Holly did not consider herself a good person for what she was going to do. It would be the height of ignorance to claim otherwise. As the dusk finally came she looked down at the invading bear folk, their shapes still visible under the moon's light. For all they had come to slaughter and destroy… she did not look at them as evil.

Few things in the world could objectively be called that and none of them people. Was it the young warriors' fault that they believed in their chieftains' words? Was it the chieftains' fault that they did not understand the consequences of their actions? Their woods were overflowing with ignorance and ruled by bloodshed. Was it the warlord’s fault that he did not understand most of everything?

Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was not. Holly was not judging them. She was merely picking a side. With all the consequences that brought. Every life she would save or end, it was her choice, made with full knowledge of what it entailed. And the bards would sing again of how great her deed was. Like they had after the Briar War. For years with verve, then less and less. In a decade it would be just a story. In a century perhaps a few forgotten books would still describe it.

Yet in five generations, back in their forest, on dark moonless nights, the ursine would still whisper of it. When the great-great-grandchildren of long-dead survivors huddled around a fire, when the shadows felt like they might swallow them whole, they would still tell the story of what Holly was about to commit. A symbol of their downfall. Of an entire species’ decline.

And symbols… symbols held power. The stronger its mark, the greater that impact - if you knew how to use them. Few did. Learning every Nera by heart took decades even for the most talented. Sharpening the will was a task without end, but reaching the great plateau was a labor of a century or more. Comprehending all of the symbology the world held was a trial of a lifetime - and technically impossible given how they ever shifted. Taming ether-lines needed for greater magics was so arduous that saddling even one would earn the title of Grand Magus. Then deep secrets and Names were worth a king’s ransom each and scarcely could be clung onto with a mind intact.

The elf was not mortal. She had all the time in the world.

“Ready,” Holly spoke, looking down at her hand. Her mundane eyes saw an arrow, shaft slightly green - almost like a rose’s stem - and the tip was simply a large thorn. It was a lie, of course. What she really held was an ending. The certainty of a conclusion.

“I see the warlord,” Thorn said. “Shamans, or whatever they call them, are shielding him. I think I might have taught them one lesson too many.”

“It will not matter,” Holly stated.

“I know,” Thorn nodded. “I am ready.”

So Holly handed her the death incarnate in the guise of an arrow. It would not last long, just minutes - such volatile powers could not remain fixed. Her old friend knocked it and drew. Slowly. Carefully. Just holding it would evoke existential dread in all things living, yet Thorn trusted Holly enough to focus on her part despite that. She closed her eyes, touching the tip, then spoke:

"

While the pillars of Venhe stand,

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While the moon yet weeps.

By a hand stained, I usurp.

By a hand immaculate, I release.

From still-born dreams

to the ashes of what never could be.

In the memory of what almost was,

so that it may not again come.

Give that which was taken.

Take that which was given.

By my name, briar claimed,

I call upon those thorns.

Ornth

"

The arrow was let loose. Holly watched with a tint of guilt as it sailed across the moon skies. The pillars of Venhe themselves, forever cursed to be never known, found themselves noticed by the arrow and in turn gave it the weight of the heavens they bore. The moon blinked, noting the sheer devastation the spell would cause, then poured its own bottomless despair into it in an act of kinship.

By then every eye in the city and outside was watching the arrow. All things living and many not could not help but stare at the sheer presence of it. A hundred miles away people would still turn towards the horizon instinctively, never realizing why.

The ursine shamans naturally recognized the threat and attempted to fight it. All their lives they had fought spell with spell among their warring tribes. They thought they understood the arcane and its secrets. That all there was to magic was overcoming power with more power. Like a hundred children, pulling at a rope, thinking they could pull down the adult on the other end.

Except the rope was attached to a mountain at the other end. When they could not smother it outright, they tried to bring the arrow down. With wind and rocks and summoned thorns of their own. But how does one deflect a hurricane with their breath? How does one redirect a flood with a bucket? How does one still an earthquake with a stick?

Then the warlord tried to desperately dodge. His honor guard stepped in the arrow's way to seize it with their own bodies. Like trying to grab fate with bare hands.

In truth, they were all dead before the arrow had even pierced their skin. A briar was the symbol of death. It had been for a long time but since the war of a same name none were greater than it. Emboldened by its true Name, unleashed and reinforced through secrets better left unheard, the slightest touch was enough to end all life at the point of impact. Then the arrow struck the warlord’s heart and bloomed.

It fed on his people’s dream of something greater. Perhaps conquest, perhaps glory, perhaps something else, Holly could not know. Nonetheless, the thorns took the hope he had given his people, then returned yet more death for every life their horde had already claimed. A wave of thick stems exploded from the corpse, lashing into the army with speed surpassing any arrow. A single touch was enough to kill and they sprawled in every direction like a tidal wave.

There were no true great shamans among the ursine. They were completely unlike the goblins in that way. And without anyone capable of contesting those briars, they drank their fill. Shamans called desperately upon tongues of flame and whips of lightning. Some warriors desperately tried to even burn them with torches. But how could the vessel of death itself be flammable? At first they tried to fight it. Then they broke and fled, all too late for most as more briars grew and circled around them, cutting off retreat to hundreds.

It had not killed all of them, not nearly. There was a limit to the area it could cover - especially since Holly had to be sure they would not spread to the city itself. Still most of their shamans had been devoured. Their warlord was dead, chieftains decimated. What remained stared in horror, unable to comprehend what had transpired in just a scarce few moments. How everything they had struggled for could be broken in less than a minute.

Then the war was ended before it could even really begin. The remaining half or so lost their appetite to continue fighting. Some broke down, falling to their knees in despair - they were more resilient to death than most cultures... but 'more' still had a limit. The majority of them simply fled, helping their shattered kindred up… dragging them away if need be. It would take a while for them all to disappear in the distance but it was clear the battle was over.

Holly watched for a few moments longer… then she crumbled, unconscious from the strain. There was no smile on her face. She never enjoyed hurting children.