Freezing cold fingers

A faint humming echoed almost inaudibly in the silent ballroon, and Farrago lay curled up underneath a table, hands and fingers waving fluidly through the air. Merlin lay nose down on the floor a foot or so away from Farrago's shivering feet, his left ear stained with wine. The girl's voice shook as she continued to hum, fingers tracing invisible patterns in the air, and her blue eyes flashed bright with fear. So many people, she thought at Merlin, so, so, so, so manyyyy... and not a friend in sight...

Farrago sat up slowly, her eyes swiftly scanning the table cloth that concealed her from the crowd of stunned dancers. Above her, Miraye was screaming, ranting, raving, decapitating; but Farrago was oblivious to that. Her shaking white fingers reached tremblingly for her bear, and she managed to grab him by the ear and pull him close to her. She hugged him to her chest, lips pressed gently against the bear's fur as they formed a gentle moan of fear. The noises of the people died away and she began humming again, the colors of the table cloth shifting. With her one free hand, Farrago poked herself in the left eye, trailing her slender fingers down her cheek. Their icy coldness left blotchy red trails in her pale skin as one of her fingers slipped over her lips. Shouting, tears and terror continued above Farrago's head, but, as always, she sat unknowingly, lost deep within a constant waking nightmare.

Until three gun shots shattered the quiet, the calm.

Oh, the gun shots themselves remained unnoticed, of course; Farrago was just as uncaring for loud bangs as she was for loud voices. It was the screams that followed that tore Farrago out of her stupor and back into reality.

The first scream--and the first two shots--belonged to Miraye, but this, almost surprisingly, also remained unnotice in Farrago's mind... it was the second exclaimation of pain that caught Farrago's attention.

That terror-stricken voice belonged to Matthias.

Farrago would have recognized it anywhere... Matthias, her one true friend, her dungeon messiah, the only person she ever cared for. The madman with the gun had shot Matthias.

A completely inhuman and animal scream escaped Farrago's red lips and she unfolded her wings, breaking the wooden table into shards of wine-stained wood. Glasses of alcoholic drink and a rather heavy bowl of fruit scattered; the bowl clipped Farrago's left wing and a glass hit her in the shoulder, splattering her and Merlin with red liquid. And indeed, as Farrago leapt off the ground and into the air, wings unfolding completely, it seemed as though the entire ballroom was dripping, covered with red liquid; blood. The very air appeared to be bleeding. Farrago screamed again, and people scattered in terror as her pale form flew over them. With a well-aimed kick, she tore the gun from Larkin's shocked fingers, but didn't stop to notice his response. Her only goal was to get to Matthias before anybody else did, to save him, to take him from this terrible place.

She swooped across the room and dropped out of the air, landing spread-eagled on the floor next to Matthias' bloody figure.

Everything went silent again in Farrago's head, and the humming began again, but this time, Farrago did not dance. Instead, she began to cry, icy-cold tears splattering the floor around her. She dragged herself over a foot or so of cold stone floor until she was close enough to Matthias to reach out and touch him. She grabbed his limp wrist, feeling for a pulse; it was there. Still alive, but not for long, if she didn't do something about it soon...

She turned suddenly as a guard approached her, and stood up, hitting him full on with her right wing as she turned. He staggered back and Farrago took the time to kick him hard in both shins and then in the stomach, pushing him into a table and spilling even more red liquid.

She turned back again, crouching over Matthias, and picked him up in some kind of fit of superhuman strength. She rose above the ground and paused to hover near the ceiling, looking around for an exit. The doors were blocked by all kinds of guards and guests trying to get out of the ballroom before the dark figure above them swooped down on them, or before the pink-haired girl used her scary mind-powers, or before something totally new happened. Farrago turned toward the large window that Miraye was standing in before, and her eyes lit up as she swallowed, making up her mind.

She glanced down one last time at the man--no, this wasn't even a man, it was a BEAST--who had shot Matthias, who so obviously despised her with all his being, and was almost surprised to find him lying limp on the floor, surrounded by people. It seemed he had been seriously wounded, and Farrago laughed at that; it served him right, really.

"I hope you die, beast!" she screamed, eyes shut tight, and she flew at full speed toward the window.

At last, Farrago and Matthias were free again, accompanied into the outdoors by a million shards of colored glass. Farrago turned away from the castle and towards safety, but not before glimpsing something startling: the haunting violet eyes of one small boy. 'Those eyes are something big,' Merlin said, and Farrago nodded. 'Those eyes...'

Farrago screamed her inhuman shriek one last time, and then called out again. "I swear on all I hold dear that you will one day fall, beast! You will be your own demise!"

The voice of the presumed dark angel echoed heavily over the ball attendees, all eyes on the shattered window.