Яikyn There is wind: sheer and sharp in note, it is cold, biting, it rends across the earth and sends the portions of this ethereal hell pit which are not frozen fast skittering in arcs and circles away from its invisible touch. The crunches of ice beneath my hooves as I walk across the seemingly always sunlit flats are occasional; small pockets of icy water are my reward for finding the few patches that aren’t frozen down to the sand, and they send goose bumps up my legs and into my chest and belly that are unpleasant – and somehow looked forward to, in a morbid fascination sort of way, like when a sore has appeared on your tongue or inner lip, so you keep running it against your teeth, over and over, to feel the sting of life reminding you of its presence. It does not help that this place makes me think dark things, a downward spiral through a small collection of what feels like an ocean of problems and failures, by myself, by those around me, by the world itself. Still, I entered this strange place in memory of the Crocodile, in thought of my conquest against the beast with my brother, Erebos, strong alongside me, my sister in flames, a phoenix showering hell sparks from above. I came here in a good mood, thinking of good things. But the rainbow light against the living portions of this strange, stolen expanse inspires heaviness in my step, a not so subtle violence laced within each press of my golden hooves into the soft white sand, onto the treacherous, chilly glass of the ice that randomly ripples across the surface, invisible with the strange reflections cast by the high Sun. I’m kicking ice, sand, and salt water about most unceremoniously, caring not for the fact that my lower legs are soaked and aching with cold, that I should maybe pick up the pace to something more than an irritated, savage trudge, but the afternoon’s light in full does not touch the chill that reaches through my coat, ushered by the wind, or the chill which resonates from the inward, out… and damn it, I’ll trudge if I please! My legs can just get over being cold. A friend and their horrid companion will not find me this time – I know enough of life to not expect the same thing twice within such a short span (and most definitely not in the same place) – and though I don’t expect to be interrupted, distracted with memories of being very small, and other things, not so pleasant… It is the way that Helovia works. Someone always finds you on days like these, days when you’d rather rip someone’s breath from their lungs by force than use any of your own air on words. Days when you wish to walk alone, the cold wind at your back, to think about the big things, like whether or not I’ll be able to do what it takes to make it to the Starplane, about whether or not I can save Aithniel, about my father, and if he is proud. About my mother, and whether she ever really loved me, and if not me, anything, if she could leave so easily. @Nymeria [ 0/3 ~ Set in the Halycon Flats at noon, with a clear overhead sky, but there are sweeping, chilly winds. It's cold enough that patches of the flats have frozen, while other patches are not frozen; even when not fighting, its difficult to discern what is slick from what is not! Rikyn is slowly meandering across the Flats, pretty much just kicking rocks. Thank you for the spar! :D ] in every heart a hole |
[JUDGED] killing in the name of [ Nymeria vs. Rikyn spar ]
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03-24-2016, 10:59 AM
And I've grown familiar
With villains that live in my head
She lived for the sea.
(She wished she matched it—that instead of being black she might be blue, that instead of being equine she might have a horn twining from her brow, that instead of being skull-faced and incongruous she'd belong to somewhere, anywhere.)
Nobody connected the sea to her. Nobody looked at her and thought, ah, her magic is all about the water around us and the blood in my veins. She wondered what they did think—if they thought she'd be full of poisonous magic, destructive magic, ruinous magic. If they did, she wouldn't blame them, but it could be tiring to be stereotyped. A shame she didn't have the patience to show the simple beauty of her magic to her enemies.
What enemies? That would be Lilómiel, cavorting in the air above her head. My enemies, she told him, sullen and melancholy. The ones out to get me. Perhaps there weren't many out there—she was too clever for that—but they were there nonetheless, even if she didn't yet know their faces. One day, as a leader, as a ruler (a thought that made her shiver with excitement) she'd know them, and she'd be thankful for her wariness. (At least that's what she told herself.)
That day was drawing nearer. She was still far away from trading her muscle for steel, her blood for oil, and her mind for something dead and cold; from being able to call herself a war machine. But it was coming. And there were other things she had to do too. Gather her friends, find her loyal followers... where were they? She hadn't expected it to be easy, but she hadn't expected it to be so damned difficult.
