[b]Kalentia![/b]

Kalentia did not throw up a barrier.(1)
[hider=(1)]
"A barrier!?!"
"Calm down Kal, she didn't mean it -"
"Get the [i]fuck [/i]out of my way Cair -"
"Shit - sorry, she gets like this -"
"I don't [i]get like this[/i], I am having a perfectly normal medical professional's reaction to being told I should put up a barrier -"
"Here it comes, I tried my best."
"Ever since Scaithworthy published her goddamn Survivability Cake treatise then every novice white mage who's come up has looked at the numbers on barriers vs healing and come to the same conclusion: That barriers are far more effective. It makes sense right? A gram of prevention is worth more than a kilogram of cure? I'll get good at barriers first and then maybe learn some healing basics on the off chance something gets through the barrier -

But then it's not just getting your barriers right, is it? What if you're slow on the draw and get tackled by a werewolf before you get your barrier up? Well, then you've got to improve your reflexes. It starts with getting strung out on coffee and before you know it you're learning performance enhancing time magic in order to shave microseconds off your barrier reflexes. And there are different kinds of barriers, right? Specialized against different damage types? So before long you've got a mage sight up every second, cutting through the privacy of the people around you, and you've probably got a bunch of barriers up 24/7 just in case, so nobody can get close to you physically, and you'd better believe emotionally as well. And then your innocent little barrier-curious novice has fallen down the stairs of Evil Wizardry, cultivating a paranoid surveillance apparatus to ensure that every threat is perfectly identified and met with the exact right amount of force, surrounded by a cloud of time paradoxes and privacy invasions while becoming so touch starved that they're one lonely morning away from kidnapping a princess for their impenetrable forcefield lair and[i] guess who has to go dig them the fuck out of it ---"[/i]
"Kal, that was like, two times."
"In the [i]six years[/i] since that fucking Cake Essay was published!"
"Alright, alright -"
"And where's Scaithworthy now? Has anybody seen her? Has she answered any questions about the barrier mindset? Or is she ensconced in her own impenetrable forcefield lair, slowly going insane like the rest of her cultists?"
"Look, man, I don't know, I just think you're overthinking this."
"There is nothing more romantic than holding a wounded knight in your arms, gently opening their armour, feeling her heart flutter beneath your hands, knowing you're the reason it still moves - and [i]that lady[/i] wants to take it away from the world in the name of [i]efficiency[/i]! I hope she catches a fucking cold."
[/hider]

Instead she followed her traditional technique: running after the Lunarian, hands alight with healing(2) magic, waiting for her to take a hit so she can dive in to immediately cure it. This was not a dignified process; the vibe here is 'late schoolgirl rushing through a bad neighbourhood', involving lots of shrieking and ducking.

[hider=(2)]
Offensively, this doubles as a sleep spell. Almost everyone's got a few hours of sleep debt keeping them from optimal performance, and any opponents who get the bright idea of coming after her will get the nap-slap and wake up a few hours later feeling [i]amazing[/i].
[/hider]

[b]Injimo![/b]

Fantastic. Instead of 'legendary hero defeats mysterious assailant' she'd managed to hit the bar of 'bodyguard squad leader'. She should -

[i]Hmmmmmmm[/i]. She swallowed the frustration audibly as she set her weapon at ease. Nothing to be gained by seething. She knew she was second best, and all this meant was nothing had changed. No sense crying over the status quo. She'd get back to trying to break it along with her punching bag later. 

But damn. That skateboard was [i]fast[/i]. She should get one.