No one told me there was ice under the snow. It was all a huge set-up for failure, let’s be honest. You were running beside me all quick and sleek, a red-coated fox zipping next to my flailing hooves, nothing but a streak of red varnish beside me. It was a race—or something, I dunno, we were just booking it because you found out somehow that I loved to run and you were forcing me into it, forcing the ice to chip away from the edges of my consciousness—making me move, making me sweat, and even though I still wasn’t sleeping like I should I guess these little races were helping. And they were making me smile, too. Like, look at you. Ever since you found out you could do the thing you wouldn’t stop doing it—and maybe it freaked me out at first, what with your changing and shifting and running around as one animal or the other, but your complete and utter happiness melted all of that trepidation, all that worry and fear, and whenever you changed into something furry to lay down with me to sleep and keep my neck warm I was able to keep my eyes closed for a while. Your thoughts were bubbly, too, still with that sense of champagne raining down in my consciousness. And you were dumb as hell, sending me thoughts and ideas that made no sense but made me snort despite myself. Like…I dunno. The more you grew with me, the more I wondered if my Pa knew what he was doing. …But anyway, yeah. I’m talking about how I was set up for failure and how shitty it is to fall on ice. So we were racing, right? You and me, zooming through the snow and the calm of the night. And you broke in front of me, your quick little feet bounding just a little bit faster than my own—but then you got other ideas, didn’t you? In a boom! and crackle! of spark raining down from your tail, you were suddenly morphed into that white, feathery something that I recognized as an owl (I didn’t pretend to ignore what that did to me, you being an owl—but we were still racing so it was easily missed). You flapped and flapped, having practiced it since your first disastrous attempt at flight, and you were flying level with me, then above me, and you were taking the race into the sky where I couldn’t follow. But there was still this bubble of laughter in my chest—and something stupid broke over me, and I was leaping into the air like some idiotic version of bounding deer. And maybe I looked like a dumbass but it felt great to let go of my inhibitions and jump after you as you drifted through the air… …but then gravity came back to me, because it’s a cousin of reality and they both like to crash down on me and burst my bubble. I fell back down to the ground, and I would’ve been able to catch myself if there wasn’t a layer of ice beneath the snow. It was actually kinda spectacular; I skidded and snow blew everywhere around me and I was crashing into the ground and I was still skidding along my side and you were already landing and I could hear the peels of hooting that simulated the laughter that rang in my mind and even though I was gritting my teeth against the throb in my shoulder I was laughing with you. At first. “The fuck you lookin’ at?” I suddenly snarled, the mirth falling from my face as I saw a…a shadow I guess, a shadow that was too pale to be a shadow. They were too far away for me to see clearly, but I knew deep down it was someone witnessing my phenomenal fuck-up (and oh god were they there long enough to see me flailing in the air like an idiot--?). I rolled to my feet as fast as I could, to face this stranger and convince them that they should just turn their ass around and leave me the fuck alone. [WC:703 PC: 0/3 Location: Frostbreath Steppe, night-fall. Clear moonless sky and soft, powdery, new-fallen snow. Patches of ice underneath. For @[Thranduil]! Limited Timeline!] |
[JUDGED] '88 Cutlass
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Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
05-23-2015, 01:17 PM
Thranduil
