The ground beneath her glitters. The ground above her shines. Shimmering geodes reflect the crashing light of the sky above them from their resting places dotting the foundations of Beri. Every burst of lightning sends arcs of multi-spectral energy bouncing from gemstone to gemstone: the ground repeats the sentiment of the sky. Where particularly strong surges of energy cascade against the treasures of Bitemark, the air about them shimmers with faint images of impossible things, distant things, or maybe just things that nobody had thought to look for yet. Spires that twist upward and outward and then back in upon themselves. Floating crystalline structures that do not need the blessing of the ground beneath them. Across it all, the shadow of a wolf's head. 

Mosaic has eyes for none of these miracles. She may not have eyes at all. Her vision is blurry and tinted red with swimming black spots. She cannot see a path in front of her, not even the motes of guiding lights she has relied on all her life to lead her where she needs to be. There is a vague sense of a downward slope, and dancing shadows that cross in front of her and around her with a posture (if they are even real) that push the word 'friend' into her mind. At the very least, they do not impede her progress.

She cannot smell anything familiar, either. When she sniffs the air to find her path forward, she gets nothing but nonsense data. The pungent aroma of the color red, the stinging wind of green. Another whiff and it all changes: the scent of a sharp edge, of worn leather, of sand between her toes. Every breath is blinding. Every sensation upends her world. 

But she holds on. The weight of the mountain crushing into her neck and shoulders is beyond her comprehension. It crushes thoughts from her head. It squeezes her until there is no distinction in her mind between her muscles, her ribs, and her lungs. Her knees do not buckle underneath her: they have lost the ability to move like that at all. And still it shifts, and she shifts with it. Beri is held aloft. Mosaic screams, though she does not hear it herself. She splits the sky like a peal of thunder, this tortured and labored cry of an animal that is also a song of glory and a flash of fangs at last turned against the hand that deigned to feed her. There are no words. There do not need to be.

Mosaic moves. And she does not move at all. In her perception it is less that she takes a step forward, or another one after that. Not a trembling shuffle or a headlong rush or the desperate crawl of a turtle seeking the safety of the sea for the first time in its life. Instead, she shatters. Her body sheers off at the joints and her entire world explodes in fire hot enough to melt steel. She disintegrates inside of it. There is nothing of her but infinite white, and then infinite black. When these too melt away, a thousand years may well have passed. She does not know. She cannot know. She simply becomes aware of her body when her straining muscles force some instinctive part of her brain to comprehend the shape of herself. She comes into being once again, and she is further along the slope. 

Only one sight is clear. The only thing she can rely on the guide her is the baleful gaze of the [i]Slitted[/i]. Even decimated as it is, even tilting uselessly and doomed by the judgment of Zeus and whatever brave dumbasses rode it down here, the Crystal Knights war sphere is a threat to every living thing beneath it. There is power yet in those cannons. There is malevolence yet in its lifeblood, whether its brain or its heart have fled it for the beaches below or not. 

Seething. Huffing. Hissing. Destroying herself with every step, Mosaic wills herself remade. The mountain climbs down the path, and its shadow blots the battlefield. Before her, shadows leap and cavort with battle-glee. In her ears, the faintest ringing of laughter and taunting. In her nose, the softest petal of a rose. At her feet, the crackling dimensional path of geodes more valuable than the planet they were buried in. 

She wields a town. Wields a mountain as a shield. Her largest boast and final promise, and a place for all those who have chosen to believe in her to stand their ground and buy time for the last payment of her thanks she will offer on Bitemark. The [i]Slitted[/i] is blind. Whatever death and vengeance it rains, it will not reach. There will be a fair fight in the shadow of Mosaic.

Growling. Snarling. Choking. Guttural slurping and the halting laughter of a woman who has realized her body has more strength in it still. Through her, the lightning finds its path from sky to ground. Her hips twist in preparation for her final lunge. Her arms wind backwards even though they must be snapping in half. 

And when she steps into this throw, the mountain will know flight. And the [i]Slitted[/i] will know Beri, as only someone who has loved it with everything she is could manage.