They’ve got Ozzy.

It’s all Nyx can think about as she watches the massive, writhing, incomprehensible void beast recede into the distance, the figure of a Dark Faerie atop it. She can’t even see Ozzy himself anymore, and her heart begins to race, pounding against her ribs like it’s trying to get out and follow after them. Follow after Ozzy.

Her breathing quickens. Without her realising, pinpricks of darkness begin to close in around the corners of Nyx’s eyes, and only belatedly does she realise that those dark spots are actually bubbles of void energy and wisps of frantic power, undulating and twisting around her limbs.

She cries out, part in surprise, the rest in rage and desperation and grief, and extends her arm toward the beast. She can feel her feet about to leave the ground, the pull of the void’s energy tugging on her arm like she’s nothing more than an old Usuki being torn apart by a rambunctious child. Further and further the power extends, twisting and solidifying into a construct, a tentacle that speeds toward Ozzy, closer and closer but never close enough—

“Nyx! Look out!” 

Her world widens again with the sensation of a voice piercing through her senses, but Nyx’s mind remains just a second behind: it isn’t until she feels something scrape against her arm, and something else barrel into her side, that she registers the rumbling and crumbling and crashing all around her. Whatever hit her sends her tumbling to the ground, filling her sight with dirt and dust and whirling colours of brown and grey and red and trampled-grass green and dissipating purple.

And then she comes to a stop.

Groaning, Nyx lifts a hand to her head. The final remnants of the void tendril she had conjured dissolve into nothingness, and she lets out an anguished whine. Ozzy and the Malevolent Being are further away than ever—further away than Nyx knows she can even attempt to reach. But she still has to try. She has to save him. She can’t abandon him again—!

She tries to stand up, but something is holding her down. In her single-minded determination, Nyx still hadn’t fully grasped the situation around her: there are broken pieces of marble and concrete surrounding her, dust still floating in the air and scratching down her throat as she breathes it in. She coughs, and then so does something—someone—else: the heavy lump of red and orange fur sitting atop her chest. 

Luxinia and Baelia rush over to them, arms extended and voices mingling to form a shapeless noise that Nyx can’t comprehend. She sees Luxinia in front of her, reaching down to pull Tavi off her chest—

Tavi.

It was Tavi.

Tavi who had pushed her. Tavi who had broken her concentration.

Tavi who had stopped her from reaching Ozzy.

Baelia’s hands reach for Nyx next, wrapping around her wrist to pull her to her feet. It hurts, for some reason, but something that hurts far worse is bubbling up beneath the surface of Nyx’s skin instead, and the moment she’s upright she wrenches herself out of Baelia’s grasp.

“What was that for?!” Nyx demands, whirling on Tavi immediately. 

Tavi flinches, eyes wide, and Luxinia is so startled she backs up a few extra steps, letting go of the Kyrii entirely. 

“What are you talking about?” Tavi asks, stunned. “Nyx, didn’t you see—”

“I almost had him!” Nyx stomps her foot, jamming her finger up at the sky to point at where Void Beast—Vocivus, the Malevolent Being had called it—is now little more than a wriggling speck. “Just a little more and I could have—I could have saved my brother if only you hadn’t—”

“Nyx,” Luxinia starts, but Tavi interrupts her gently with a raised hand. 

“It’s okay, Lux,” she says, calm despite the obvious strain in her voice. “Nyx, I know you’re upset, but—”

“I was so close!”

“No, you weren’t.” 

Tavi’s voice is firm, her expression set except for the slightest wobble in her lip. She steps forward, reaching a hand out for Nyx, but Nyx moves back, ducking out of the way of it. Tavi’s arm hangs in the air for a second, her fingers still extended, but eventually she drops it, forming a trembling fist at her side. “Nyx, please, I know how you feel—”

“You have no idea how I feel,” Nyx spits, and regrets it the moment the words are out. 

Tavi flinches again. Luxinia moves to stand in front of her. 

“Maybe not, but I do,” the Light Faerie says. “And I also know that Tavi is right, Nyx. You couldn’t have reached Ozzy just then. The building next to you—it… it was coming down, and it would have crushed you if Tavi hadn’t jumped in to save you.” 

Nyx blinks. “What?” She looks to the side, where, sure enough, the building she had been next to was standing just a moment ago. Now all she can see is a pile of dust and debris—the same dust she’d been coughing on as Baelia had helped her to her feet. 

She looks back at Luxinia, and then at Tavi. Nyx bites her lip, then, and because she can’t face them—can’t face the truth—she looks away. 

 “I didn’t ask her to save me.”

Luxinia gasps. “You don’t mean that, Nyx.” 

“No, I do!” With an anguished, aggravated groan, Nyx reaches up to her head and grabs her own ears, tugging them down to try and distract from the flood of emotions battering against the dam of her self-control. “All I wanted to do was save my brother, but no one asked me what I wanted! No one ever does, least of all Tavi! She always thinks she knows the right way to do things, even if it’s a gamble! She never stops to think about what other people want. It’s always all about her and her tea and her stories and—”

“She saved you!” Luxinia insists. “You were so focused on saving Ozzy that you stopped paying attention to everything else. You didn’t see that building start to crumble right in front of you. And if you had been—if you had—” She cuts herself off, voice choked-up. “Where would we be if the worst had happened? Both—both you and Ozzy would be gone, and we’d have lost two friends.”

Nyx lets go of her ears. She looks at Luxinia, expression open and shattered—but…

“That’s enough,” Baelia says, her voice soft and quiet, but there’s an air of finality in her words that Nyx finds she can’t argue with, even though she wants to. Even though she’s embarrassed, and even though she’s frustrated, and even though she’s guilty of having said such hurtful things to her friend.