RAVEN

While one of her creatures succeeded in drowning out the electric rat, the second was to appear not so lucky. The rat morphed into a giant frothing ball of electricity, which made the girl feel like frowning - but of course, beaks couldn't frown. Now, Isopia had just wanted a way of alerting Thunderhead to her presence without actually having to do much. She wasn't all that invested in her creations, nor had she given any forethought to what she would do if Thunderhead took her hello negatively. Now that it was upon her, the desire to win was simply too strong to ignore.

Almost like a shield rising up through the sand, the granules parted as her magic forced some of the firmer stuff from below to surface. A mixture of clay and stone wrapped itself around the water cat, and, as Thunderhead's electric ball came into contact with it, the make-shift shield dispersed the voltage easily and harmlessly around its surface*.

Isopia watched as Thunderhead lept from what appeared to be a rather cozy spot in the surf, snorting and looking about. Her wild appearance set the girl on edge; was this all really necessary? If Thunderhead had just thought it through - if her attacker had the power to make such creations and creatures and also wanted to cause harm to the blue, wouldn't she have done so already? Wouldn't she have skipped the appetizer of rodent and gone right for the main course? Oh well, at least she wasn't yelli-

FACE ME!

She could feel her ears flattened against her skull, even though they of course weren't. In this form, she didn't have ears that could flatten. All the same, she knew the feeling. This was ridiculous. The girl was starting to think that Thunderhead didn't actually have a plan, that there was no cause. This display of instant aggression at the hands of a weak display of magic only demonstrated that Thunderhead was willing to attack anything, to make anything an enemy.

Part of Iso wanted to just fly away. Clearly the blue didn't know that it was she who was in the tree (although, with a name like Raven, Iso would have thought her would-be-fearless-leader would have been a little more observant), but something made her stay. Perhaps it was because she now knew how fallible Thunderhead was, how precarious her philosophy suddenly seemed. Her mind was suddenly rapt with attention and intrigue; perhaps it wasn't just precarious, perhaps it was broken.

The girl wanted to know.

On soundless black wings, the raven took to the sky. She angled her body higher, hoping that perhaps the sun might mask the skull markings that appeared on her face. In lazy circles she drifted over where Thunderhead's angry gaze was cast. Her wings beat more slowly allowing her body to gently cascade towards the ground, until finally her small avian feet touched down upon the pristine sands. Folding her wings against her sides, the raven with the bright golden eyes stared up at Thunderhead from a few paces away. Her head moved in the jerky way that birds tend to, but the intelligence in her eyes was unmistakable, as was the death-mask she wore.

[*RIGHT. THAT'S HOW ELECTRICITY WORKS ISN'T IT? #physicsfail]