Now this was better. The golden was walking in the freezing snow, wandering back from the cliffs not feeling a damn thing. He wasn’t thinking of black and white memories, nor livid color nightmares. Not even the harrow feelings of an empty chest gutted his whole body. He was walking in the snow, numb but the first of winters cold, and he finally felt good. The golden had risen from attempts at sleep this night with a great frustration. Each nerve had bristled with anxiousness, and legs sizzled with a readiness. He couldn’t stand it, the mountains of the valley seemed like walls, holding him in. The golden was ready to get out, get away, and move on. Haldir even, feeling at the last touches of horror slipping away, was happy to get out of the dark cave and followed. His love was always the stars above, and was always ready to venture under them. What lead them here was a last goodbye of sorts to the rocky road this season had brought. The gold was leaving it all behind. Here in the northern most reaches he could feel at last winter’s coming winds, and they numbed him. Here he could breathe, the cold making his mind as slick as the ice already forming under the snow. It freed him, he could think once more as he should. Was this the reality though or some glorified pep talk full of lies? While the golden walks, feeling this cleansing by the numb cold, was he pulling this all from his imagination? So many dark days had passed in this season. Can you really just walk out the door and ignore so much a part of yourself? The golden man can. It might have been a sinful lie, dooming him from ever living out what he truly desires, but like a drug, he couldn’t help it, it felt so damn good. It felt good to be numb, even If it was a figment of his imagination. It felt so good to walk about this world without a care. Of course, as much as he had hoped to ignore it, this land held more than numbing cold. How long ago was it since he had been here? Weeks? Months? The distances were a blur, but the memory this land threatened to destroy all the gold’s wonderful pep talk was not. There, farther down she lay, the mare who died of a broken heart. Somewhere, near the bottom of is satchel, there still rested a grey feather. So even while he had turned at recognizing where he was to head back, trying as he might to talk himself above it, the golden’s spirit was fragile. Time was precious, and he could not sit around and wait. Coming from where the place the gold seized upon the idea that he needed a distraction. Boy, did he get a good one. Thunders of hooves drew the golden up from where he walked, and Haldir, who had been trailing behind came forward. A figure of white and black flew low from the dark night, harks flip back ready for attack. The figure was not flying, it was falling, and it skids in the grand display. In a most welcomed surprise, especially to himself, the golden laughs. Such a sound he had not made since Tallsun, and like an electric shock to his body it light up lights and energy not found since before the invasion. Haldir even looked up with forward ears and a smile to hear his bonded make such a sound. Now this really felt good. Laughing at another’s expense was a forgotten past time, and he relished the entertainment from this place. A shout snarls through the dim dark of this moonless night and the gold’s grin turns into a wicked smirk. Oh, so this is the game they wanted to play? The golden was a quick tongue, so ready for a distraction, so ready to move, and act. After so many days of slow and low moods, his adrenaline and wit were quick and ready for the draw. “A hilarious joke.” The shadows between them hid a great deal, but he was already sizing up the other. A distraction, and a call to action, yes, that felt right. From the scare of attack before his body was ready, taunt and gearing to let loose. He reaches back, pulling off cloak and satchel, though grabbing a pole from the pouch. “Looks like you need some more lessons eh twinkle toes?” It was cocky, vain, and arrogant tongue, and it felt so good to spit those insults like they didn’t come with a price tag. OOC :: Man I tried so hard to work him up to the first attack in this, but I just couldn't make him aggressive enough, so the first one's yours. =] ATK:: 0/3 WORD:: 780 Items:: Circlet, polearm (Just took off his golden cloak and satchel) Identities:: Ampere, Cashmere Injuries:: None Summary:: Thranduil, startled by Roskuld, throws out a taunt, then taking off his cloak and satchel shows he's ready for a distraction from his past few troubles. "Speech" The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Feel free to use any force/magic on Thranduil, short of killing him. Please tag in every post. Ask Thranduil any question in the world, he'll be forced to answer on his profile. PM with your question.
