Several things flashed through Quinn's mind at the time but nothing stopped her body from moving automatically. Her scales flashed extending her shielding to cover Irias from a distance against the next blow coming her way. Haritan's eyes flashed with fiery hot anger, burning and then black as if it charred away his grip on himself.

It was as if time stopped inside Quinn. She oculd see the approaching attack, even as she'd managed to position herself between Irias and her attacker... her father. Or was he?

No sound could be heard, and it wasn't like earlier when she'd noticed the birds weren't making noise. No this, was different.

It was as if she'd been placed ina moment of extremely slow moving time, practically frozen while Haritan arranged his next attack.

Quinn could see with such clarity that he was readying a specific spell or ability. She'd still not figured out how to differentiate those yet.

But even though she'd had inklings before, times when she could sense someone was about to attack... now, after the last incident with Kajaro, she'd tapped into some of her power, some of her cosmicisodracus heritage.

Slow as molasses dripping down a bottle side, Quinn watched as he formed his thought, raised his palm, and readied the attack.

Nothing else stood out to her - because this was what she had to do. They hadn't brought Malakai because he was sick, Lynx was still recovering memories, and Eric was injured. So the bulk of their attack capable force that would usually accompany her on a trip such as this weren't there.

All she had to rely on was herself.

The icicle began to form ad the tip of his finger, moving fast into a more arrow like projectile as he fueled more power into it.

But ice was something Quinn knew, and she knew it intimately. Along with water, fire, and mental affinities, they were the ones she'd trained the most. She could utilize ever single aspect of ice. From creation, to manipulation, through to destruction and deconstruction.

She didn't even need to speak the action out loud anymore, no, she just needed to visualize the word. Pushing out her own palm abruptly in what would be the direct path of the projectile, her scaled encased her skin in their protective armor even as she formed the word in her mind.

Unmake.

The icicle hovered in the air for but a split second, and surprise flahsed across Haritan's face briefly as he no doubt began to feel the backlash. Slowly, over what seemed like an age to Quinn but was proabbly less than a second in reality, the icicle began to dissolve. From the tip backward along the shaft it melted, dissipating into the atmosphere in a cloud of steam, before time began to move at its regular rate once again.

Suddenly it was as if she'd slammed back into herself and Quinn dropped into a crouch to check on Irias who still lay crumpled against the ground where she'd landed bare seconds beforehand.

Haritan yelped and raised his hands to clutch at his head momentarily before fixing his red-eyed glare on Quinn and screaming 'you' out in a very unbecomming screeching like sound.

She ignored it, knowing that Nishpa and Narilin would take care of the other two without Quinn even needing to say anything.

And sure enough, as Quinn mnoved to help Irias, the other two intercepted her parents.

Only Karilla batted them away. Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn could see the fury of the woman, and realized that she only hadn't come to her daughter's defense because she couldn't move practically outside of time like Quinn apparently could.

"What the hell was that? You know how frail she is!" Karilla's fingers extended into claws, and the indignation and fury on her face were genuine.

Nishpa stepped back and helped Narilin restrain Haritan instead because his eyes still held no hint of reason in them. And a smokey film rose up from his body. Quinn might have missed it if she wasn't so heavily attuned to there being something amiss, desperately searching for what it was she hadn't cottoned onto yet.

And that was it.

Something seeped into him. Reminds me of that damned tree back when we visited the Esposians. Quinn leveraged the thought toward the other two and knew they'd received it in the way their frames stiffened ever so slightly. Perhaps, and it was a massive stretch using way too much imagination, but just maybe only certain contact with dimensional aspects of the worlds could pass on the infection the tree had had. Quinn wasn't sure how long it would take to fully become a part of the person and begin warping them, but she was willing to bet it didn't take as long as she'd like it to.

Aradie hooted in Quinn's ear, flashing several different ways she could move the young tree comfortably and safely.

Irias was breathing, her chest slowly rising and falling, but her already pale and red streaked skin was even paler. It made the red stand out even more. The leaves of her hair gave the appearance of a red carpet of blood behind her head. It wasn't something Quinn wanted her to emulate.

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She gathered her shielding and boosted some of her strength to allow herself the ability to lift the slight Salosier up and take her to one of the longer tables on the side of the room. Putting her down, Quinn pulled a pillow out of her storage to give the girl a more comfortable resting place.

Even as she arranged it, she noticed that Irias shivered ever so slightly, so Quinn added a blanket into the mix. She always had one with her, just in case she got cold. Didn't always want to rely on magic -- that'd become a handicap and probably be unavailable if she was in a pinch. Granted, if magic was unavailable, then the dimensional storage probably would be too...

She could hear Haritan speaking in the background.

"I didn't mean... I was just trying to get her to move away from us." He sounded bewildered and slightly lost. Like he was only just coming back into his thoughts, perhaps back to himself.

