we both matter, don't we?

"Nonsense, Lady Aristea." Celimene said loudly over the wind, waving off Aristea’s offer to stay back. Instead, the mermaid squinted towards the massive dust storm that whirled nearby. Presumably the monster, if the flashes of her magical sight on the trip here were anything to go by. Some part of her sighed, wishing to go back to the journey out instead of standing here, staring at the latest death trap that had arrived. Still...

"I am sticking to you like a barnacle on a stone." A bright smile crossed over her darkly hued features even as she watched the advancing cone of wind, picking out the shapes of canid skulls and flashing teeth pushing out of the white swirl of bone shards and sand. For a moment’s pause, she took in the vicinity - smothered and buried in dust or ripping apart nearby trees, houses, and other outbuildings. The influx of monsters of late had been taxing on the soothsayer, and though it and other potential dangers had plagued even the voyage to this locale, she had at least been able to distract herself with enjoying Aristea's company. They had been at least familiar beforehand, but now - it seemed they had grown closer over the few days' jaunt. Well, she thought as she surveyed the path closer to the monster, The sooner we complete this errand, the sooner we can take the fun return journey.

On that thought, her eyes suddenly went white, glowing brightly from behind a wash of her free-flying black hair. Abruptly thrust into a vision, Celimene found herself floating there, just on the outskirts of the spiraling wash of wind and bone. It was unusual for a vision to begin so far from herself, but it sometimes happened when distant objects posed a close-up danger. She watched as a tree's branches were torn asunder before the whole thing was ripped out of the earth by the bone-filled storm. One of the limbs, its leaves shredded off, flew off in a westward direction, stray from the white, shredding shards and fragments revolving around the tree's remains - the branch flies, spinning, towards a stretch of stones away in the massive marsh, and a pair of monochromatic forms...

"Pardon me, Lady Aristea,” Celimene says gently while quickly reaching over the other woman’s shoulders. About mid-way through the apology, Celimene pulled Aristea’s head down into a duck, allowing the pair to dodge the remnants of a widow-making tree limb. The twisted, crackling bit of wood rocketed just over their hunched forms, then shattered as it crashed into the grey boulders behind them. Even this far out the debris is an issue… Thought the mermaid, her eyes returning to normal as the immediate danger passed. It will be even worse the closer we get...

Humming thoughtfully, Celimene quickly gathered her long, dark hair out of the wind, tied it up with itself, and offered Aristea her hand with a cheeky grin. “Watch your step. I would hate to have you slip and be blown away.”