As Emilia anticipated, tending to the deep fissures in the Room of Seals depletes a great deal of her strength. Her magic wavers; where her body had sung with power, she now feels its limit like a wall erected. It isn't just the curse holding her back this time, either. Hell is greedy, and consumes what it can.

Wei Wuxian will take the next shift. Wrath after him. She closes her eyes for minutes, or so it feels, and opens them to renewed screams. To the fortress shuddering its last breath.

She snaps into action, intent on making her way back to the Room, to Wrath. She seeks familiar faces on her way, slashes her dagger into what she must. If blood splatters on her face, she barely notices.

A catapult strike lurches her sideways, and what happens after is instinct: a ring of protective light flares up in a twenty-foot-radius around her. The dome shape of it bears the brunt of rubble from the collapse above. Hands extended, she looks to the people inside the translucent dome with her.

"Where were you headed?"

The fire water is familiar to her. Emilia stares, entranced and unharmed, as some of it splashes onto her foot. I was not born, she thinks, a memory rattled. I was made.

She was never a star witch, but the stars were hers, once.

The fire water recognizes her, in turn. So does the mermaid that starts to reach out, and stops. Tilts her head with that recognition, before she grudgingly submerges back into the lava. There's no time to be disconcerted, to question herself and a life that she'd thought real.

Indecision is death, and she charges forward with her companions.

A wall of flames up ahead slows her steps, her exhale scorching. The shape of it has yet to take full form, and she strains her eyes to make sense of it. Does anyone else see the depiction, too?

NOTE: I love prose and brackets equally, so follow your heart and I'll match your preference. Feel free to wildcard or reach me at moonstones if there's something else you'd like to do with Emilia.