Cas' Memories

"Do it! Do it!"

Still she hesitates.

Even with the witch's ice cold paw squeezing the blood out of her wrist and the knowledge that if she didn't do it, one of them would, she hesitates.

She was the only one who could live with it, who deserved to, who should have to. How many times had she told herself that? If there was one protection she should be able to provide with this husk of what was left of her, it was to take care of the dirty, the morally grey, the things an unworldly cleric and paladin couldn't fathom and didn't want to.

And yet even with a terrible person begging her to kill them, again she hesitates to strike down a helpless creature.

And again, starlight rains from the heavens.

She's ripped forcibly free as the drake shudders and collapses, her scales and flesh burning as the spellglow about Vela fades.

So much conviction to spare them this, and yet when it came down to it, it meant nothing at all.

The witch still clings to life, and when it's decided, she deals the killing strike. But she's spared them nothing. It's too late.

Something in her is melting, breaking. Something is rising to the surface, someone she thought was dead. A person who, back then, would have hesitated. They taint her actions now with sentiment. They make her second-guess herself. They tell her to hold back.

Her patron couldn't completely kill that person, it seemed. She would have to finish the job.

When she looks at the familiar felowl’s eyes, they're shiny black orbs, empty. In their mirrors she sees herself.