She had stopped fighting to win a while ago. What even was winning, at this point? Had there ever even been a time when that was a possibility for her. Certainly not with him. Ampere had been losing to Gaucho the moment they first met, and every meeting there after continued to tilt the score in his side, no matter how thin the chalk got or how hazy the line, his wall was marked up, and the bar was closing. That had never really mattered to Ampere though, and maybe it should have because it generally seemed to hurt less when you won, but it still hurt, one way or another. Still, it didn't, matter that is. Whether it was that reckless abandon inside of her, like she was a storm trapped inside of a horse, or just a horse born in a storm, whatever it was it carried her through life like a good warm thermal. She couldn't just stop and fold her wings, because you never just quit when you're gliding on a thermal, you ride it out until it's done, and then you find another.

That was life for Ampere. She was riding out the fights, all hot air and broken chalk. Whether you won or you lost didn't really matter because either way you died; so all you had to do was survive. Ampere knew she could survive a fight with Gaucho, just like she knew she couldn't win a fight with Gaucho. She wasn't so sure she could say the same for fights without Gaucho though, and maybe that's all it was in the end. Fuck the chalk board and the sloppy score drunks kept in the night, Ampere just wanted those moments with him. She was preaching about freedom because he had trapped her, somewhere in that heat of his gaze and the folds of his coat, he had taken her; her had become her thermals.

Fuck him for that.

So that's why Ampere threw out those punches, and those bites, whether or not it was Gaucho she was hitting or just a rock wall, she had to take those hits because it was really all she had. It wasn't like Confutatis wasn't important, but Ampere didn't like to face the things inside of herself because that wasn't a battle she was so sure she could survive, and she definitely couldn't win it. So whenever she had to it was easier to pretend it was someone else, something else, that she was really fighting with. Maybe that was why she liked the ocean so much, it never stood still long enough for her to catch a glimpse of herself in the water. The ocean was constant, and it was tough, and it hit the sand day in and day out, so Ampere would do the same. Gaucho and his ascension and his height and his muscles be damned, she would not balk in his shadow, would not let him control her. Because the ocean cannot fear the beach and it's vastness of strength, else the tides would stop rolling.

She hit him. Over and over she hit and bit him, and he stood there like the fucking beach taking every wave. It was worse because of that, because she could feel in this instance that he was holding her, supporting her like she needed help standing. Another line of chalk dragged down the board, dusty and crooked.

They could have gone on, except those fangs came fast and hard; a blur Ampere's eyes only recognized when she'd already been bitten. It felt like liquid fire was injected inside her body, and if she'd ever thought she'd burned before, this was much worse. She was sinking (into a burning ring of fire) - he was sliding away. She popped off him with his push, just avoiding the spines, but not the kick. Her step stumbled as he jostled her right hind leg, a bruise imminent, though dwarfed by the continual thread of lava her heart pushed deeper into her body. It made things, blurry, and it made them... slow. Was that the word?

Fuck. She was losing again, wasn't she? She flailed in response, her body bucking at the venom. Her neck convulsed, swinging like a giraffe for his left side as he lingered close. She stomped her left foot, splash, nowhere near him, then her right front, splash, possibly scraping down his front leg. Then she was falling towards him because her balance had gone - what even was balance any more. In a delayed response her wings flicked out to catch her, the right one buffeting by Gaucho, but he was too close for it to do much but tickle probably.

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A: 4/4
D: 0/1
W: 798/800