Once, back at the Tamathian University, a young mage very interested in sight had informed Quirk that he had created a set of lenses that perceived the thaumatic world. They could, he had told her, see the invisible strands of power that the gods had used to stitch together reality. He wanted her to try them on and tell him what she saw. Later she realized that the mage had been making a clumsy pass at her, but she hadn’t realized it at the time, and had simply been interested in the science.
She had sat in a wooden chair while the young mage perched a vast contraption upon her head. He had adjusted levers and fitted small round pieces of colored glass into slots in front of her eyes.
“Do you see it now?” he kept asking. “What does it look like now?”
“A bit purple,” she had told him. Then, “Just like your office except mauve,” another time.
He had grown increasingly frustrated, had appeared to be on the verge of saying it was all her fault, his nascent romantic intentions be damned, when all of a sudden, everything had aligned. He dropped a piece of what looked like perfectly clear glass before her right eye, and the world changed.
She had seen not just things, but the relationship between things. She had seen how one piece fit with another, and with the space between them. She had glimpsed, for just a second, the whole interconnected design of the world.
Then the machine had overheated, detonated, and set her hair on fire.
Quirk had very much the same experience as Dathrax swept down on the tax boat.
She had stood paralyzed by the glory of the beast. By the memories of fire. She had seen him in his entirety. She had not seen each interlocking piece of the puzzle. Not the muscle or the sinew or the blood vessel. Not the flight pattern, nor the physiognomy of his wings. Rather, she had seen it all. The whole perfect beast.
She had seen how its presence connected with the other thoughts chattering and skittering in the background of her mind. How the arc of its claws intersected with her fear for the citizens of Athril. How the arch of its neck encompassed her concerns for her own culpability in their collective demise.
And as Dathrax swept down upon them, she had realized that all the conflicting, nonsensical, potentially insane thoughts swirling in her head actually added up to one bright, clear, shining image.
She was afraid. She was piss-her-britches terrified.
She didn’t know what she was doing. Not out in the field, away from her university. Not in this boat, taking part in what could optimistically be described as a crime. Not in this fight. She had no answers.
And she was very clearly about to die.
And when the world was reduced down to that moment, to that single truth, everything became very simple.
That fucker had to burn.