(Wars can take years to plan, Nym.) Well, she wasn't going to be waiting years before she took her rightful crown. She had to beat her brother, before he could beat her.
Ice cracked and groaned beneath her as she wandered the emptiness of what had come to be her church. Her thoughts rolled and grew, coiling over one another like a nest of garter snakes waiting for summer to come; her thoughts were not so kind today, but then, they hadn't been recently. That time where she'd been—been almost normal—seemed to be receding faster and faster as the nights grew longer and the days darker.
It wasn't only Rikyn in need of a little violence.
They saw him on the horizon. They came in close with an intricate dance, a heavy step and a sway of Nym's curled mane. They knew—or so they assumed to know—the stranger by way of his hooves thumping [violently] at rocks and his loneliness in wandering. Together they smiled, Nym wolfish and pretty, Lilómiel smiling only by the way he circled as a vulture would. (The wind howled.) "Care for a fight?" Nymeria's voice was more animal than equine, a svelte and rolling purr; simultaneously, she stepped in closer to the stranger, facing him head-to-head. Without any visible movement, Nymeria pressed her magic into the ice around them. First it began to simmer, then steam, and then it melted away in a circle with a diameter of about thirty feet. The water, heated by the boiled ice, was no longer cold but warm.
She tilted her head up to the stallion, and again a smile flashed across her lips, a haunting and cruel challenge. (Do you really think you can fight me?) @Rikyn Post Count: 0/3 Word Count: N/A Damage Tracker: N/A OOC Notes: Nymeria melted all ice in their near vicinity to make the fighting easier (and for lame-ass intimidation purposes.) Do you want magic/companions allowed? And Rikyn may have first attack ;)
03-25-2016, 12:16 PM
@Nymeria
04-01-2016, 06:10 PM
[quote='Nymeria' pid='174731' dateline='1458835149']
And I've grown familiar
With villains that live in my head
The ice hisses satisfyingly around them as her magic transforms pearlescent white to gleaming blue. She prowls forward, her sensuous stalk abandoned; now, her stride sings of danger like a shark carving through dark water. The unicorn sizes her up; she returns the favor, her scarlet irises slithering over his elegant body in lascivious assault. She does not study his golden hooves or burnished markings but his shifting sinew and broad chest, his long legs and whiplike tail—all staples of a horse bred for speed and grace. And while Rikyn looks at her, thinking of her curls and her crownless brow, she thinks of how best to batter and bruise him, how best to conquer him. It dawns on her that he is smirking at her, the edge of his soft mouth quirked up in eagerness (or so she interprets.) Nym’s nostrils flare ever so slightly in tasteful annoyance; his boyishness irks her, and she wonders just how old he is. Who cares? She is looking for is a taste of action—what’s the point in complaining about who she gets to beat? He was young, like her; no doubt inexperienced like her too. It’d be a fair fight, but she would win. At least that is what she tells herself. No later than a moment following the bob of his head the boy is jerking into surprisingly fluid action, even faster than she’d been expecting. A hair of a second later she quickens into her own long-strided gait. It wasn’t anything flashy or speedy, but unlike the unicorn she didn’t need it; she had enough muscle that she wouldn’t need to carry that extra quickness to deliver a powerful blow. That and she had an extra card up her sleeve. (Lilomiel.) As he lowers his head Nym breathes in, out, her heartbeat accelerating and her eyes holding steadfast to that glinting point aimed towards her breast. Logically, she knew he had a whole body behind it—that his hooves and teeth and shoulders could serve as less graceful but just as adequate weapons—but it was his horn that demanded attention, sunlight glittering off the twining gold. She remembers Abraham, her first fight; Abraham with his lust, Abraham with his strength and his broad shoulders. He’d had a horn too, an even more wicked-looking thing than Rikyn boasted. (And he had beaten her.) Their reflections shatter, unrecognizable, as the water arcs upwards beneath their hooves. Now they are close; now Nymeria doesn’t feel like she’s running towards him anymore. Their collision course is predetermined; the outcome was decided long before their inaction turned to action. They were falling towards one another. This—the rabbit beat of her heart, the shakiness to her limbs—this wasn’t anxiety. It was nerves. There was a difference, she told herself; nerves are good. They made her sharp, made her quick. Except she doubts that and she can’t stop to think because he’s plunging in towards her shoulder. Again, he is faster than she was expecting, and she belatedly starts to pivot to her right around her haunches, towards Rikyn. It’s not quick enough to shift the aim of his horn, nor was it really meant to. His horn (glistening, glittering) catches her in the right shoulder, driving in a moderately deep line through the thick meat there to kiss the very edges of her foremost ribs. For a moment she doesn’t feel the pain. For a moment her emotions are stuck on primal fear and surprise and holy fuck why can’t I press pause and think; then it sinks in and she gasps, the sound strangely dry and emotionless on her lips (more like she’s going through the motions than feeling anything.) What is it prey and predators naturally do? Hide their weakness.
