The Line That Cannot Be Crossed
"What the hell have you done, Videl?! How dare someone like you attack a noble!"
A cry ripped into the open yard - sudden, ragged, laced with hurt and something harder to name. It hung there, raw, refusing to fade.
A step back came hard for the noble hit by lightning, his hand pressed firm to his chest. Smoke rose in wisps while his fingers shook, skin marked red and slightly burned. Not only pain filled his gaze - something beneath that too - and breaths cut short showed it. Wide eyes stayed locked, unblinking, caught between shock and a quieter fear.
Fear.
But he buried it quickly beneath anger.
Or at least—
He tried to.
Videl didn't move.
Didn't react.
Her eyes met his without a word. Quietly, she held his gaze steady.
Then -
Shoulders lifted, just a little, like it didn't matter at all.
"I did nothing," she said calmly.
Soft came her voice, not raised at all.
But it carried.
Clean.
Unshaken.
That—
