The Truth

Druid’s heart lurched at the brilliant light that filled the sky. It had been full of fury and the will to destroy. He offered a prayer of thanks to the Supreme One for granting him the strength to deflect the shot of power.
A voice chuckled in his ear, Not again. You must not be so frightened.
He didn’t expect it would be that easy, but he had hoped. It seemed that standing at Sirona’s side would require much more than just balancing out Arawn’s heavy-handed training. It could be dangerous. He didn’t like that state, but his master had been clear that there would be a time when would have to accept it.
It seemed that the time was now.
She conjured another sword that gleamed in the night, “Out of my way, Druid!”
“Calm down,” he said watching her eyes fill with a furious light. “You aren’t yourself. If you would just—"
“She tried to kill me!”
“Be that as it may be,” Druid said calmly. “You need to calm down. She—”
“Move!”
Sirona shrieked throwing a beam of light at him. He absorbed it with a shudder, stumbling a bit as he was dazed by her power and her fury. It made everything in him tense and the balance of power in him shift suddenly. He held it in and steadied himself on his feet. He understood why it was important for him to absorb it, if possible, but it wouldn’t be easy. Such fury in the atmosphere could spell danger to the surrounding area, killing the earth or summoning dark creatures that would be more of a headache to deal with than he was prepared for. A few hours of meditation would be a small price to pay to avoid dealing with ghouls invading the capital.
Knowing Arawn, he would let the knights try to handle it until the energy had subsided without picking up a finger to help them, or maybe he would just use it as training and let Sirona try and smash through them and make the problem worse.
He’d been negligent in not keeping a closer eye on Sirona. He shouldn’t have let her go out to the garden alone. He should have known that Fedelm would do something.
“Calm down, Sirona!”
She lunged at him. He conjured a shield and deflected her strike. The blade screeched against the heavy black metal of his shield, throwing a burst of power off and killing the tree nearby.
“Stay back!” Druid called to the guards as he felt them trying to get closer to try and aid him.
He stepped forward, grabbed her arm, and forced her to release her sword with a sharp jab. She cried out in surprise and a bit of pain as it went flying away. She hissed and leaped onto him and pulled violently, trying to destabilize him as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He felt her power heaving and sparking against him, but he drank it in, carefully siphoning it out of her as she tried to wrap her hands around his neck.
The desire to murder washed over him as he looked into her face. Her teeth were bared at him as she snarled at him. Her power had taken over, driving her to kill all that was in her way. He was never so grateful for the Supreme One’s favor and protection as he was now. He could only imagine it was the only thing keeping him alive as he tried to contain her. He knew she wasn’t all there, so he refrained from using more force than necessary. He caught her hands and held them away from his neck, drawing more of her power out of her.
He twisted her arms behind her back and pulled her back as he sunk to his knees, planning to pin her with his weight.
She released the grip she had on him with her legs, throwing him off balance. With a thrust of her hips, she attempted to flip them over. He released her arms to keep her from injuring herself. Sirona growled and leaped off him, rushing towards the guards near the entrance to the garden. Her power heaved, spreading towards the stone of the palace and turning everything it touched to ash.
The guards stumbled back fearfully as Druid regained his bearings and leaped on her, pinning her down. Her eyes flashed and power gushed out of her. He sent up a wall between it and the guards, redirecting her power back into the garden.
The plants wilted and crumbled to ash in the breeze. The stone cracked and started to crumble. He heard the dripping of water and guess that the fountain had been cracked. He contained her power as best he could and felt his strength cracking as it heaved and pushed.
He closed his eyes as he felt her gearing up to shove him off. Her power was dizzying. He wouldn’t be able to keep this up without getting serious and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
He reached out for aid from the Supreme One. He heard a whisper in the back of his mind. He recognized the way it filled his mind. His god was giving him a spell.
He relayed the spell as it was given to him. He recognized it as a spell of calming. It was familiar to him as if he’d heard it once in a fever dream.
Sirona dug her fingers into the ground and pulled, dragging her body and Druid a few inches as the ground turned to ash in her hand and
Druid’s voice came out in a soft, warm hum that swirled around her mind. It grew louder and heavier, forcing her to relax as she slipped into a dream-like memory. She heard her father’s voice singing to her as if she were a little girl again. She could see his smiling face in her mind’s eye and her heart clenched. The hatred and fury stuttered and started to fade as she saw him so clearly.
“Father?” she gasped.
His hand grasped hers tightly. She felt so small as she skipped alongside him through the grass and the trees. She realized that this was a memory. In the distance, she saw a temple. The faint figure of a woman turned in the breeze. The woman turned and brilliant glowing eyes fell upon her.
Sleep, Sirona.
Everything faded to darkness.

Druid felt her relax beneath him and got off her with a huff of exertion.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the air, catching his breath. He felt exhausted, but he couldn’t let up on containing her power.
The wind picked up around him. A vision of Sirona disintegrating her bed then the walls flickered behind his eyelids, but what could he do? She couldn’t sleep out here.
You know, the Supreme One’s voice whispered. You know.
He grimaced. He didn’t want to. It had been so long since he’d had to do such a thing, but he understood the necessity. Arawn might be teaching her to wield her power, but he wasn’t teaching her how to manage it.
He didn’t care because he had long since lost the ability to empathize whether by choice or just apathy. For him, most humans were immediately disposable as another one, just like it, would appear sometime in the future. Those who he had a use for were treated a bit less callously.
He didn’t believe Arawn could treat anyone well though he expected it as his due more often than not.
Druid turned her over gently and lifted her into his arms. Carefully, he took hold of the power leaking out of her and drew it into himself. As he expected, the core of him took hold of it and drew it in desperately as if had been starving for it for years. It likely had been. He closed his eyes, letting it flow into him until he felt her mind relaxing and the fury left her.
He tasted her jealousy and watched the vision of Fedelm coming to her in the garden. He couldn’t make out what they said, but it was clear from the look on Fedelm’s face in the vision what she’d planned. He wanted to be upset with her, but he couldn’t hold on to the anger as it shifted and dispersed. Fedelm wasn’t innocent, but Arawn had a heavy part to play in what had happened and what could have happened.
Maybe he could speak to Soren about it and get him to talk to Fedelm.
For now, he continued to recite the spell and draw the furious power out of her.
He heard the cry of a battlefield in the distance and tasted blood on the wind, but he didn’t know if it was a vision of the past or the future.
He looked down at Sirona with a smile, “Knowing you… it may be both.”
He chuckled a bit wryly and did his best to keep the spell going until he felt her mind fall completely asleep.