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To Free a Soul
Everything is still, everything is quiet, aside from the gentle ripple of the water and the crackle of the tiny fires. Lucas sits within a circle drawn into the frozen earth, blessed by the shedding of his own blood as he worked his fingertips bloody doing the carving all by hand, marking the ritual site with his vitality, freely given.
The elements are here in abundance - water from the nearby lake. The frozen ground he sets upon. The tiny fires lit at north, south, east and west marks of the circle.
The Lady Mandarin lies within the circle, stripped of all Earthly things, spread-eagled with her arms pointing northwest and northeast, and her feet pointing southwest and southeast exactly, for she is not right with the world, nor in balance. All of the others have been forbidden to come anywhere near the rite or where they might see it, whether to ogle or whatever other purpose, even her family, though Moira and Danielle have been permitted to stand watch some ways off, just in case. Beyond that, he would have no hostility here - but also no worry, no fear, no darker emotion which might touch the ritual. Those are for the people back in the school.

Anya has been painted in all-natural green dyes here and there, in markings vaguely representative of the Lady Mandarin persona and armor - but other marks as well. Dark marks of a mix of his blood and the stained earth color her eyes, that she might come to see the pure world, each earlobe that she might hear the mother earth and father sky whispering, her lips that she might speak the truth and without poison once more, her throat that the air she breathes might be pure and fill her with the essence of the father, over her heart that it might beat true and strong and pure, over her loins as the gift and curse of the earth mother's fertility where new life enters the world as the mother's greatest gift, over the right hand that it might do good works once more, the left hand that the right shall not be alone, to the sole of her right foot that it might know the mother's touch again and lead along the right path, and the sole of the left foot that it might follow. And a final crimson streak over her brow - when he has fought ten battles, there will be his final battlefield, if he can overcome this terrible dream that long.

Her head is cradled in his lap, both hands resting upon her brow as he goes into meditation, working his way into her troubled dreams, easing himself into the fabric of her mind.