Fucking gods it hurt—she was unaccustomed to pain like this, unaccustomed to this new kind of struggle. Blood immediately began to weep from the wound, tracks of red to mirror her scarlet irises, but apart from her first soft utterance she makes no sound.
Then she’s finished her pivot towards him, putting them at a wide angle with their heads near together, and the right side of his chest cracks into the right side of her chest, leaving moderate bruising. She grunts—painfully aware that her spine and back is in easy reach of his horn—and without further thought or effort pulls.
The pull is a yank at his blood, an attempt to wrestle that precious red from his nostrils, tear ducts, and ears. (It is not a pretty sort of magic.)
Simultaneously she snaps at Rikyn’s withers—her diamond teeth glinting—hoping to grab hold over the bony piece and puncture his skin.
She was afraid—afraid of failure, afraid of the pain that radiated through her shoulder—but she would win She refused to consider any other option. @Rikyn Post Count: 1/3 Word Count: 800 Damage Tracker: Minor bruising on right side of chest, moderately deep, long cut along right shoulder
04-06-2016, 11:03 AM
04-21-2016, 05:58 PM
And I've grown familiar
With villains that live in my head
Pain lances through her injured shoulder as they collide like warring gods. Bruises bud, bloom, and blossom beneath her shadowed skin, no doubt destined to be a gristly (if fleeting) reminder of their time together. Nymeria shoves hard and fast forward—aiming to crush the shelf of her shoulder deeper into the opposing stallion's chest (a perverted kiss)—snatches at his shoulder with her mouth. Her teeth clip against the hardened muscle to little avail, leaving only the slightest of marks behind; a surge of disappointment underscores the minuscule victory.
You have to be smarter Nym.
I'm trying!
Out of the corner of her eye in a whirl of ghost and shadow she catches sight of the stallion's gilded horn striking down and away from her face; a faint sense of thrill and fear coils through her brain. Almost intuitively she shifts to her left, subtly slanting away from Rikyn. Brace yourself, she commands, and then he strikes like a coiled snake, his shining horn teeth to pierce the point of her right hip. Pain reverberates through flesh and bone as the stallion carves yet another future scar—the wound is a deep, immediately bloody thing. The pain is undercut by a flash of annoyance; she breathes slowly, an old and familiar ritual, forcing herself to ignore the dull aches in her chest and the new pains lancing through her body. She commands herself to focus: and then she thrusts her magic at him in unspoken command, demanding his submission.
You will bow.
The mare's emotions (pain, anger, frustration) were submerged in the rigid fist of her self-control, but take a shift towards open and unlocked pleasure as the stallion surges away from her. (There—drops of blood trail his passing.) His shadow flickers across the rippling water; for a moment her gaze is lost in his reflection's darkness, which is broken by waves and clouded in scarlet shed from her own veins. It is in this murkiness that she spies his shift forwards, his hooves bucking up and lancing towards her face. Reality converges on her. She rears her head up, skittering away a step or two to her left, tail whipping across her flank—the sun glares in her eyes from off the water. She senses more than sees the hooves that lash in the empty air her body had occupied only moments before.