05-31-2015, 02:05 AM
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
06-02-2015, 11:52 AM
Thranduil
Hot breath, like the waking of a dragon, began to roll through the air like steam. The golden’s mind began to spin, whirling out those old thoughts and aches. It felt so fucking good. Teeth trigger the blades on the pole, lashing them out threateningly. His grip on the pole hid the smile that surely grew his lips, but you could still see it in his eyes. The gold sparked in them like reactors of electricity, blazing up in a fire of delight. The world was no longer dark, dead, and frozen. There was life here, and they were fighting for it. It was as beautiful as it was deadly. Though the darkness hid many warning about his opponent, it did not hide the size. Short, but full grown. This wasn’t going to be a play date, but instead a battle to wound and bend the knees. With his crown of thorns and sharps blades the gold felt no quiver in his heart. They were not his strongest weapon though. Oh no, that resided inside. His pride saw all things with a master’s view. Look at that little short clutz tripping over ice yet trying to stand ten feet tall. Hear how it dares wake a dragon. This is no lion and thorn, this is a damn dragon, and blades do not so easily pierce him. Feel how good the faster pace is, with adrenaline reminding you, you are alive, and powerful. Power was pride’s brother in his breast, and it suckled from the same mother. Since the invasion it had starved on emotional trappings and weakness, but this, this was something it knew, and could control. Oh yes, pride and power saw and spoke the gold up till the menial phrase the other spit was a seriously thrown strike at his chest. But he was not alone. A dark figure shifts beside him, and crowned head snaps over. Haldir looks back at him, with pale eyes seeming like two moons in the night. Though the gold would never admit it, there was a moment of tension as he looked on the still bareheaded deer. He was worn and innocent in this matter, leaving in him a state the golden hated to name, vulnerable. His harks pin back, but his mouth full of the leather bar he could not speak. It frustrated him all the more. A hoof lifts and shoves the dark body towards the heap of items he had thrown off. Bleating the deer takes it as a serious offense, pinning his own large ears, ready to protest, but he never gets the chance. A flash of brilliant white light whips across the two. Reeling in the deeper darkness of the light’s extinguishment, Haldir stumbles down by the cloth, stunned. The golden was ablaze. The blindness and lack of harm did not stop him from turning back straight with the wrath of a wounded dragon. How dare The golden, forgetting he too had not an honorable bone in his body, cried out a rawr of war. Voice hisses after, “Anduial,” and the armor, alive with his energy, unfolds over him with a silent snap. There was no concealment or stealth. He was enraged! Of course, he was also still slightly blind. The world was full of dark shadows outlining mountains and rocks with the little cretin hiding among them. Pace then started off slow at a jog, armor making not a sound. In hindsight the pace might have saved him the slip on the ice, for the rat’s hard learned lesson had not been his own. A few paces out shadows define, and the half white body stands out. A snarl slips through the bar like a growl, and the he quickens, rolling up into a canter. Hooves, cloven and practiced in the conditions, do not reach far, concentrating on their balance. He might not be fully wary of the ice, but his instincts were trained. Teeth, practiced, roll the bar, and mechanism triggers the blades in. All that seemed to bore towards the still shadowy figure were the five horns, but also, hidden, were the spikes about his neck. All they needed to come alive was an impact, and the golden aiming to give it. Body shifted a little to the right so his left shoulder could take aim. Head twists and lifts, ready to slash down upon the barrel of the still dim figure. It would be a whirl of blades, if the darkness and ice did not set fate against him or his pride make his steps too rash. The flames may have woken him from his depressed slumber but they could easily burn him in their vigor. OOC :: @[Roskuld] ATK:: 1/3 WORD:: 800 Items:: Circlet, polearm (closed at the end) Identities:: Ampere, Cashmere Injuries:: None Summary:: Turned to push Haldir away, the light of Roskuld's attack enrages him and temporarily blinds him to the night. He turns back and slowly charges, gaining speed only when shapes are clearer. Thranduil aims to strike Roskuld's left shoulder with his collar, and slash with his horns. "Speech" The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Feel free to use any force/magic on Thranduil, short of killing him. Please tag in every post. Ask Thranduil any question in the world, he'll be forced to answer on his profile. PM with your question.
