yael

By some small miracle, her hooves strike the hunter in the shoulder, but with that satisfying thud comes a searing pain, white-hot and concentrated, as an ivory rapier pierces the meat of her upper neck. By another, larger miracle, the deadly weapon misses the vital life sources that pulse up and down her neck, but that does not mean she will not bleed freely. The gleaming dagger slides freely in one side and out the other, as if the witch were trying to slice off a piece of Yael for consumption.

Just as soon as the pain reaches her eyes, the source of it is gone again, yanked from her flesh in a different path, widening the puncture. The air vibrates with roars and a higher pitched shriek, as Yael gives in the agony and curses the white walker to the sunlit sky. Let her nights be filled with as much brightness as her days, let the shadows never cross the seeker’s path again! Her vision swims - eyes go double, and then fuzzy as blood begins to flow freely and she finds that any exertion to turn her head results in stabbing pain.

Again, the monster comes at her, teeth snapping like a wild animal - and the golden mouse is caught off-guard. She blinks and stumbles backward, shying away to avoid as many bites as she can, but they come quickly, and without a pattern. “Stop!” she cries in vain, trying to move her wings into a protective position, but even those great, welcoming appendages cannot stem the assault. Her attacker is like a mad snake, she things, hissing and leaping forward constantly, until she is pepered with bite marks and stumbles on something loose on the ground - stone or vine or mud, it matters not - and ends up sitting on the ground.

And in this moment, she fears Beloved will do her worst; she fully believes that bites will turn to savage thrusts of her horn, to barbaric kicks to the head. After some forty-odd years, her life will end here and no one will ever know.

And then something sparks within her, and there is a sudden rushing of energy through her veins. Then she opens her mouth to speak, and there is nothing but the enthusiastic flow of air out of her mouth, before it ends in a strangled growl. Her perception changes, her skin tightens, and her body begins to shift. The silver from her main expands to cover her whole lizardesque frame, and feathers turn to webbed skin, bones sprout claws, and her nose and teeth elongate. Yes. Yes! YES! The form is familiar, cherished; and if dragons could cry, she would be sobbing in elation because something from before remains. All hope is not lost! Briefly frozen, as if the software had to catch up to the hardware, Yael’s thoughts turn to the catalyst: the Hunter. She is vulnerable in this moment, but a renewed vigor has her confident that should Beloved strike again, she will be repayed tenfold with blood and flames.

Whatever shall the hunter do when it all of a sudden becomes the Prey?

Angry, whirling eyes slowly turn to the horned woman, her lips curling back to reveal a long line of teeth - daring even the insane to try again. Normally, she would be loathe to take a life, but in this case, she might make an exception.