Snippets and Stories: (WtI) Clashing Will

Neither had anticipated the meeting, but it was something to be expected. Something they both knew, to be long coming.

The Ophidian studied the fallen Seraph carefully.

Across the clearing, the other stretched languidly, combing a hand through his hair in a show of taming the unkempt bangs.

They fell back into his face and he sighed, shrugging to him.

But Muspell knew better than to drop his guard despite the brevity of the Seraph.

And slowly, purposefully, Loki turned to him, "Well, if it isn't the Seed of Retort. Now what could a little bud such as yourself be doing way out here?"

The Yggdrasill spoke evenly, his usual tenderness and soft-spoken voice now assertive, "For the same reasons you yourself would venture here."

There was a dark chuckle, "Is that so? An innocent little thing like you coming all this way chasing the scant motes of the sands of Time?"

The air barely stirred, but Muspell's skin was prickling as a cold sweat broke over him. The small satchel at his waist felt uncomfortably warm, its contents humming softly.

It could be said that such sands were indicative traces of the Numen, and in following them, one can find not only follow their footprints, but with enough, where they remain bound.

Resisting the urge to cover the small shards of Time, he instead stayed watchful of the Seraph.

Loki leered down at the frozen serpent, grinning wide with a mouth full of white jagged teeth--that were suddenly mere inches from Muspell's ear, "Don't think I am blind to your interference. It's been you who has been snatching them before me, erasing their traces that none else would follow."

"What you desire to bring to fruition will not come to pass." 

"Brave words." The grin widened, and his voice dropped low to whisper a thinly veiled threat, "Careful, a lest the flower be plucked before it blooms."

And with that he vanished.

Muspell allowed himself a moment's respite, and once certain that the other had left, sunk to his knees against a nearby trunk. 

It was truly fortunate that the fallen seraph hadn't chosen to engage. It was too early to cross someone of his caliber.

A hand went up to his mouth, as he undid his shroud. Where there should've been keen edges that bit deep with the slightest of shifts, he felt but the flatness of his teeth, and the blunted ends where claws should have been.

If only. 

---

The blow was jarring, and were it not for the buffer of his barrier, likely fatal.

"You little snake." The words were bit out with barely concealed rage.

"By my grace did I turn a blind eye to your meddlesome ways. I should've ended you!"

Muspell weathered another of the furious Seraph's blows, returning one of his own as his long tail came snapping back, knocking the breath out of Loki and sending him flying.

With a flip he landed on his feet some distance away, but fell into a kneel as he fought to even his breathing. Where most would have been crippled, the Seraph stood, out of breath, but no less worse for wear to his dismay.

The Ophidian himself retreated, tail poised to strike again should his assailant attempt another exchange. The blinding rage was subsiding and the Seraph easing into a deadly calm. Though he had fended him off easily enough, or with as much ease as he could hope for, all attempts now would be to flee. Yet turning his back to his attacker was foolishness. The familiar cloudy sensation of his shroud falling over him obscured his vision for a brief and terrifying moment before he stood once more on two legs.

Almost abruptly, the Seraph was cackling, a crazed laughter that put him on edge.

"Do you truly believe your little hindrance will stop me? Your dear Numen shall fall." a wicked grin split his face in a Cheshire smile.

Muspell remained hunched over, face an impassive blank. Likely contemplating his remaining options.

The fallen sneered, what futility. Nothing would stop him from seeing their downfall. 

Instead the Yggdrasill smiled, and chuckled.

Anger welled up within him, an Ophidian like him he could easily rend asunder, and he should've that night he had encountered the cumbersome little snake.

But his fury then was nothing in the face of the Yggdrasill's next words.

"He wont fall." Muspell smiled, head tilted and visage oddly serene and filled with a tender warmth, a sharp contrast with the gravity of his perilous position, "Null is too strong to be felled by your hands ratite."

Loki twitched.

Muspell forced his body to stay lax, even as he saw something in the other snap. In the instant that the Seraph moved he would make his own escape.

"How quaint. You've given it a name." Loki spoke, words slow and sharp.

It was a mere blink of the eyes. In the split second that he was deprived of sight, was the fallen Seraph gone, and he felt rather than saw, the rustle of leaves as the other moved. He took a lunge and rolled with the blow, tumbling to a stop some ways away. finding the rustling leaves of the trees his view.

Almost immediately following was the realization and dismay, that the miasma from the fallen had spread through his wounds. His body could no longer move.

"I would've expected an snake of your breeding to put up more of a fight." came the Seraph's mockingly sweet voice.

