Alitia: Hellfire and Blizzard

XXII: Dancing in Distraction

Carys was the first to move for Brynn once the battlefield had largely been cleared of the soldiers of Pyre. The queen cracked a small smirk with a matching scoff beneath her mask, and she stepped to the side to avoid the punch of ice aimed for her head. Carys recovered quickly, kicking off the ground and turning around with a wide swing of her arm. Ice surrounded her fingertips, but Brynn avoided the attack easily once again. She effortlessly dodged the next three blasts of power sent her way too, and Brynn only returned the favor of attacking when she was certain that Carys' momentum wouldn't be something she could manipulate or recover from. All it took was a single blast to the chest for Carys to be sent sprawling with one hand pressed against her heart to try and calm the flames raging across her body. 

"You're confident. I can give you that much," Brynn hummed. "But confidence has never amounted to much of anything as long as the person who has it does not know how to use it." She glanced up to the rest of the Second Camaraderie, not seeming to mind their presences in the slightest. "What do the rest of you say? Are you going to try and attack me next?"

"First, we have a few questions," Aithne cut in, pushing her way to the front of the field. "What did you do to Dolores? You were the one who sent the assassin in to kill her, were you not?"

Brynn thought about the question for a moment, seeming to consider if she should bother with answering it or not. In the end, she chuckled and shrugged. "The job did itself, to be honest," she confessed. "I needed to get rid of the queen, and you had just put her in the perfect position to be taken care of by a rogue. It was easy enough. I'm shocked you didn't think I would do that."

"You've been planning this for a long time then," Elcynder concluded, not that they had needed any confirmation on the matter. "You knew from the start that you were going to try and come after Etruna. You just needed to find the right moment to strike, and after the civil war..."

"Pyre has been a bit too crowded as of late," Brynn said. "There's only so much a people can do when there's not enough space or resources for them to get by. We needed to expand... So what better way is there to do that than to come back home where we have always belonged? We came from Etruna originally, did we not?"

"You gave up all ties you had to Etruna centuries ago. Do you forget how old your empire is? Your people have had little to do with Etruna for generations. I hardly see why you would want to come back now," Aithne snarled. "If it was simple aid you wanted, then we would have provided it without a second thought."

"But where's the fun in that?" Brynn countered. "You cannot rely on allies for anything. They will always find a reason to stab you in the back as long as you give them the chance to do so. I thought I would handle things in the easiest way I could... By getting rid of any chance there was that I would be betrayed."

"Other planets have upheld alliances for decades if not centuries," Sylvia reminded her. "You weren't really worried about avoiding a betrayal. You were just trying to make sure that you would be able to stay in charge. That's all you've ever cared about, isn't it?"

Brynn thought about Sylvia's words for a few moments longer before shrugging. She barely seemed to realize how much everyone was glaring, and if anything, she enjoyed it. "I've had my reasons for acting the way I have," was all she said. "I believe we've run our words into the ground though. You don't see this my way, and I don't see it your way. If you truly believe that ties with other realms are stronger, then I would ask you to prove it the only way warriors like us know how... Through combat. Your ideals must be strong enough to withstand a battle if you want them to count for much of anything."

Iris was the first to strike at Brynn's words, summoning all of the steel she had stolen from the enemy forces' armor to create a massive wall of metal. She slammed it into Brynn's side, but Brynn saw the attack coming. She didn't bother with avoiding it though, instead humming as her body grew hot enough to pierce straight through the steel. The rest of the metal melted away in the blink of an eye, fading to nothing but ash under the unstoppable heat radiating from her skin. Brynn looked up with a small laugh. "You'll have to try harder than that... Though I don't know if it will amount to much in the end. You've never stood a chance against me. Surely you are aware of that, hm?"