06-07-2015, 11:07 PM
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
06-20-2015, 09:39 PM
Thranduil
Fire at last lashed outward and the wrath found target in soft flesh. A howl drowns in the golden’s pinned ears with the sound of success as his own body is slung from its path on impact. The metal collar, sings out its fangs, but does nothing to protect the gold’s chest from the blow. Like a wallop of metal it crashes into him, pushing his body out of the controlled collection. In the heat of the flames, deep inside his breast, a laughter rolls for a second. A wicked twist of his soul celebrated the feeling of blood pounding hard against his chest and cold, numbing action of spilling blood. This was not blood lust though, but something more selfish. It was a breath of fresh air. It was intoxicating almost for it empowering. A marathon after days of bed rest. He was powerful. No longer a passive face to the hells around him but an active force fighting back. The moment’s triumph did not last long. Jerked by the impact and his body lost its controlled steps. Cloven hooves now being pushed were jerking for balance could not be as careful and the icy patch which had left the other stranded was gleaming below the gold. Hooves slipped, ripping his blades from the other, and sending a spear of panic through his prideful smile. They stammer to keep from the ground. Tipping back and forth and sliding like a foolish foal he manages to stay up only for a moment longer, before his hinds, in effort to move under him to stop, slip and he is left sitting on his haunches coming to a sliding halt. There was not much time to process. No time to rage or plan. Lightening in make and speed strikes quick. A flash, the same as before, whips over his head, only this time it also singes across his shoulders. Had he not dropped his hips or head to balance, the blow could have been much worse, not that that was any comfort now. Like being sliced with a blade of fire the strike takes his breath way so much that the poll in his mouth clatters on the rock and ice. Everything screamed. It sizzled through his body with volts echoing on his nerves, but the top of his shoulders burned. He was frozen for a moment, the laughter within silenced by the knife of pain. Agony, panic and despair wells within him, revealing the fragility and illusion of his resolve and knocking on the door of all those helpless agonies of the season. But he was not done and dead. He was alive. Feeling came back to him of a body still in high speed. The brush of pain triggering reactions common to mortal souls of faster heart and breath. Searing needles pricked as he rose his hind up. His mind flooded with a mash of thoughts, tumbling together what were controlled and separate storylines before. It was hard to understand the source which he pulled from. He was angry for the hit, and to feel physical pain. It was yet another wound compounding upon the season’s agonies. Look here, said he, at the world trying to knock him in the back. Look how it bites and stings. This though he could fight. There stands the maker he could serve revenge upon. The golden would show that little runt that this season’s woes would not conqueror him so easily. With a wild fire now brimming in his eyes, and not a second lost from standing, he reaches for the pole dropped, triggering it open. The blades flash out menacingly and he slowly, with withers pricking and stinging, turns to face the other. As spars always seemed to find him the blind rage had taken over. His well laid plans tossed from the window, and at the risk of himself he would wound the other. Front half leaps forward onto the ice sheet he had slid on as he locates the other. Under the snow it was impossible to tell if the ice continued to the black and white or not but he would reach it all the same. Hinds push off the rocks and his front slides, in a controlled chaos and like a reining horse, slides with force across the ice. The spikes on his collar still threatening, horns ready, but now also the double blades ready. He was a sliding suicide bomber, willing to knock himself down, if only to knock the other too. And if the ice did not reach, his legs were more than propelled to finish the distance. Withers needling with pain affirms his war chant, he would show fate he was not as helpless as the season sought to render him. OOC :: "Speech" OOC :: @[Roskuld] I MADE IT IN TIME --so sorry for the wait...again ATK:: 2/3 WORD:: 796 Items:: Circlet, polearm Identities:: Ampere, Cashmere Injuries:: A several inch long burn on the top of his shoulders (from lightening), and later a bruise on his rump Summary:: Thranduil looses control at impact and slips on the ice. Sliding away he lands on his rump as Roskuld's lighting whips across his withers. Feeling the pain of the season's woes he pushes that to Roskuld and turns to leap back on the ice and slide into him, blades and all. The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Feel free to use any force/magic on Thranduil, short of killing him. Please tag in every post. Ask Thranduil any question in the world, he'll be forced to answer on his profile. PM with your question.
07-27-2015, 09:05 PM
Roskuld defaults to Thranduil. Thranduil earns 0.5 VP.
Helovia Hard Mode
09-12-2015, 07:51 PM
By my verdict: THRANDUIL is the winner!