Loki yanked the Ophidian's head up by the hair, "They say a dragon is born with fangs and claws intact, the manifestation of their latent strength."

The Seraph forced Muspell's jaw open and chortled at the sight of his flat teeth, "Are you truly of draconic blood? Although..." a hand curled dangerously around his neck, the icy grip tightening painfully, "... as a Yggdrasill, you've already become lucid. I suppose you must have something going for you, defective little thing that you are."

Once more he found himself thrown bodily on the ground.

Grimacing, he furrowed his brow at the view of the sky and trees bordering his vision. Though he could appreciate such things s rest and relaxation, at the moment he much more preferred being upright.

"On your feet, Muspell." came a familiar monotone.

He piqued, and his weight pulled up, "Null--"

"Not now."

His heart fluttered at the voice, doing as he was bid. Forcing himself up on his own strength and proceeding to wince at pain that crumpled his leg.

This Time though a hand caught him under the arm and hoisted him back up. Nodding, he accepted Null's shoulder as a makeshift crutch.

He looked up, practically glowing at the Continuum's eternal keeper, but the Numen's eyes were elsewhere, "Does this mean you've reconsidered?" he managed out.

"Of course not." The Numen returned just as brusquely as always, "You yet have a role to play in the Continuum."

"Of course." Muspell returned, but even then was he smiling.

Loki felt his own lips curl. How cute.

The Ophidian was a fool. Everything he had worked towards was to prevent a confrontation between the Numens and himself, and yet here he was bringing the Numen straight to him.

And yet--it truly was unfortunate, for he had not the means yet to bring them low.

The fallen steeled himself. Unlike the others Null, as the Seed had deemed him, was not impartial. A wildcard, just like him. It was odd how similar the two of them were, both of divergence borne of boredom.

"This simplifies things greatly." he grinned down at the two as they looked up, "Wont you join me, Numen?"

The guardian stared at him, and said nothing.

Loki sneered, "What is this? Wont speak to none but your precious snake?"

The Numen held his gaze, regarding him not with respect nor revulsion, just simply regarding him. At length, he said simply, "Leave. Your path takes you elsewhere, Fallen."

The Seraph clicked his tongue and held his hands up in a dramatic sigh, "Well, don't say I didn't try." the same sickening grin, and the same mad glint in his eye, "But I suppose this make it all the more fun when you all burn."

And he had disappeared into the shadows of night.

"Melodramatic sop."

Muspell choked up in his laughter, "Null! Not now!" he chided, using Null's own words, "This is serious!"

"Why? He's gone now." the Numen stared down at him, the same expressionless visage, yet there was just a hint of something more.

Was it amusement? A jest?

But before he could contemplate further, there was a rush of wind and when the Yggdrasill opened the eyes he hadn't realized he closed, he was looking up at the walls of his hollow. It took him a moment to remember that he had, in his haste, summoned the Numen here. It was unthinkable that Null wouldn't remember such, for the Numens forget nothing.

"Where do you keep the salve?"

"Jar on the third shelf."

Null saw to his wounds, and lay him on his nest to recover. As he turned to leave though, a hand grasped at his sleeve, "Please, you must warn your kind--"

"--that he seeks our end. We are well aware." the Numen spoke in the same bored monotone as their first meeting. We are not oblivious to his activities, and why he seeks the scant traces of sand."

"Then why? Why are you giving up?"

The Numen fell silent, and after a moment, "Did we not talk about this once already? We have not given up, only embraced what is meant to be."

"Is it what you want?"

Null-0 narrowed his eyes at the Seed, truly, the Ophidian asked all the questions he cared not to divulge.

"We want but the continuum, and the continuum is as it is. We will change nothing."

"This is not safeguarding the continuum, do you not see?! The future is not set! Your extinction is not meant to be, nothing is 'meant to be'! Change does not come because it is given to us by Fate, it comes because we struggle, because some fish swim upstream!"

Null-0 stared, face impassive were it not for his eyes, wide at the scolding. By now the Yggdrasill was snarling at him.

His collar had been yanked with a strength the genteel character had never belied, so that he was forced down to Muspell's level. Once already he had glanced away to confirm that the serpent was injured.

It was the only Time he would ever see the Ophidian so markedly upset, fierce, and assertive. And in that moment did he truly blaze with the imposing, noble fire of his kindred blood.

But it made his own blood stir, and in him he felt a small flame of passion, of life, and which he would at that Time, deny.

The Numen brushed the Yggdrasill off and made to leave, but of course the other wanted the last word, "If you wont change the future, I will. I wont let you fade."

Null-0 snorted, "You do that."

"I will."

And he did, much to the Numen's lament.