It would be the end for one of them tonight.

The cackling buzzards of impending doom were, indeed, circling about in their sloping formations overhead, bellowing the prophecy of death for at least one of the individuals engaged in this battle of wills and weaponry. The curtain would fall in billowing finality upon the stage of someone's elaborate production, drawing to an end every experience, every dream, and every aspiration that had ever served to define them. So near was the end that, surely, with the rising of the new morning's sun one of the creatures present would be naught more than a vivid memory. Naught more than dust to accent the morn's cool zephyr.

At no point in the vast collection of moments in the aftermath of Risque's arrival had Isolt considered that the toll of death's ominious bell would ring for any other than herself. Never had she dreamt, either in captivity or beyond, that she might possess the wherewithal to subject her Maker to the finality of the true death. So crippling was the psychological damage wrought by the raven-haired succubus that for Isolt to believe herself somehow capable of such an act of vampiric treason was beyond the scope of her rational thought. And, she knew, her creator would never allow Tetradore to perish by her hand or any other. So intense was Risque's requirement for his submission, so deep the ties that bound them to one another, that the young woman hardly believed her elder capable of truly allowing him the freedom that death would provide. That left only Isolt, the newest of the trio and, admittedly, the most dispensable. She had given her life for Tetradore once, and she would have forfeited not even the barest moment of hesitation to give it again... this time in an act of free will.

However, it seemed that her companion sought only to protect her from their shared mistress, the vehemence of his attack upon their adversary a thing of beautiful, cold fury. It is with this, this act of protection, that the notion of her own impending transgression beyond the threshold of immortality fades, giving way to a notion of a far grander scale. Isolt knew, inherently, that if her Maker's reign of oppression and terror did not meet its end this eve, that she and Tetradore would forever be the hunted, the sought, and the enslaved. Peace of mind and body would never truly be theirs should this woman, this hellion, be permitted trespass into every facet of their lives. This thought serves to bolster the redheaded vampire, the young woman sliding clumsily through the slippery basin of her own blood and towards the wreckage of what had once been her bar, giving not a passing care to the coil of silver still clasped about her arm. There was not time to liberate herself from the bindings of her mistress' contraption; Isolt knows full-well that it would be but a matter of moments before Risque would tighten the fingers of her affinity around Tetradore and all but crush the power he currently exercised over his own body.

Upon swift wings does that moment come, the evidence of it apparent even to Isolt though the youthful vampire forbids herself from dwelling upon it for any considerable length of time. If Tetradore was to fail then she must rise to the challenge. She must rise and end this for both of them and for the lives they sought so desparately to lead beyond the shade of their mistress' lingering shadow. And so she lunges towards her creator, their eyes meeting in the moment that Isolt stays all movement. Confidence and ire dissolve, evaporating from within the perilous depths of the ancient woman's eyes, to be replaced by a thing so peculiar that for a moment the auburn-haired girl struggles to accurately place it. Confusion lies there in the swimming blue depths, confusion and... fear. It is there as her eyes travel from her progeny to the panther at her side and then to the stake clasped within Isolt's hands. It is there in the manner in which Risque's hands rise to feel at the carnage of her neck, Tetradore's damage coupled with the stake that rests its point within the chambers of her stilled heart proving too great, too crippling for even the healing salve of immortality.

All at once does Risque crumble, collapsing to the wooden floor below in the moment that Isolt does the same, descending to her knees as her own hands clasp at her chest. Pain and pressure coalesce there, the treacherous violet of a bruise-like blossom budding against the pallor of the skin over her own heart. Never had she wondered nor considered the consequences of helping to bring her own Maker into the clenching forceps of the true death, though even this pales in comparison to what comes in the stead of this realization.

Relief.

Slowly does Isolt reach out to lay a single hand delicately against the pelt of her companion, the gesture a desire for assurance but for whom she cannot rightly know. Gently does she touch him, the slightest traces of an exhausted smile flickering against her features as her eyes glide to him in a moment of pregnant silence.