.:Mavrik:.

Shadows played and toyed through the forest, whispering as footsteps broke twigs around him. He pushed forward, Morningstar drawn, the whispers grew and the shadows stretched longer, closing in on him.

His eyes landed on a figure, swinging at it before it darted back. Spiked weapon meeting air, he pressed closer with a snarl. The creature was distorted in black haze, fangs glistening as it raised it's claws to counter his next swing.

It continued to retreat back a few steps, agitated shrill sounds emitting from it as it side stepped. He blocked it's path, forcing it to leap out of the path of his attack. Sheathing his Morningstar he kicked out its legs, watching it tumble and drawing his silver sword.

He knelt, pinning it with his knee as it writhed under him bringing it's claws up in a feeble attempt to keep the blade of his sword at bay from a finishing blow. He pushed his weight down against it, searching it's muddled face as it formed a single word.

"Please."

She looked up at me with those bright eyes, and I found myself unable to do anything. I couldn't bring myself to slay this monster, and I still don't know why.

The witch hunter's written words echoed in his mind as the hex that clutched his mind shattered to replace wide, bright golden, tear filled eyes. Silver sword pressed against a short sword, inches from her delicate throat. Heart beat thundering under his knee, hands trembling with the strain of trying to deflect the weight of his blow.

"Snap out of it, Mavrik.. please.."

Shame burned him as though she had hurled fire at him, snatching himself away from her.

"Delilah? I.." stiffening, thoughts whirling to catch up. He'd been hexed.

"What a shame. So close!" A cackle emitted from overhead.

Delilah was on her feet and by his side in an instant, flame in her hand and to his relief uninjured.

"It's not often my hexes are broken, how.. annoying" Green eyes burned through the leafy canopy.

Pink orbs hovered around them, flickering and closing in on the pair. Delilah stepped in front of him, sending a wave of fire forward from her palms that snuffed out the spell.

He caught the smell of carrion on the air, watching as two hags that were a mirror image of each other broke free from their leafy cover.

"One will be an illusion." He whispered to the woman in front of him, pivoting to be back to back with her as the hags encircled them. Wicked grins on the twin faces, noting that the one closest to him had started to draw symbols into her worn skin.

"That one!"

He charged her with his shield, pushing off from his back foot to try and cancel her incantation. His shield hit, succeeding in pushing her against a tree, but she smiled. His body locking up against his will, constraining his muscles painfully. Gasping as the pressure built, feeling like his plate was being pushed into his skin, mind spinning in confusion. How had she cast a spell, her illusion wouldn't have been able to do it? Unless..

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He could hear Delilah behind him, unable to turn his head but feeling the heat of the fire she conjured. The hag in front of him cackled, the sound different to the one they'd heard in the trees.

"Look at you, catching up." She offered a sly smile, flicking her finger against his breast plate. Sending him flying back across the clearing, crashing into the small form of Delilah, leaving both of them sprawled across the forest floor.

Delilah groaned as she untangled herself from him, looking up at the two hags and mirror image that had started to murmur rhythmically in a foreign tongue. Their eyes blazing to life with the same green light that had sent Mavrik to his knees in their past hag encounter.

Mavrik got to his feet, the first hag raised a hand, an invisible force stopping him in his tracks. Green light gathering to channel into the hands the real mirrored hag, oozing and dripping like acid, sizzling and turning the grass at her feet black.

He sensed Delilah alongside him, her hand settling on his pauldron with a hiss of pain in response to the hex snatching at her. Warmth crept across his should, fliting across his chest and snaking down his arm, loosening the hex as it went. The faint glow of raw energy encompassed him, settling just above his skin and shattering the hag's hold. Green orb of putrid acid on a collision course for them, he reacted, pulling Delilah behind him and raising his shield. Hearing it sizzle against the enchanted metal surface, withstanding its corrosive hunger.

"What?!"

Delilah gave him a side look, eyes flitting to a dead tree, roots clinging weakly to the ground. He smiled slightly, at least she wasn't burning down the forest for once.

"Fulgur"

She traced a single symbol with her finger, the symbol appearing over the surface of his silver sword with a crackle as it reverted against the metal. Exploding into bright white and blue sparks, taken a back for a moment at the static that licked the air. Clearly his companion had been studying her arcane books, adjusting his thoughts when she ducked away from him. Serving the distraction, alighting a ring of white, radiant flames around the three hags, hemming them in. She stepped through the flames, short sword cutting through the clone.

Mavrik lunged forward, electricity bouncing off of the surface of his armour, wrapping it's crooked fingers over the rare metal of his sword.

"Delilah!"

Using his momentum to swipe his sword through the dry bark as he shouted the warning, slashing through the stringy exposed roots with an almighty CRACK as though the lightning had shot from the heavens overhead. Exploding from his sword with a deafening boom. The tree creaked, recoiling and tipping from the force. Heaving and moaning as it plummeted to the ground, praying their plan had worked and not crushed the young woman.

He stepped around from where he stood behind the spanning up turned roots, heaving relief once he spotted Delilah though it was short lived. The clone and one of the hags was nowhere to be seen, aside a crumpled detached leg protruding from the splintered wood and dirt of the tree's wide trunk. The second hag and owner of the illusion was locked against Delilah's blade, white flames licking around their ankles.

"You killed her!?" The old, blemish ridden woman screamed. Not noticing Mavrik as he stepped around Delilah, plunging his sword into the hag's side while her defences were wide open.

She slumped slightly, hands falling away from the devil-kin's sword as Mavrik retracted. She stared at them, stumbling back, lime green blood glazing her lips before looking down at her wound. Seeming to take a moment to accept her fate, finally she smiled and fell to her knees, eyes on the tree that claimed her ally.

"Perhaps now, we can all be together again." she rasped, eyes becoming unfocused and slumping forward.

Delilah stepped past him, crouching down to the hag and placing her outstretched palm on the slain woman's eyes. White flames catching the blemished skin, snaking through the grass and chewing it's way over the fallen tree.

"Perhaps, you will" She murmured, watching her body simmer away.

Even now, with all the brutality, cruelty and hate that had scarred her heart, she never ceased to make him stop in a moment of awe. He tentatively hoped darkness would never succeed in tainting her light. Fearing he may very well be that darkness.