The cave is alive with soft sounds and echoes, an inconsistent drip, drop and the whispers of life unhappy to be disturbed. Little light permeates the murky gloom. Crystalline formations jut from walls like so many spears, crash through the ground as nails struck by the hammer of the gods. She skirts around them on nimble limbs, wary of their jagged ends, their deceptive beauty. She follows the path devotedly, for it is the only thing which seems somewhat certain in this new, uncertain world. Grey hooves clip gently at smooth, slate stone, occasionally ploping into a shallow puddle, or squelching against surfaces unsavory and soft. She opts not to look closely at ground, the same way she has avoided the infinitely dark ceiling. The copper child has learned that some questions are best left unasked, as much as it pains her not to know what trials lie in store.

No, not copper- today the girl is black and white, garbed in the colors of a dairy cow, a comical charade on her narrow form. The white dye she wears as a base clots her hair; the black runs thick in rivulets down the lines of her narrow frame. Most bizarre is the rubber udder strapped beneath her hips. She finds it aggravating, a damper on her already dour mood; there is nothing pleasant to be found in this situation, she thinks, except that when this will be done it will all finally be over. No more boxes, no more caves; when this fight is done she'll at last go home, and never again sign herself up for something so stupid, so stressful and strange.

She hears her opponent before she sees him, pauses at the sound of his hooves on stone. The girl did not think him to be so close, though the echoes of the cave make pinpointing his exact location impossible. Wary, she peers into the dark, willing some light to bounce back from his coat. Caution and readiness tenses her muscles, frustration and fear bites down on her teeth. Fire child is unsure what to expect, but she is certain that whatever it is, it will leave her displeased.

When he does appear, it is in a flurry of darkness and abrupt motion, too fast and too sudden for her to do anything but gasp. Misguidedly she looks first to her left, but sound is deceptive under the ground, and she turns right too late. She sees very little of him, not enough to gather that they are roughly the same height, though he is older and thicker set; not enough to begin to understand his costume, what the mixture of ribbon and wood might in fact represent; no, she sees only enough to notice his entourage, and to cry out in foolish, helpless surprise, before the weight of him plows into her right side.

It doesn't help that the bats see fit to circle her head and cut off her view. It doesn't help that her limbs are too long and the ground too slick for her to have any chance of maintaining her footing. The force of him knockes the wind from her lungs. She stumbles to the left, blind, angry, gasping from pain, and her flank catches fatefully upon a crystalline spire, tearing a cruel gash upon her right side, leaving her bleeding and nearly broken from shame. This isn't the way things were supposed to go. Nothing has been this bad, not before now.

The bats leave scratches upon gold-slashed cheeks, which sting as the paint seeps mercilessly beneath her skin. Battered and in shock, the child of fire considers giving up. What's the point, after all, if she's come so far only to be beaten so quickly, without even a chance? She wants to surrender; she wants to flee. She wants to be a coward.

She knows she is not.

With a throat-wrenching scream the girl arcs left, pulling toward her assailant and away from the crystal, reaching around with bared, pearly teeth, a frustrated snarl marring her pretty face. She snaps first to bite at his face, then pulls forth Roskuld's magic, feeling it rise at the back of her throat and sending it out in an electric bolt, a blast of raw power aimlessly aimed toward the opposing beast. The flash of lightning briefly and blindingly illuminates the entire cave, sending the bats into a flurry of frenzied activity and flight. She blinks hard against it, panting as the magic fades and she is left gasping for air, ribs aching and flank burning, hoping she has earned herself time to regroup. Her ace played, she has no idea what the next step will be, but knows she must somehow escape here alive.




@[Thranduil] | 1/2 | 796
Struck by Thranduil and staggers back & to the left. Hits a crystal, deeply cutting her flank. Also swarmed by bats. Bites at Thran and uses Roskuld's lightning magic to try and zap him.