the Rift


Venite , exspiravit!

Torleik the Bloodskald Posts: 354
Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 8.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 11 HP: 66.5 | Buff: SWIFT
Irelyn :: Plain Griffin :: Molten Dagger RedGod
#1
Torleik
The beard of glory...


So much time in the Threshold, so much time given to those who couldn't even appreciate it. Time spent worrying, doubting, fearing, regretting, mourning.

Was he not a man?

Did a man not make himself known by his actions and deeds?

He was not like his cousin, not like Ulrik who was consumed with thought, with genius, with brilliance that could not be ignored and pushed aside. Torleik was a man of action; the brawny shoulders upon which the world sat its progress and drove forward, for better or for ill. The rabicano was no scholar, no academic mind, and his ancestors would be ashamed of his pathetic and ineffectual flailing about like a fish caught in a net.

Was he not his father's son?

Was he not a Bloodskald, a man of great valor, honor and skill?

Was he not worthy of the tales his bloodline demanded be sung about his deeds in this mortal life?

Right now, all he was worthy of was a swift kick in the ass. The thought was sour and lumpy, like rancid fish or spoiled milk, sitting heavy in his gut and swirling as unsteadily as the fog that wove a ghastly loom over the forest floor beneath him. The delicate fingers of dawn knit soft threads of pink and hearthfire orange between the girders of wood firmly entrenched in the soil, suffusing the undulating eddies with color. This was where one of the murder victims had been found, yes? In this murky and somber tree-studded swatch of land south of the Threshold.

The rabicano knew he'd wandered here somehow, sometime, but he couldn't quite recall when, recall what time had passed - how much or how he'd spent it. But was that not all he did? Give time? Worry about time? If he was wasting it, spending it correctly, maximizing it?

Torleik's brows knit together. Too many thoughts crippled a man if not tempered by the cleansing praxis of action! He would not turn to stone, crippled and fettered by his overactive mind any longer! This was a terrible place for a fight - the ground was wet with the melting morning frost that still clung to life in shadowy areas such as this, dead leaves littered the forest floor and made the already wet ground even more treacherous, and the trees stifled movement.

No matter - he'd spent enough time considering over and over before acting. Today, he would simply be and do. Lifting a muscular neck, Torleik let out an echoing bray, summoning anyone nearby that would answer his challenge.

Let them come and stand before the power of a being who embraced what it meant to live.

"talk talk talk"


@[Ghost]


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WC (448) | (0/3) | Setting: Dark Forest, at dawn. Fog covers the early morning ground, and combined with the springtime morning thaw/dew, the leafy, mossy ground is slick and slippery. Light filters through the trees and visibility is good. Weather is cool to biting, but not cold enough to impair movement.

Regular spar. No time extensions.

Credits: Image by Schwartze @ DA
[Image: 531c0b471919e]

No man is an island.
Pixel by: Tamme :D


Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Ghost the Cadaverous Posts: 219
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16hh :: 6 years HP: 67 | Buff: ENDURE
Fantôme :: Grey Wolf :: None imi
#2



Murder had happened here. The Threshold was light, inviting in comparison to the thick, dark embrace that was offered by this tragic forest. Ghost had wondered many times what these trees had seen, what secrets were held in the gashes that marred some unfortunate timber and in the creepy red-hued water. It was almost like it was created purely for the scenes of horror stories and yet, there was something about it that made the banshee feel sad. Could trees cry? If so, she wondered how many it would shed. The place had become a setting for many interesting conversations in her past, it seemed the most intriguing creatures liked to roam here sometimes and she had found answers that only brought up more questions. It was the place that brought the Asylum to her and the place she had found the fallen King, Mauja. What would she find this time? Her mother? If she was lucky. Ghost hadn’t been given the chance to flaunt her new power in her dam’s face and the Cadaverous was eager for the moment to come.

Instead, she picked up a challenging call that brayed around the woodland and her cloven hooves carried her towards it, sloshing through the melting snow mixed with dead leaves until she was close enough to pick up a scent. Fog hampered her view as she lingered behind trees, edging forward slowly, there was a faint recognition to the creature she was smelling, but the Cadaverous couldn’t quite place it until a few trees later when she came across a familiar, monochrome laced beard.

There were those horns too that grew like he was out of a Faustian legend, strange characters etched into them and they curved to a tip that would be wise to stay away from. Hair and muscle, that’s what he was like to Ghost, a rough-edged animal. She didn’t know him personally, of course, he might enjoy meadow frolics and flower picking, but that didn’t quite match his outfit somehow, even if the thought did tickle a funny nerve.

She dallied, peering around a tree like an overly curious neighbour until finally she decided that her day might become more interesting if she took up the metaphorical gauntlet he had so spectacularly thrown in his bellowing voice. Even the Cadaverous had to admit he was intimidating to look at, but hesitation wasn’t going to win her battles and who knew when a challenger might appear? Best to take the experience where she could and this one was handsome enough to look at. It would be hard, the ground wasn’t great and the fog hampered the bits of light that actually made it through the trees, but the banshee could see well enough. Her wings might not be of great advantage in here either. All this made Ghost grimace at the thought that it might be a messy battle and it took a moment for her to push the apprehension away. What, afraid of a little mud? she grumbled silently to herself.

Biting the bullet, Ghost steeled herself and folded her wings tightly into her sides before moving out from behind the tree quietly as she could. "Torleik, was it?" She uttered his name from that one time in the Threshold before bursting forwards at a brisk canter, not yet daring to open up on the soggy ground and aimed her single dark horn to slash across his right shoulder.

