Like figurines, they were posed along the beach, differing actions frozen on their limbs. She, a fighter. He, a broken fool. Where she persevered, he limped along, hardly deserving of the praises they sang for his continued efforts to draw one lungful of air after another. Why she found him to be a worthy opponent was beyond his comprehension, much less why she’d waste her time on him in the first place. She considered him her brother, her kin of blood and tears, sand and fire. Where was that kinship when he’d needed it most? Family was not something that could be spoken of and used at someone’s convenience. Family couldn’t simply be revoked. Cera was sick and tired of thousands of nameless faces telling him they loved him, cared for him, only to turn around and drop him when they no longer had the time to pull the ‘concerned, caring citizen’ act. Cera was sick of their hollowness, their fake ways, their lies. Where she ever to speak her thoughts to him, he would raze the delusional world she lived in with fire and fury.

She was not his sister. She was nothing but another person trying to do their good deed for the day.

Cera hated her for it.

As if she could sense his thoughts, she exploded, nearly tangible in her frustration. He stood firm, unyielding. Staring down the force of her irritation, her deluded fantasies of saving him. Her words cracked out, a roar that buffeted his ears and pierced into his skull. Still, he didn’t move. Instinct jumped and pulled at his limbs, aching with the fierce desire to move him away from her coming blow. Logical mind – though he could hardly call it logical by then – denied him that escape. If she wanted to save him, if she wanted to try and be good, then she’d have to first look into the raw, seeping wound of his soul.

Like a viper she lunged across the sands, and Cera barely jerked his head away to the right beneath the image of her gaping maw. Blunt teeth grabbed hold of the tender skin just below his left eye, ripping and tearing until his world was alight in a blaze of red and white. Pain brought clarity, just enough to force his body into swaying to the right away from her and further damage. A jagged wound stretched with the force of her downfall upon him, tear duct to the base of his ear, before she ripped free. He grunted, furious to see that he was still somehow able to feel. It was a grievous injustice to all he had suffered, that his body would still betray him in the end.

Just as quick she leapt away, agile, while he stumbled from the minimal movement he’d enacted at the end of his pain. Left eye squeezed shut, viewing her from an awkward angle as blood pooled against his cheek. Hot, like fire. His eye ached and burned, reluctant to open when he dared to try. Would it blind him? Likely not, but opening his eye would be a difficult procedure for the rest of the fight if he ever needed to rely upon it. Yet it seemed he wasn’t even granted the peace to check over his wounds, categorize them, before she was spitting blasphemy. How dare she criticize him when she couldn’t even live her life without burning up those around her like an out of control forest fire?

“You know NOTHING about me!” he finally screamed into her face, wings clamping to his sides in sleek fury. “Where where you when I needed you?! You cannot claim you care for me when you don’t even know my NAME!” It was a bellow that threatened to split the earth and drop Cera down to the core of it all to burn and die and be sent to peace. “There’s nothing,” he spat, throwing her venom right back. Any other words he deigned to kick into her face withered on his tongue as she lunged.

So close to his shuttered left eye, he lurched to the right to avoid her, but his angle was off. She clipped him hard, sent him reeling, and he thrust his left wing high to try and avoid whatever attack she thought him deserving of next. He floundered in the thick sand of the beach, thin legs struggling against the pull. Teeth snapped wildly towards her left flank, hoping to tear into her and show her that he was a lost cause. Chase her away as he had all the others. Whether it landed or not he kicked his hindquarters, heavy on his hind right, lunging away from her for a short respite. “Dead is better than this.” Why couldn't she see?

---

Notes: This is actually kinda bad???
Tag: Ampere

Word Count: {800/800}
Attack: {1/3}