ROSKULD Realism [1] Post Two: No damage taken from her critical miss. You take damage from Thran’s attack, but not from your own attack that should have hurt you. You did take a lot of damage from Thran's attack for it being a roll of 2—but I think it is because you are rolling your critical miss in with the damage meant to be from Thranduil, which shouldn’t be the case. Post Two: “He sailed by my left side, his charge carrying him passed my mutilated body” – Powerplay. Thranduil is not described as attempting to still run past Roskuld, so you cannot say that he did that. In this moment, the only way for him to be passing Ros is actually for Ros to be passing him by moving away. Post two:: “but when he slammed into me spikes appeared, fucking spikes lining his collar, teeth and teeth and teeth everywhere,this fool was dripping in them—and one stabbed into my skin” -- This is also slight powerplay. While Thranduil describes what the collar is capable of, and how it works, only he can determine whether or not that happens. Overall, you made some good mentions of the terrain and used it to both help and hinder Roskuld throughout the fight. However, I would like to see more breed and stat differences--especially at this point where Roskuld has been in her fair share of scuffles. She should know how her strengths and weaknesses are against someone else's. Emotion [2] I liked Roskuld’s confusion and concern about Thranduil having a lot items. I also really like the way she interacts with her companion—there is a lot of connection through their bond that the reader can see through your words without filling it with dialogue! She is a very diverse character when it comes to emotion, and it is nice to see her transform throughout the fight from anger to panic. In post two, this is beautiful: "...something base and instinctual gripping me instead of a calculated mindset that I associated with battlerage. I shot that wave of lightning at him, forgetting momentarily that it had been a failed tactic—I just wanted him gone at that point. The anger I had been feeling had started devolving into a panic, a blind fear..." Prose [3.5] Overall, no grammatical errors were made and you stayed true to a unique style of writing that helps a reader connect with your character's personality. I enjoyed reading your posts! Readability [1.5] Post One: “… being done with this banter and being sick of looking at his smug ass” – This sentence was hard to read, and I had to read it a few times. What made it hard was the “being done” part, as it is a passive voice statement in an active voiced prose. Post two was much easier to read and comprehend than the first post. Finally tally: 50+(8*2)= 66 HP ******************************************* THRANDUIL Realism [3] Thranduil has a lot of items, and these items are sometimes hard to write in battle because they are not intrinsically realistic to horse fighting. You were creative in using them, but parts were a little hard to understand. Especially when his items could have helped him! Or hurt him! For example, in post two he has his armor on, but there is no mention of it when he takes damage. How does the armor help or hinder him? In post one, Ros rolled a miss. While the attack was a miss, it is still your job to determine how your character evaded it. Why did the lightning not hit Thranduil? Did he move? Simply you write that no damage was taken—but why? In your post, it seemed that you merely brushed this off. You made some good use of the terrain to have it impact Thran in this fight, but in the future I would like to see him consider the breed (and stat) differences between him and his opponent. Emotion [2] Thranduil's personality really shines through. He is a proud stallion and is offended when Ros strikes at him with lightning--perfect! “…This was not blood lust though, but something more selfish. It was a breath of fresh air…He was powerful. No longer a passive face to the hells around him but an active force fighting back.” :: I also loved this bit in post two (despite the hard to read part in the middle) because it gave Thran a real purpose to continue this fight outside of the typical emotions we see: anger, bloodlust, etc. and stayed true to him. Prose [3] Post One: :: rawr of war = roar of war :: and the he quickens = and then he quickens Post Two: No mechanical errors. As a whole, be careful to watch your tenses. You have a tendency to slip back and forth between past tense and present tense. Make sure to read carefully over your posts. Readability [1.5] Post Two: “It was intoxicating almost for it empowering” – This sentence was hard to interpret, and still I am not quite sure how to correct it--I feel that maybe there is a missing word in there somewhere. Finally tally: 69+(9.5*2)= 88 HP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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