I'm here if you need me. Lilómiel was little more than a distant shadow on the water, but she could feel their bond strengthen as he cut down on the distance between them. Stay back, she told him, firmly, frankly. I don't want to rely on you.
Besides, she thought that she was doing a rather good job on her own.
In the time that was the here and now moments became minutes, minutes become hours—everything was too fast and too slow all at once. (Is this always how fights feel?) It dawns on Nymeria that Rikyn is not retreating, that he continues to pivot, no doubt aiming to slam his weight against Nym's left side. Her brows shift and slant into an expression of hunger and eagerness alike. There is an exhilarating feel to the sensation of body against body, fresh blood and new pain—it creates a burning yearning that rushes through her every cell, flooding her with a need for the heat of his body and—more than that—for his submission.
She does not try to evade him. Instead she thrusts her weight towards him, attempting to hit him leading with her left shoulder. Ideally she would hit him when he was off-balance and force him to fall (that was a certain sign of her victory) but she doubted that would happen. Despite her decidedly more buxom figure, she does not weigh that much more than him, and horses rarely (if ever) fall (even in battle.) As she leans in to embrace him, she grasps at the water beneath him. Expression knitted in concentration, she ushers the water upwards in liquid spears; then, with a sharp exhale, she lets her second magic roll over them. The result are frosted blades which she slings towards Rikyn's hindlegs—his belly was a tantalizing target, but she didn't want to hurt him too badly.
She needed this fight. It would be a shame to end it early. @Rikyn Post Count: 2/3 Word Count: 717 Damage Tracker: (1) Minor bruising on right side of chest, moderately deep, long cut along right shoulder. (2) Deep wound on right hip that impinges full movement.
04-26-2016, 11:27 AM
05-04-2016, 06:34 PM
And I've grown familiar
With villains that live in my head
The stranger is warm.
Nymeria can feel the heat emanating off his lithe, sinewy body, a heat that pulses against her skin--to be so close to someone she’s never met is as intoxicating as the adrenaline that pulses through her bloodstream. She’s full of emotion--irritation, passion, eagerness--but as they fight, their forms weaving together in balletic form, the feelings (swollen and heavy) begin to fall away. The frustration that tinged her thoughts as he evaded a blow or her surge of pride when she landed one or the shudder-worthy pain coalescing in her hip (throbbing with every step, burning and blistering with every move) paled in comparison to the sheer glory of what this fight really was.
It wasn’t a challenge. It wasn’t a fight for glory, a fight for passion, or a fight for love: there was nothing at stake here. It was… just a spar.
Don’t get her wrong--she wanted to win, she wanted to dominate and subjugate Rikyn to her power, but in the end it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like when she’d watched Confutatis warring a futile battle against the Reaper himself; it wasn’t like Abraham, when she’d been flushed with yearning and confused ideas of lust. This was… this was therapy.
Violent therapy, but still therapy.
Sunlight burns against her eyes as she watches water shiver and flex beneath her temperamental command, solidifying to ice as she desires. The shards whistle as they spear towards the stallion, a merry tune of war that is a strangely fitting soprano to the rasp of heaving breath and the splashing water. She is eager and hungry, charging towards Rikyn; and yet her hip protests her with every step, reducing her gallop to a canter that feels hardly faster than a crawl. Nym wasn’t certain if it was her (if she was too predictable, with her red eyes inevitably drawn towards her hasty weaponry) or whether he was simply lucky--but the unicorn shifts away at the right moment, evading the ice spears entirely. The wolf feels a predictable flush of irritation at the stallion’s fortune; her ears pin tightly to her skull and her lips flicker away from her teeth in a grimace.
(He laughs at her. Or maybe at his luck. Her teeth gnash together in gathering rage.)
