Headmistress.

"Tch. Feisty, impudent woman." Kale's voice was quiet, really not expecting the other woman to answer. "Are you trying to fight me...?" A bit of a crooked smile pulled her lips, as if the thought Everly would even try was laughable. Slowly, aware for any other potential environmental hazards, the harpy sat upon the edge of the bed facing Everly.

[Everly]

Even though the harpy's light frame caused no great movement on the bed, Everly's body tensed at the sudden closeness. Her lips, smooth and still slightly pink, formed inaudible words and her head turned abruptly away from Kale while her hand gripped the comforter that covered her.

In her mind played a scene. A shadowy, winged figure, standing on a hill, silhouetted by the rising sun, stood above a battlefield. Beneath her lay equally shadowed bodies. Everly's feet were bare and she tried desperately to run towards this haunted horizon, but her legs were unsteady. Over and over again she tripped over some invisible force and when she stood again, she was no closer than before. A shadow came over her and she turned around to see the castle, her castle, looming above, and then she remembered that she could not leave. She could not save them because she could not leave. The sun continued to rise, and when she looked back towards the horizon, Kale's face was in full view, smiling. The bodies beneath her all wore Charles's face.

In the bed, the headmistress's eyes cried.

[Kale]

Why was it so pleasing that just her mere presence was causing such a reaction in the other woman? Kale watched silently as tears slid down pale cheeks, wondering what could possibly be going on in her mind. The harpy felt no sorrow, no pity or remorse for the woman's current state. She felt pleased and relieved that it was Everly and not herself in such a weak and vulnerable position. Crying was so unattractive.

Reaching forward, Kale moved to delicately brush the strands of hair from Everly's forehead and wipe her tears. Her smile softened.

"Come now...don't be so pathetic." It was practically cooed on a whisper. "It's almost over..." Her gaze slid over the other's face and the harpy started to feel for the energy that was Everly, trying to get a hold of it, understand it from what she had gleaned from her first experiments with the other in her office and then in silent observation later. It would all be over soon. She had her course, and this was what needed to be done. Simple as that.

[Everly]

She could not save them because she could not leave...

The thought filled her with fear. This would come to be. Charles' death, over and over, would come to be.

She felt the hand brush her forehead, heard the distant, cooing voice, and then the prying force of energy that searched her core. She felt it in the pit of herself--the empty space where all her human organs should have been if she were what she imitated, if she were truly Everly Lillegard.

Her eyes flashed open and directly above her, practically face to face in a way that could almost be considered intimate, loving, was the face she had seen in her nightmares. The face that grinned over the corpse of all she loved. She could not save them because she could not leave...

But right now, her enemy was here, in her castle. Right now, she could do something, and for once she did not think twice about bravery.

Her expression did not change. It was oblivious, serene, unmoving. But around them, the room began to shake. The window shattered and the glass flew towards the two women, pieces embedding themselves in the false flesh of the poltergeist like it was clay--soft and fluid-less. Stones broke free from the walls and the ceiling. Paintings, books, furniture: they all broke and catapulted towards Everly and Kale and the canopy bed on which they sat, gravitated like a dying star.

[Kale]

Kale's smile dropped as Everly's blue eyes stared up at her suddenly. It was instant, and the harpy's thoughts could not linger on what this meant as the window broke. Eye wide, she glanced up at the noise and saw the shattered pieces arrowing towards them. Survival instinct honed over the years, kicked in full force. Her wings, walls of feathers, would not protect her from the shard's sharp edges. Destroying the source was the primary, maybe only, option. She could not fight a castle.

Kale gasped, sharp voice pitched in pain as the shards scratched her skin in the crossfire, a rather large piece embedding in her upper arm with many smaller in her wings. Violently determined, the harpy grasped at any of the energy she could. Chaotically, she drove her strength against that of the Headmistress's and pushed and pulled. Literally, she ripped apart the energy foreign to her and impaled into the gaps with her own like wedges. The stone that hit her back in the left side only encouraged her destructive mission further.

"Damn you! Die properly!" She screeched as her head ducked, feeling in the middle of a storm, desperately fighting against it. She would not be taken down here. Not by Everly.

[Everly]

But the pressure in her core refused to cease. It pressed into her with more force, and she felt herself splitting. There was no pain, but rather a release: a final exhale. The energy that held her whole spread its grip. Without her memory to hold onto it searched out the next largest source, rejoining the stone from which it came and becoming something outside time and emotion.

The bed was left empty. There was no gore, no body, no imprint. The objects that had been searing through the air stopped and fell. A light breeze floated through the broken window.

[Kale]

Suddenly, there was nothing. It was like a wave, she had nothing to push or pry at as the energy washed over her. It wasn't a breeze, but she felt the energy shift like one, rushing and disappaiting, rejoining with the walls of the castle to become just like what she always felt. It didn't feel like Everly anymore. Wide eye staring at the vacant bed that once held the embodiment of her irritation for the past two years, the woman found it hard to move as everything dropped around her. Her side hurt, her skin where sliced was irritated, but it all felt extremely numb. It was over. The Headmistress of the Academy at Lillegard Castle, was gone. Dead for all intents and purposes. Rocking her weight back, Kale vacantly pondered this conundrum. That was it.

The harpy stood a bit shakily, brain restarting. That was it. It was done, and now, the plans could commence. Her hand lifted to her shoulder, gripping the glass shard and yanking it out with a gasping wince. It clattered to the floor. She was finally moving. Everything, so still for so long, was finally in motion. This was the catalyst and there was no time to lose.

Reaching for the bed's blanket, Kale shredded a large piece from it to wrap around her arm, and another strip to press to any significantly bleeding cuts. The glass shards in her wings would need to wait a moment until she could get help.

Help. Mind running, Kale picked up the responsibility of the castle and walked from the room. She was taking it, and there was someone with whom she needed to speak to directly.

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