Nobody else seems to see the joy of the fight, the fact that this is a game, not a duel for glory and death. Her opponent - garbed in some spectacular combination of headdress and blanket and rump-pad and strange, spiky shoes - runs and rages. Looking back at the stout, angry mare, the girl's smile falters, hesitancy creeping into black eyes.

Nothing hits. Her opponent may as well have been made of air, for all the good Tandavi's hopeless flailing does. Laughter turns to frustration, then swiftly to alarm: the glance thrown back reveals not pursuit, but another fight in the damp and dust where she left the pink-garbed mare. For a moment, it looks as though Roskuld has grown wings, black feathery things that sprout from her spine- but movement and cursing reveals the truth, and the tall copper child looks on in horror as a vulture circles triumphantly back into the sky. Part of her thinks she should be glad, grateful that the carrion has struck her foe on her behalf, but it is a small part, a quiet part, and it is drowned out by the righteous indignation which the rest of her screams.

This is a game, not a war, and she will not strike a foe with such a cruel disadvantage.

Fire child takes a step, but maintains a length's distance from the cursing mare. Perhaps naive, the girl is concerned, and she reaches out to her foe with alto words. "Are you okay?" she questions, soft, black gaze shifting between avian and equine, body tense and poised to escape should either take this chance to fight. The birds, she thinks, are a far greater threat. From their perch upon unforgiving cacti the carrion glower, leering their desire to see the girls rip each other apart. She wonders that this is a sport to them, loathes that they likely want her dead, a judgment cast down despite the fact that she has committed no sin against their tribe. The mare is grounded, wrapped in pink and useless shoes, and the lanky girl still believes that her opponent cannot truly mean her harm.

The vultures are winged and big and mean, vicious shadows in the pale dawn light, and as her eyes turn back to the mare one takes the opportunity to dive in and strike. From his seat on the sidelines, Natraj cries out; but it is too late to stop it, too late to be safe, and though the girl scrambles on hopeless feet she feels the burn of claws in her withers, the searing slice of a beak where her right shoulder slopes. Light rain runs damp dust into the wounds, mixing with the blood that pools from her wounds; she screams at the vulture and backpedals, sidesteps, dashes and trips forward and left, directly toward where she'd last seen the other mare.

The vulture releases his vice grip on her withers, but not before tearing away one of her beautiful wings. Fury races through her veins as she watches her feathered "appendage" fly away, the vulture cawing his triumph and contempt and her right side feeling light and empty. She watches it go and her magic ignites, crimson sparks springing from her coat in a luminous cloud of useless rage. If only she could set the lot of them alight, bring down the Sun's wrath upon their ugly tails! This battle is not what she expected it to be. The world is less honorable than she could have hoped to expect.

[ @[Roskuld] | 596 words | 2/2 ( 0/1 defense ) ]
Turns back to see the vulture attacking Ros. Asks is Ros is okay, only to be attacked by a vulture of her own. Run/stumbles forward, directly toward Ros, while her healing magic creates a cloud of harmless sparks around her