"Step aside." Her voice pierced a wall of male flesh. Bristling tempers swirled around her. Craft ruptured against shields. Or ruptured the shields themselves. It made the air smell strange, and caused Eunji to speak with a tongue that tingled. The words stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her lips thrummed. Yet she stood calm beneath the wild glares that darted across her body and searched her face.
Serenity, she spoke softly with her body. Serenity, she embodied. Standing still, perhaps even tall, hands folded at her waist as if she was awaiting the serving of tea. Or at the door of a friends quarters. This was just another sort of audience. The blood did not matter, nor the angry Green power lashing the room. For the people dead and dying, Eunji did not cry. Lifting her gaze, Eunji shed demure for demanding.
"Step. Aside." It was agony. Not her words, though Eunji did not care for repeating herself. It caused her no pain to ask them to do something so against their nature. But she recognized the emotion that filled the eyes that met her own. The painful stiffening of shoulders as they edged away. The wall of flesh broke, but the shields remained. Eunji imaged their souls cried out.
But they did as she bid them, and she was pleased. "Thank you." Sometimes it was best to let them think they'd had a choice in the matter. It helped them to forget that they could just as easily over power her with their Jewels as they were trying to do with the comet that had fallen through the roof.
Eunji would bend low and praise and thank Mother Night for allowing her to be the first on this scene. The men mattered less, not at all that they were truly the firsts. She was the only queen in the room, which meant all of this chaos belonged to her. To be spun as she chose.
Her slippers squelched uncomfortably in the blood pooling on the floor. Eunji did not look at the bodies. She kept herself pointed carefully forward. One steady step at a time, allowing them to shift and settle around her. Temper crawling up her skin and along her psyche. Eunji refused to acknowledge a lack of skill in settling it. She would lead by example. Example would be enough.
"Peace." She spoke to them, flinching at the wash of Green that cried out along her barriers. A half dozen shields rushing forward to protect her from its momentum. Eunji spread her palms outward, arms stretching into the air alongside her hips. "Peace." Was it worth the risk? She examined the Eyrien, for Eyrien he was. Big and be-winged.
One side of him sagged strangely. Wounded, Eunji assumed, looking up at the broken rafters. Wounded, surely. Unkempt, even without the gore coating him. "Warlord," she spoke to him, barried parting just enough. Probes cautious as she reached out to him. Let her caste be the anchor point, even if their people were enemies. Stray dogs could be turned to guardians with the right handling.
Eunji was sure she could turn this disaster to her advantage.
Mourning the ruin of a good dress, she lowered herself to his level. Resting her weight deeply into her feet so that she did not sway. Knees drawn toward her chest, she leaned forward, holding out placating hands. Behind her, the waves of her skirts soaked up the blood on the floor. The hem in the front doing the same, falling straight down her knees and into the gore.
"Peace, lord. Attend me." He was Blood, for all he was of one of the bestial, lesser races. "I am the lady Eunji. Let me be your friend. My men will not harm you, if you but stop lashing out at them." She knew they look askance at her. Felt their eyes all down her back and up her sides. *We must contain him without murdering him. He has answers I want. Control yourselves.* She cautioned those closest to her. Knowing they would die to bend the others to her will.
"Will you attend?" She asked the Eyrien, feeling the power of other queens creeping into the room. The warm, calming swath of their power. Eunji wished she could shut them out, but she would let them settle the tempers for her, all without releasing her prize from her clutches. She had been here first. He was hers now. She might even be able to use him to rebuild the throne he'd so kindly broken for her.
She could feel the world changing, just as it had when Witch had died. Eunji was not one to turn away from opportunity.