"Re..."

There's an urge to cover her mouth with her hands and press so tight that she starts to choke. To bite her lip and chew it until the blood fills her mouth. To give in to the serpents crawling through her spine and let her body twist into impossible angles until she's in so much pain she won't be able to do anything but scream. Anything at all if it lets her swallow the noises spilling from her lips right now. 

"Re... da..."

Already her feet are dragging her backwards, away from Sko-- away from Re-- away from [i]the shadow[/i], away from Beautiful and the arm of a heathen god she controls in the sky above her, away from Beljani's blood flecked dress, away, away, away. Already her pupil is growing wider and wider until the black swallows the gold. Already her body is trembling as if she'd been freshly pulled from a frozen lake, and sweating as though she'd been locked inside a sauna and left to die. And she has. She [i]has[/i] been left to die.

She tastes copper. She wants to spit, but her body doesn't belong to her. Her feet are dragging slowly backwards, until her heels taste the air at the edge of the roof. Her arms curl around her chest and clutch something small and precious tight against her, though everything worth keeping has already slipped away. She mustn't say it. She mustn't say the name, make it real. If she finishes Beautiful's work, she dies. And for all the buzzing in her ears, she can still make out the words of a dying hero. 

Why? Why does it keep happening? Why why why why why why why [i]why?![/i] Why can't she make herself want to die?!?

"...Nnn-nnuh... nnnNNNN AAAAAAaAUUUGGhH!"

Her hands are trembling. Her hands are clawing at her face. Her hands are slashing uselessly at shadows in the air around her. Her feet are stumbling. Her feet are sliding off the edge of the roof seeking the sky and the fall and the retribution of the mob beneath her. Her feet are dragging her forward again and planting her in safety at the most dangerous place on the planet. Her eye is cold and empty of emotion. Her eye is a pale red orb filling her body with so much information she might explode. Her eye is wide and frightened, and filled with tears. 

"Beautiful," she stammers, because there's no other safe place to turn, "Please. Don't."

Bella's dress is a shredded mess. Her body is covered in burns and gashes half scabbed, half oozing. But there is power left in her body. Her ELF flares to life behind her in a jagged corona of danger and warning. She stumbles forward, and where her talons strike the roof she leaves scars and dust and shakes the building beneath her. But there's nothing to do with her strength. There aren't any targets left, except the ones that fill her heart with the terror of death. And she can't, she mustn't, she... she doesn't want to die. 

"I, I won! You won! You bet on me and I won! Pl-please, don't do it. Stop looking, stop it! Stop it! Don't do it, don't do it, fuck you STOP! Don't! Take! It! From! ME! Stop looking stop asking stop [i]looking[/i] just fu..."

Why? Why? Why? This is everything she was chasing all this time. Why? Why? Why? She cut everything else away for this. She said goodbye, she said fuck off, she said she said she said shesaid so why?! Why?! Why is her body falling apart but begging her to hold it together still? Why is ozone and death all she can taste? Why does every little tremble feeling like nothing but a hot whip cracking against her skin? Why? Why is it all so horrible? Why all these tears, till the emotions drip down her nose and her throat and choke her even though she has to scream she has to scream she can't hold it in she has to scream!

"Please!" Bella's nothing but an animal that was taught to speak as a parlor trick. Her words are nonsense begging punctuated by empty threats of lightning and claw crushing the useless things things around her, "Beautiful, please! Stop thinking, stop asking, stop [i]thinking![/i] Close your eyes, just be wrong, just say you missed something, just lie and say it's fine! Let me... you have to let me... y-yyyrrrrggggraaaaHH!!!"

There are claws inside her throat. There are teeth inside her eyes. There is fire inside her heart. There are chains around her limbs. There's a rope around her neck. Pulling her down. Pulling her up. Pulling, pulling, pulling until the word that mustn't come out finally does. 

"Redana."

Her voice is dry and cracking.

"Redana!"

Her voice is ripped from her throat by a wicked hook.

"REDANA!"

Her voice surges until it cracks against the heavens and clashes with the might of an assembled djinn.

Her eye is on the shadow, growing longer in the flickering dust and light. Masters don't, masters don't, masters [i]don't![/i]

"Help... mE."