The Red Moon Always Shines

Chapter 55: Any less

No one wanted to waste any time in doing what they had gathered the Horsemen for, which is why everyone was gathered in front of the cabin with said people in a circle with a summoning circle drawn on the ground.

"All of you stand back!" Lady War ordered, lime green eyes narrowed at the group of people standing to close for comfort, "I will not have you mortals dying on my watch, especially not if it's not a battle full of glory."

Death cleared their throat, rather aggressively, wordlessly telling War to close her mouth and be quiet, "What my dear sister is trying to say, is that you all should stay back so as to not get hurt. The summoning will release a lot of powerful and ancient magic, it may be too much for mortal people like you all to handle, and we don't want anyone to get hurt." They ended it with what everyone assumed was a glare at War, honestly Death could be glaring any of them into the afterlife and no one would know, not their fault Death had the "your calm by just standing by me for no real reason" aura around him.

Lady War just rolled her eyes with a dismissive, "what he said" accompanied by a nonchalant wave of the hand. Pestilence and Famine were giggling to themselves, Pestilence near cackling.

Death huffs but doesn't comment on it, moving to instead start the summing, their siblings doing much the same after them. The previously gray circle (with a lot of symbols drawn within) started changing, bleeding new color from where each Horseman stood. Red for War, green for Pestilence, white for Famine, and black for Death. When the four colors met in the middle a yellow spot formed, which then grew and expanded out until all, now five, colors had equal mass.

Whilst they Horsemen did this everyone else was backing up, Death might have been more than correct when they said it might be too much for a mortal to handle. Cleo was feeling the most of this, due to her undead life being created by necromancy, magic, she was naturally more sensitive to it. Not physically, but she could feel it better than normal people. So with waves of such powerful magic being cast so close to her it was all so suffocating, a lot like being buried in sand and feeling it press down against your body and trapping you in it. But it was, you know, way worse and just horrible in every way. She tried to stagger away, but she just ended up falling down. Every attempt to move was stopped by another wave of magic washing over her.

Cleo thought she'd be stuck like this until the summoning was over, but a pair of rough hands grabbed her arms and dragged her away before that could happen. They were now by the porch of the cabin, far away for her to make the magic feel just like someone pressing down not too hard, "Thanks you! I don't think I could have gotten out of that by myself." When all that answered her was the sound of someone walking away she turned around, looking to see who it was, and was surprised to see Alastor staggering away. And feeling her eye on him the blond turned around, magenta eyes half glaring at her. She blinked up at him in surprise, this wasn't who she'd imagined her savior to be, "I'm still thankful you got me out of there, bad actions or not." He looked shocked at her words, and dipped his head in thanks, before walking over to the heavily pillowed chair he'd taken up when they'd all gone outside.

A short while later Joe came jogging up to her, Stress and False on his heels. She reassured the three that she was fine, just a bit tired from the constant pressure she'd felt, but feeling fine. Joe still insisted he give her a check, which she allowed, if only to put them at ease.

"I should have realized you'd be affected by the magic," False muttered, head leaned up against Cleo's shoulder, "I should have been there."

"Then so should everyone else have too." Cloe told her, frowning at the blond, "You're as much to blame as Grian, which is to say not at all. And I will not hear any more of your self-blame, or by god I'll replace you with an armor stand." False snorted, but did as informed.