A long time ago there lived a little cabin next to a stream. In this cabin there were two brothers, a spider, and a snake.

One day, the stream dried up. So they went to the spider who caught all sorts of information on his big web.

"There is a dam being built up stream. Break it and you will have water again."

The brother went up stream and did that. Then they had water again and they were happy.

But when they got home, the snake was angry at the brothers. "You killed the beaver that was building the dam! What gave you such a bad idea?"

They said the spider did, and asked the snake what he would've done.

"I wouldn't have asked the spider." The snake said.

That was the end of the story. There was nothing more to it, just a simple little fable.

There were always more fables with the brothers.

And the wheel kept on spinning and slowly the brothers bled out on to the world.

---

Sometimes in the middle of a fight I get this feeling that something is watching. A throbbing sensation, like a sense that everything is just a few shades away from going horribly horribly wrong. It is to this sensation that I normally get paranoid, or feel like everything is going horrible horribly wrong and take appropriate countermeasures.

Really, it is a miracle of the opposite degree that I did not immediately possess anyway to destroy the opposing faction before it could destroy me. It was such a miracle of the darkest nature in as much as it were when my spells were deflected by his shielding, and Boss's surge of movement did little more to the shield than a fist does to the average built up brick wall.

Canary's answering volley of fire to my own was just as ineffective, causing his advanced shield to just ripple a hair. And Catastrophe? Catastrophe couldn't do shit with the shield up. Go figure. She was flying about, however, looking for just the right moment for the shield to falter. She looked rather well and good right there, like a flying angel in the sky looking out for me. I almost smiled, despite the situation.

Again, there was this feeling of all encompassing doom and destruction on the horizon, and I hardly knew what was about to happen.

"Don't blink."

The shield fell down.

Bang.

Catastrophe fell down, and I could hardly know what happened from the blood that suddenly starting to pool out from beneath her crumpled form.

Suddenly, all I could hear was my heart beat in my body thumping away like some sort of hammer hitting an anvil, slowly cracking away at the integrity of the piece of forge equipment, like a machine gun then, shooting bullets as it rapidly overheated from the repeated actions of the violent struggle.

For a scant few seconds, there were no noises beyond the slow slow beating of the heart thumping along like a train, oxygen pumping and my brain feeling like something was wrong why was my body so very very sluggish all of a sudden.
I moved a hoof and it was so very very slow and I looked up and everything was slow.

Like the lightest shades of right I immediately decided that something very very wrong had happened. I was almost giddy, for the first few seconds while I decided that something was horribly wrong. Very very wrong indeed and why were there tears suddenly bursting from my eyes? She was going to be alright, wasn't she?

She had to be alright.

Gun shot. There was a gunshot. I heard this now, recognized what the noise was that echoed off from afar.

In a moment, sped on by whatever was happening and how slow everything was, I was beside Catastrophe, soundless horror echoing out in my head like the superfluous words of a dying man in a language I could never hope to understand.

I picked her up as best I could, the sounds of battle dying down. I didn't care anymore, and for the record...

I found my weak spot, after all.

Something broke inside of me and the rest blurred into a haze of half memories. Boss bounded up besides me with a look of horror on her face.

Gun shot. Someone had a gun.

Guardian. There was never a second shot.

Canary was soon after me, the words to a healing spell on his face, fruit crumbling to ashes from the exchange of life.

Thump thump...

I could hear my heart beat.

Thump thump.

I could hear her heart beating beside mine and I felt like the world was falling silent beside me. Like the only one who truly mattered was dying beside me, without warning besides the feeling that it was all going so horribly horribly wrong. I felt myself break, I felt the world falling silent beside me.

The rest was a blur of half memories.

And the world fell silent.

Thump thump

"Don't blink."