"You didn't mean to?!" Karella was obviously not letting this go.

Nishpa interrupted her. "Calm it down. This was all unnecessary to begin with. Why you would choose to make such a big fuss over an invitation to be a Librarian assistant is something I'll never understand, but right now we need to focus on Haritan." The Firionas' tone was soothing and yet stern at the same time.

Quinn knew she could leave the situation in her hands, and that Aradie would provide her with any images of anything she'd missed.

"He isn't usually like that." Irias whispered very softly, so low in tone in fact, that Quinn was certain no one else had heard her.

"Really?" She whispered just as softly back as she used her knowledge of the Salosier anatomy she'd absorbed in order to help Escadril, to scan and assess if something more serious was wrong with Irias. "Does he do this often though?"

The discussion behind them was loud, and she could hear the confusion in Haritan's voice even as his pitch escalated. It contained fear, and a strange bewilderedness that Quinn felt went along with something else. It was like he hadn't been aware of what he was doing when he did it.

Irias finally opened her brilliantly red eyes, but it wasn't the type of red her fathers had been briefly. That was of charred meat, with blackened edges. No hers was of the ever changing autumn leaves as they detatched and floated down to greet the rest. Hers was soft, whereas her father's hadn't been quite right.

"I am sorry..." Irias' eyes flickered toward where Karella was still speaking loudly, deriding her father. The young Salosier sighed. "This is... something we should not really be showing the rest of the world, but they are unable to hide their dislike for each other on top of everything."

"They seem to like you well enough..." Quinn said, watching Irias' face to gauge her reaction.

"Perhaps..." The girl paused, her gaze hardening. "My father didn't strike me. It just looked like he did. That thing... it's been in there for years now and it's becoming stronger and keeping him at bay. He's not the man he was fifty years ago. The change..."

She cleared her throat and composed herself as her voice had begun to quaver. Then she continued, her whisper stronger now. "The change began decades ago, but now... it is almost complete. I don't have the affinities or abilities to check what is wrong with him, and no one listens to me when I speak."

Quinn nodded. "You should rest. Do you have pain anywhere?"

"My head, but I have initiated my healing failsafes, and it is already subsiding."

"Then let yourself rest and recuperate for a bit."

Irias held Quinn's gaze and slowly nodded before closing her eyes. Quinn watched for a few seconds before turning her attention back to the others. Aradie will stay here with Irias. The bird hooted into Quinn's ear ever so softly and gently. She reached up and scritched the owl's neck.

These people are infected with something. Nishpa said, stating what Quinn would have thought of as obvious.

It's more than that, Narilin still held Haritan back, proving to Quinn she was far stronger than the Librarian had ever given her credit for.

How do you mean more than that?

Narilin's eyes never left her charge, just as Nishpa focused on keeping herself between the two Balisors. It's not an infection, it's an intrusion. As if it's gone in through the root system here in this section. I still can't hear anyone else either. There doesn't seem to be anyone around. No other signs of life right now and if you recall, very unlike the Jenishu side of the aperture where we always have people running around. This here is stiller than I'd expected, even though I know for a fact they don't function with the same camaraderie as we do.

Quinn reached out her senses even farther than their default and realized just how right Narilin was. She frowned, still listening to the batshit arguement Haritan and Karella were having, and started wondering if they were trying to lull them into a false sense of security.

Aradie flashed images in front of Quinn's mind. Of Irias color returning, and of how her feet no longer touched the ground. The young Balisor's breathing was stable and she seemed to be slumbering now that most of the pain was gone.

But what Quinn noticed was her lack of being attached to the root system. Her color was returning, and if Quinn wasn't mistaken, it seemed her strength was too.

Whatever had seeped into the undergrowth here was sucking the life out of the people, and out of the grove.

Quinn moved quickly to where the other two stood, and wracked her brains for a split second before deciding to just do it. "I'm going to do something now to help us help you."

"What do you mean help us!" Karella snapped, "I don't need a human like you helping us!"

It made Quinn wonder if the woman had seen Quinn's scales and just refused to acknowledge them, or if she was just oblivious. Still, Quinn shook her head. "Yeah, actually - you kind of do."

Before Karella could say anything else, Quinn activated what she really hoped would work, and detatched them from their direct connection into the root system of this Balisor region. It took a lot more intricate power than she'd intended. But at least whatever they'd been expecting, it hadn't been this.

It only took maybe a second or two, before they were hovering above the ground.

Quinn watched as the tendrils tried to reach for them, attempting to reestablish the connection it had had. The roots flailed, grasping desperately at thin air as Quinn raised their hosts out of reach.

She wasn't prepared for the ear splitting screams that began to ring through the entire room and the clearing beyond - threatening her grip, not only on them, but on reality.