Entwined, the Gods fell to their deaths.

Neredia's instinct kicked in - she felt herself change, suddenly, her long tail twist tightly into nothing as they fell, her teeth and horns retracting, and when she opened her eyes again they fell upon the bears bright, blazing blue once more, and full of tears.

"You're going to kill us both" she whispered. Her throat was dry. Her skin cracked in the heat, and they fell, further and further into the dark, so small in the crack in the world.

The bear snarled. He was torn. Neredia was poisonous, and lethal, and she'd tried to kill him. And now, she was crying, though the tears did not stay on her cheeks. And the Earth God could not bring himself to finish her - one swift swipe of his paw and she'd be gone.

The pair plummetted toward the molten core once more, and with no extra obsidian layer to protect Fjell, and no time to summon it, he smacked into the surface of the lava where it scorched him through the stone of his skin. He roared.

Neredia scrambled ontop of the Bears sinking body, the intensity of the heat breaking her mind and searing in her eyes and she screamed a little, in terror, as the lava crept up the sides of Fjell's torso towards her ankles.

"Make it stop," she mumbled, more tears flooding. The heat was pounding in her skull, and tearing her lips, and the skin between her fingers and splitting along her back, and she raised her voice to the Bear God, unable to comprehend his lack of movement. "Make it stop!"

Fjell could not. The Earth and himself were dry and raw and this heat was soaking into his flesh and eroding away at him, and his mind was too hot to focus. He was sinking.

Neredia broke her upset and kneeled on the back of the Bear, and shook with fear, and begged. "Please."

Fjell's thoughts reached her. "I cannot. I'm drowning."

So calm at the face of his death, Neredia breathed deeply and looked at the Earth God. Her eyes were softer now.

She closed them, and let herself fill with as much magic as she could. Her arm reached up, hand open.

Far away, the Staff of Neredia burst out of its watery grave and into the air, where it curved and plunged into the depths of the abyss, and shot toward it's owner who grasped it in her slender fingers, and with it's arrival she was reborn.

With the accuracy and practice the Staff tore through the air around her, diving and swooping between her hands and fingers and she summonded it's power and called out to the ocean. Faster and faster she moved, and the staff blurred.

Fjell knew this magic, and though in his gut he wanted to turn from the pit and thrown Neredia off his back to her death, he focussed, and pushed the magic out of his skin. The lava drowning him began to turn dark, and hard, and the Earth God rose out of the lava as the obsidian and amethyst began to free him from the molten rock.

Neredia sharply moved and struck her staff directly upward, and began to shake violently as water seeped over the sides of abyss, only to be quickly turned to nothing.

She shook her head. But the Bear understood what she was trying and, reluctantly, fed encouragement into her mind. Now that he stood on all fours, he felt more powerful, more in control, and he held back the lava from them. From her.

Neredia's shoulders seized up but she took the staff harder in her hands and all the muscles in her body tensed as she willed the torrents in. They spilled over the edges, began to pour down the sides and Neredia turned them to solid, sparkling ice, with all the power in her. And as more water came in, more turned hard, and it grew lower and lower, trickling towards them, so eager to become wisped away and she willed it not to.

Fjell was tense, too, and shuddering, and the twenty foot bear raised himself onto his hind legs - Neredia lost her footing but grasped around the bears neck with one arm and held her power in the other, turning the cascades into ice that slowly cooled the abyss, and Fjell roared as towers of Amethyst began to crawl up the sides of the abyss, smouldering over the lava, reaching up toward to walls of ice...

Neredia began to fade and buried her face in Fjell's back, and Fjell didn't understand. He couldn't think on it. Now, all he knew was Gods they were and Gods they always would be, whatever it took, whatever it meant. And they would always be equal and oppositive, and undefeatable, and together.

The falls reached the pair and Neredia let go, allowing the water to rush in from the surface into the cooler depths of the earth and surround them both - she grasped Fjell's neck and with another single swing of her staff she commanded the currents to push them, and so they rose, toward the light, toward the surface, and into the blue...

.later.

Fjell's teeth were around the neck of Neredia's sodden robes. He dragged her onto the shore. Moments before, her body had finally given in and she'd let her consciousness fade away.

Fjell let his jaw drop, and moved slowly back from her. A slight snarl rose in his lip, and he wondered why he'd saved her, only to have her hate him again.

Neredia opened her eyes, found herself on her back and faster then Fjell could comprehend she'd shot into the air and was now stood, completely poised, the head of her staff pointed straight between his eyes. She was snarling, too.

Anger suddenly burst forth from Fjell and he swiped at her face. Three lines split across her cheek, and opened into gashes. She didn't flinch. Blood trickled down onto her robe.

"Don't do that again," he growled, and turned away.

Neredia spat at him.
Her robes whipped around her again, and she was gone.



But she'd be back.