The King's Challenge #123

This is the longest single episode yet! This is Lyra's moment and it deserved more than 300 words!

TKC 123

I am shaking.

My mind hurtles from thought to thought.

Why am I here? Who gave me this duty? Why me? Did I ask for this? What do I do? How do I do it? I do not know what to do!

My hands tremble so much, my fingers bounce on the blinking lights before me, unable to rest on something long enough in order to discover some form of tangible purpose inherent.

The fireball grows ever brighter and larger.

It is in your mind. The thought sears to the fore. Sassen said success lies in my mind. Focus.

I straighten, close my eyes and allow my hands to fall back to my sides, consciously relaxing my fingers. Breathe. Think.

A Sage sees. I see where the giant rock will impact. Far to the north in the mountains. The debris field will cover the sun for years. Massin will die.

A Healer feels. I feel the agony of not only the sentients of Massin, but also the dread from every living thing. Even the trees are aware of life’s end.

A Rainmaker summons …

My eyes snap open. Summon.

An Elemental knows. She is all, everywhere. She sees, feels, summons and directs.

I follow my instincts, and move to the northern view. There I stand with my hands splayed over the lights and dials. Staring at the fireball, I empty my mind.

I see fire and death.

I feel the awesome wind in the wake of its unholy trajectory.

I summon the magnetic field surrounding our world, the one ever protecting us from bombardments emanating from outer space, and shove at it, elongating it, twisting it. I create an invisible catapult, swinging the cradle below and behind the hurtling rock. A steep curve of ions shimmers upon the shuddering field around our world.

Ready.

My hands smack down.

Sirens scream around me, but I deafen those senses. Light pulses in crazy patterns, but I focus on the view both in my mind and in the window. Blue lightning tears upward, racing from the ground, hurtling from the walls of the Spire, sizzling from the apex, to become an additional field of energy … of direction.

Sweat drips from my every pore.

The invisible cradle rushes up on the burning asteroid, scoops it from behind and tosses it onto the ion slide. This slide goes up into the darkness of vacuum, not down into the breath of a world, and I pray it is strong enough and steep enough.

I ‘see’ the rock hit the mighty chute of reverse manipulation … and then darkness enfolds me. I have given everything.