Petty words lash against her sealed lips (fuck you! Or maybe you’ll fucking lose, loser!) Instead of wasting breath on verbalizing them Nym recollects her weight, fighting against her momentum. She’s fortunate--the speed that had carried her forward had left Rikyn’s right hind hoof slinging through empty air between her fore and hindlegs. Still, her luck is running short (she knows it) and she can’t exactly say she likes relying on luck anyways.
Perhaps it was time to call in backup.
The black had been waiting eagerly for his chance at glory. It wasn't necessary for Nymeria to form a coherent thought; he needs only the barest summon, a vague “I” that trails off as Rikyn re-positions his body. Nymeria, focused on the fight, blocks out Lilomiel’s rapid approach. The water is running red; sooner or later a winner will have to be called.
She is tiring rapidly. She hurts.
Maybe it’s because of the pain; maybe he really is better than her. As he thrusts his forequarters away from her she is too slow and too late to respond. Rikyn’s hooves punch out at the leftmost side of her hindquarters as the last of her speed is expended. His hooves hit her, square and even, right on her thick, lusty butt. It’s painful, sure, but the indignity of being literally kicked in the ass was far worse than the heavy bruising that was beginning to form.
Fortunately, she is saved from needing to respond with yet more violence.
(Backup has arrived.)
Lilomiel saves his flames as he dives out of the sky--it’s not that kind of battle--but he aims his claws at the unicorn’s face. He attempts to drive his talons into the tender flesh around the unicorn's ears and cheekbones (being careful to steer clear of the eyes and horn) while fangs snap at the tips of Rikyn’s ears. Wings beat a rapid tattoo; they lash at Rikyn’s eyes, more to obscure his vision than cause any damage, yet another tactic to shoo the stallion away from his bonded.
Sweating and soaked with seawater and sweat alike, Nymeria slows to a halt and turns to face the stallion. Her curls are tangled and matted; she is bloody and bruised. Despite that, a smile makes its way to her face, a free and happy grin for her
“You fucking hit on my ASS,” she shouts at him, too happy for her own good. “If you want to have SEX, you should just ask!”
And then, naturally, she laughs. @Rikyn Post Count: 3/3 Word Count: 800 Damage Tracker: (1) Minor bruising on right side of chest, moderately deep, long cut along right shoulder. (2) Deep wound on right hip that impinges full movement. (3) Serious, heavy bruising on hindquarters
05-10-2016, 01:16 PM
06-23-2016, 08:53 PM
By my verdict: NYMERIA is the winner!
RIKYN Realism [+3] I thought you did a good job noting their surroundings, adapting to how Nymeria altered the environment. I especially liked how you made sure to note how the shallow water around them would have been affected by their movements and injuries! You also did well translating the attacks into damage in your posts, with only one exception. Nymeria’s first attack rolled a 1 for damage and I found the damage caused by her bite a lot more realistic for this number than the effects of her magic pulling on his blood. It was described as agonizing but with such a low roll I would have thought it would be more irritating than anything. It's also suggested, particularly in the end of P2 and beginning P3 that the water is stained more with Rikyn's blood than Nymerias but again with such a low roll, would he have lost that much blood in comparison to the gash that Nymeria received from his horn? Emotion [+2] I thought Rikyn’s reaction to Nymeria throughout the fight was great - what I would expect from a young stallion confronted with a pretty strange mare asking for a fight! Right from the start when she showed up in this part “My smirk is lopsided as I look her over, sudden in the display of her magic, where it had been a straight line of condemnation – of her blank forehead, and my desire to bury my face into the thick locks splaying down her shoulders.” to later on with “Our bodies press together in the dance, a fire exploding in places fires shouldn’t be while fighting (but my veins are alive with testosterone, the added lure of her scent pervasive).” They’re both so determined to come out on top of each other that I had fun reading it to see who would be the eventual winner! Prose [+2] A few things stood out to me that made some of the posts a little bit awkward to read. Incorrect word use P3 paragraph 1: “This kisses of her teeth ache, the memory of her magic throbbing, a tight pulse in my head that throbs in rhythm with my heart.” should be: the kisses P3 paragraph 2; “I hadn’t expected the buck to strike true, compensating for the lost speed by telling my hooves its