Who: Cimorene and Scout When: POSTDATED The tail end of the snake battle Where: Hyperion Hotel, top floor What: Another casualty Rating: PG-13 Status: Incomplete
After getting Willow downstairs and in the care of her friends, Cimorene did as she’d told Angel she would do. She went back upstairs. She spent the next hours checking every apartment, leading down those she found, putting them in the care of the group gathered there before going back for more. There were so many wounded, so many ill-equipped to help, that she wondered if they could win the war being waged against them. She had barely been in this new land for twenty-four hours, and yet, Cimorene felt right at home. Probably because she knew that partially because of her absence in the Enchanted Forest, another bloody war was being waged. Staying busy, helping others...that was the only way she could survive the guilt of her transportation to this strange world.
After clearing the upper floors, Cimorene went back downstairs and held a heated argument with a couple of people who assumed that, because she was a woman, she should go with the rest and not stay and fight. Point blank refusing, Cimorene made her way back up the stairs and started clearing floors. This time, of snakes.
An hour later, exhausted and weak, Cimorene hit the top floor, intent on killing the last of the bunch and then going to the shelter with the rest, hopefully to sleep, though she wasn’t counting on it. Kicking open the last door on the floor, Cimorene looked in and sighed. She’d found the mother load. Or so she thought. Her attention caught up in roasting and slicing the snakes in front of her, Cimorene didn’t see the group making its way toward her.
Within minutes, she was back into a corner in the hallway, her ankles bleeding from bites, trying to keep the snakes from injuring her worse than she already was. Her fire spell wasn’t working anymore, and Cimorene’s ankles couldn’t hold her. Sinking to her butt, she pulled her legs underneath the skirts of her gown and hacked at the snakes in front of her as they advanced again and again, each blow doing less damage than the last as her strength faded from her. They were trying to get at her through her skirt now, and Cimorene cried out as she was bitten again, using her hands to try and push the snakes away, as her broadsword was doing her little good at such close range.