For a brief moment even though Lucrum was holding her and she was looking at Sidus, she heard the reaper whisper once more, "There's no use fighting, they can't save you. All you'll do is drag them with you into my clutches, pure one."
Lucrum felt her tense, practically felt the sharp agony that tore its way through the connection he'd forged from Fantastoria to Terra where her body lay. The monster at the core of the corruption holding her hostage wanted her dead, wanted the entirety of Terra to fall. He forced himself to remain calm and moved to let his lips brush her ear, using the physical contact to help ground her.
"Listen to me. Feel my breathing and breathe with me," he said quietly, "We are here for you, Ashterra. We will be fine and so will you."
She showed a slight awareness for the first time since he'd grabbed hold of her power the second she'd flung it out in summons of him, "My magic's been corrupted. I won't let either of you fall trying to save me."
Sidus kept his fingers on her cheek gentle as he spoke, "Ashterra. Corruption cannot kill us like it can you. I need you to come with me. I need to save you."
He watched as tears shimmered in her pink eyes, her voice so quiet he almost didn't hear her, "Stella wouldn't be broken like me."
He shook his head and caught hold of her, gently taking her from Lucrum as he walked towards the pond. Its waters would help him force the corruption away from her, "I do not know who has made you feel that way, dear Ashterra, but they remember Stella as being much stronger than she truly was," he softly reminded her.
Lucrum followed him, a bit of golden magic keeping the young god out of the dangerously cold waters. Sidus could practically see the corruption trying to strangle his precious child, watched as her beautiful eyes struggled to stay open as soon as the water's cleansing ability started to fight against the monster that held her hostage. Holding her so that little more than her head was above the water, he glanced to Lucrum, prepared to beg for help if he had to.
The young god merely sat himself down on the golden power that separated him from the water of the pond and slid a couple of fingers gently against Ashterra's neck as if to gauge her pulse, seeming not even to register the cold of the pond as its waters closed around his fingers, "If you can separate the corruption from where it's digging into her psyche," Lucrum said quietly, "I will sever the connections as soon as its grip is weakened enough to not damage her."
"Can you do that while searching for the seed that started this?" He turned his gaze back to Ashterra even as he began forcing the corruption to release her, "No amount of cutting will save her unless we find the core of it so I can cleanse it and," he forced himself to take a deep breath, frustration and anguish coloring his words as he spoke again, "There's just so much here. I cannot find the core of it for all the corruption strangling her."
Lucrum smirked slightly, "Child's play," he promised as his golden magic touched the corruption to begin tracing it back to its core while simultaneously severing anything that had released her enough to leave her unharmed.
Despite his declaration of how simple it would be, dawn was breaking by the time he finally wrapped the core of the corruption in his golden magic to bring it to Sidus' attention. Sidus cleansed it carefully before checking her over for even the smallest shred of corrupted magic left within her. After a bit more work he was relieved to find none left and spent a few minutes just letting that feeling crash over him.
It was followed by so many other powerful emotions that he kept himself completely frozen to make sure he wouldn't act in an unbecoming way. As if noticing his stillness, Lucrum spoke up, "I think you might, perhaps, be treating your followers as if they are far too fragile considering it would appear they think her nothing like you."
He nodded slightly, barely keeping his rage in check at some of the things he'd heard echoing through the corruption that he'd cleansed from Ashterra. That anyone would dare to think for a moment that she wasn't a Starborn, that she wasn't connected to him, infuriated him. He would have words for the next several oracles that called him from Terra.
He enjoyed being seen as calm and level-headed but had lost track of when the temple stopped mentioning his temper, his power, the destruction he was capable of. Time had turned against him, had made his followers see only half of what he was and that had wounded his dear child deeply.
He looked fully to Lucrum, to the young god whose fingers were showing signs of turning blue from the cold of the water he'd been exposed to while helping cleanse Ashterra's magic, "Thank you, Lucrum. Again, I owe you more gratitude than words can express."
Lucrum smirked again, though the arrogant expression didn't touch his eyes, "You are lucky," he all but purred as his gaze moved fondly to Ashterra's face, peaceful in sleep without the corruption to harm her and whisper falsehoods woven of her own emotions, "That she makes me a fool and that the beat of her heart is tied to my own," with those words, he disappeared, likely off to get some rest while he was able to.
She woke in her unicorn form, curled tightly against a familiar warmth that she'd missed, that of Sidus' own unicorn form. She did find herself slightly concerned when he blocked her from raising her head by resting his chin on her neck. A moment's introspection, though, brought with it a pervasive feeling of exhaustion that twined its way through every fiber of her being. She remembered what had happened but felt as if she was viewing her own memories through a light haze.
He changed form, still large enough that she could curl nicely against him but not quite as warm. His hand ran gently against her mane as he spoke, "Ashterra, I am so very grateful that you are safe."
Her voice trembled slightly even with her magic to modulate it, "I'm sorry," she said quietly, a few tears sliding from her eyes as she rubbed her head against his hand, "For not noticing sooner, for thinking you'd have rather had Stella still alive over me. I know," emotion choked her words, "I know you'd rather have the whole herd alive."
His voice held a note of worry to it when he spoke, "Perhaps you will think less of me for saying this, but if I could only save one it would always be you," his magic changed her to her elven form and he pulled her into his lap to cradle her as he had when she'd been very small, "Because, while they were wrong about so many things, those that thought you unlike the other Starborn were right in that single regard," he gave a light sigh as she quivered a bit and curled his arms around her to make sure she wouldn't try to run off, "I should have taken the time to talk to you about it sooner, rather than just giving you a title through Prudentia's systems and leaving it until I had felt you had settled in here."
Her voice quivering with fear, she asked, "Then am I truly a fake?"
His embrace was gentle as he shook his head, "No. Far from it. Where most Starborn are formed of my divinity but retain very little after that, you took the divinity that made you and harnessed it as your own. You are truly the closest thing I can have to a child, Ashterra. Some day, you may even walk alongside the pantheon yourself. Until that moment, probably even after it, you are a Starborn, a marvelous creature that expertly wields every single magic I gifted your kind."