time to accelerate, hard.” should be: it’s Awkward phrasing P3 paragraph 1: In P2 paragraph 3, “This kisses of her teeth ache, the memory of her magic throbbing, a tight pulse in my head that throbs in rhythm with my heart.” I think the repetitive use of ‘throb’ in one sentence contributes to making this sentence (list of injuries?) confusing Readability [0] I'm not very familiar with Rikyn's writing style and it admittedly took me a while to get used to it. It was poetic in some places but I found some of the long, winding, run-on sentences hard to follow and read - particularly those heavy with commas. I had to re-read a lot of them to puzzle out what was being said and how it related to the battle. Some examples: P1: “The result is that, hopefully, I’ll end up in an off center, italicized T with the woman, my horn the connecting point between the two of us, so that the secondary forward bound (initiated as my head pulls back to the left, eyes eagerly searching through the tangles of my mane for the floating trail of blood spilling through the air, signifying success) following my initial strike might send my broad chest slamming into her own.” P2: “The poet within me thinks of the water misting against her as we meet, her water, because it had been ice until she bid it to flow” Instead of a comma separating meet and her, a period or semi-colon would have been a better choice to separate the thoughts. I also found the comma placement confusing in some parts as a lot of sentences are peppered with them. For example, this sentence in P1 “Her smile is devious, a familiarity to her amber gaze and mask adorned face that escapes me, for the time” I think a semi-colon or a colon would suit better in place of the first comma and the second comma should not be there at all. Also the word 'being' is missing to complete the phrase 'for the time being'. Other spots where commas were unnecessary: P2 “and while she does not groan, or whimper” P3 "to pull far enough away to use my magic on her, or her dragon." Finally tally: 43.5 + (7*2) = 57.5 HP *******************************************
NYMERIA Realism [+4] I thought you did a good job incorporating injuries into your posts, like in P3 where her injuries force her to move slower than she intended, as well as translating the damage taken from the rolls. Great to see some previous experience with unicorns being pulled on to make her wary of his horn in this part in P1: “Logically, she knew he had a whole body behind it—that his hooves and teeth and shoulders could serve as less graceful but just as adequate weapons—but it was his horn that demanded attention,” Parts of the environment were mentioned and used, especially the water, but the chilly temperatures and high winds weren’t mentioned often and could have played a roll with visibility. Emotion [+2] I liked Nymeria’s desperation, like she needs to win this random spar to prove something to herself and others, even though by her own admission it’s just a spar and not something that holds a lot of weight. It was set up right at the start and I couldn’t wait to see how it would cause her to act throughout the spar! She also showed a good range of emotion throughout the spar - fear, annoyance, anger, desperation, lust - which I loved. Prose [+3] I didn’t notice any significant spelling or grammar issues throughout your posts. Towards the end of P2 there were a couple introductory words to sentences that could have used a comma after them “Instead she thrusts her weight towards him, attempting to hit him leading with her left shoulder. Ideally she would hit him when he was” (after instead and ideally). And in P2: “no doubt destined to be a gristly (if fleeting) reminder of their time together” I’m wondering if it should have been grisly (meaning bloody or disgusting) vs gristly (meaning stringy and sinewy) Readability [+2] Overall I found these posts easy to read and understand. There were just a few mix ups with punctuation that I noticed: Missing a period between the sentences at the end of P1 “...would win She refused to consider any other option.” Incorrect placement of period in P2: “(even in battle.)” - should be outside of the bracket And with the brackets in this sentence towards the middle of P3 “Petty words lash against her sealed lips (fuck you! Or maybe you’ll fucking lose, loser!)” The exclamation marks closed off the phrases inside of the brackets but the sentence outside is left unfinished with no punctuation. To avoid this you could add a but after the bracket and combine it with the sentence that had followed it, therefore completing the thought. Finally tally: 45 + (11*2) = 67 HP | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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