@[Torleik]
[1/3 | 574 Words
Ghost charges and aims her horn for Torleik's right shoulder.
ooc: Sorry for the wait Red!! I'll be damn quicker now the holiday madness has finished. :| ]

We're volcanoes in the night
We're rolling like meteorites
Let the heat of the sun
Reignite your memory
Because if we just turn and run
Let them fire the gun

❚ Force permitted, just don't kill her :3
❚ Please tag me!
❚ Pixel by Nyte

Torleik the Bloodskald Posts: 354
Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 8.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 11 HP: 66.5 | Buff: SWIFT
Irelyn :: Plain Griffin :: Molten Dagger RedGod
#3
Torleik
The beard of glory...


The wet schlicking of hooves over damp leaves and slushy ground reached his ears and Torleik's audits and eyes flicked to the right. The noises carried strangely in a forest, sounds bouncing off timber and stone; absorbed and softened by leaves and dirt, pinpointing the source was always tricky dance of intuition and the senses. Torleik had some practice from his homeland but he'd lived more on the coast than in the woods. Still, his perception that whatever approached was to the right was correct enough: movement caught his eye as someone thrust their dome around gnarled bark to stare at him through the fog with dark, nearly obsidian eyes.

Unsettling, but he did not let it show.

The crown that came forth held a single, sharp point indicating unicorn...but a quick glance caudally told the Bloodskald that this sooty mare held white-and-crimson-tipped wings. Visions of a pale woman with blood-dipped mane and tail flashed in his head and his body shifted to face this newcomer of sanguine shadow. Recognition hadn't crept into his mind as of yet but it was no matter. Whoever this challenger was, the Viking vowed to crush them into this soil so perfect for new life: all it needed was a little extra decay for some fertilizer. He was the Basin general, he was a warrior, and he would be strong. He would be victorious.

Torleik's gaze still boring into her, the hybrid stepped out from behind the trees and violated the sanctified silence, offering his name as if they knew each other. His challenging bray had killed the saturnine doldrums in the dead, heavy air – so why not spin the threads of sound into the cultured loom of speech with articulate meaning? Her identity struck him then, flashes of their only other meeting coming back, one that had not been far from here at all. She was "Ghost."

The greeting was simple, without frills or niceties.

They both knew what they were here for.

In those aching seconds before battle, tense and full to bursting with humming potential energy just waiting to be unleashed into kinetic violence, the Viking’s crystalline eyes snapped from one feature of his opponent to another, cataloging as much as he could. Single horn. Cloven hooves. Wings. This would be like fighting a weaponized and possibly more adept Serenity. Or would it? The trees were thick here and opening up massive wings to take flight would prove very difficult, the Bloodskald assumed. He would try to use that to his advantage and keep them in the thick of the timbers, away from open sky. The boughs of the surrounding wooden pillars would be to his advantage in other ways, too, shielding and hiding Irelyn between attacks.

The burly warrior's thoughts were cut short as the much more lithe Ghost suddenly popped forward at a crisp pace, heralding the start of this skirmish. The distance between them was not great and Ghost's cloven hooves gave her a marked leg up on this uneven and slippery ground. This was brought to painful light as the General, attempting to avoid the mare's attack, thrust his forelegs to his right to push away and gained no real purchase from the offensively slick ground. Wet, slimy leaves offered no traction and Torleik felt his center of gravity shift too far over his hips and his momentum begin to carry him towards the forest floor. Swiftly, he tried correct, yank himself upright to halt the fall, but failed. A grunt puffed curling smoke from his nostrils concurrent with his left hip smashing into the unforgiving ground, the ache instant and settling deep within the angered joint. Damn this forest floor!

Torleik scrambled his hind legs underneath him and hauled his currently ungainly bulk to the left just as Ghost's horn tore a ragged path high across his right shoulder, the sensation a sharp, burning, raw line over his flesh, nerves howling with each minute movement of his muscles; the fresher, more furious pain eclipsed the dull throb in his backside for now. An involuntary cry of pain erupted past his lips and rage – at himself, at the powerlessness he felt in this life, at his wound – filmed his senses with a dull haze of adrenaline. All he could hear was his heartbeat thundering like a thousand galloping stallions submerged underwater in his eardrums as he angled himself more perpendicular to his opponent. Naught but two seconds trickled by, time enough for him to move and begin his attack; rune-etched horns lowered and legs pushed him forward, driving his ossified weapons directly towards Ghost’s sleek, dark, unprotected side, seeking vengeance.

He wanted to make it deep and he wanted her to bleed.



@[Ghost]

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WC: (787) | (1/3) | Summary: Torleik slips and falls on the left side of his ass (ow), and doesn't even manage to avoid Ghost's horn (more ow). He scoots to his left, pivots to face her more and then tries to stab her in the side with his horns quickly, trying to capitalize on their proximity and what and her unprotected right side.

OOC: My turn to apologize for slowness. I always underestimate how tired school will make me. I stupid.

"talk talk talk"

Credits: Image by Schwartze @ DA
[Image: 531c0b471919e]

No man is an island.
Pixel by: Tamme :D


Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Sevin the Sucky, I mean are you a # or vacuum? Posts: 161
OOC Account
Mare :: Other :: 5'5" :: 25
Sevin
#4
Default to Torleik, +0.5VP


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