Their teeth hit their mark, etching bloody furrows into innocent white flesh; they taste the blood of the condemned. Their bloodlust drives them, lends their tired bones strength, and white-fur-black-mind's hooves whistle past their ears as they dart to the left and out of the way.

But then they are not them anymore. They become she and he as their consciousnesses part and Nyx's mind slips out of the warm haven of her lion's head, back into the sizzling cesspit of her own. 

She wishes it hadn't. She is still agony incarnate, living fire haunted by ice, but it slowly, painfully, begins to fade. She is alive, her knees skinned and ruined and her veins tingling like electricity, and her relief is palpable. The rawness in her throat and the ringing in her ears make her realise she was screaming, and God, that is embarassing. But her memory from Dominus' mind tells her that Mauja was not entirely unaffected either - did he say her name, a benediction on his lips, or is that her imagination? Does he care? Is there a beating heart beneath all that ice?

But fuck him. She can reassure him that she's alright later. The fight is still on, and she is still in-character. He is still the enemy, and now he's the enemy that erupted living ice in her veins, the bastard. Her eyes flash as she forces herself to channel her anger, as she lets that anger own her. If this was a real fight, she would not drop to her knees and submit like a dog kicked by its master - iron does not bend. If this was real, her pain would only spur her on, drive her to destroy the intruder at whatever cost. Protect the Edge, or die trying.

So she unfurls her bloody knees and readies her battered soul for one final assault. Through frothing lips she drags in heaving breaths, her sides sweaty and heaving despite the frigid air. There he is, standing uncertain, his ears lost in his mane - uncertainty kills. Nyx does not allow herself to hesitate, does not allow herself to relent. When all this is said and done, when their wounds are healed and their apologies said, she wants Mauja to be proud of her for not giving in. He wanted her to let herself go, and she has. Let him know she is a warrior to be relied on. "Don't stop," she hisses, her eyes wild, her head thrown back like a rapturous lover. "We're not finished."

Dominus retreats to the bushes, hissing and gleaming crimson in the weak moonlight, tense and tight and feral. His part is done; she bids him to hide away, so she will be able to focus fully on this final charge without worrying for his welfare. Her heaving frame lunges forwards,  and she wants to gallop, but she can't - her knees won't bend properly, and each movement makes fresh blood pour from the cuts. She settles for a collected canter, conserving what little energy she has left; her strides are short, because they hurt less. Her stormy gaze locks on her nemesis, the enemy, him with the owls and the ice and the menace, and she aims to approach him head-on, face-to-face, sword to sword. What better way to try and show him that she isn't scared? Even though she is.

Now it's time for him to suffer her magic. At the last moment before they would surely collide, she throws her weight to the right, her feet slipping and slaloming on dew and frost alike as she thrusts out her left shoulder. She reaches down, caresses the nub of magic within her, and draws a thin sheet of ice across her entire body. See? I have it, too. Electricity sizzles across the ice that encases her like an insect's carapace, and she aims to slam her left shoulder blade into the outside-front of Mauja's left shoulder. She attempts to crush her fizzing body against his own, so close they could be lovers, to try to cause a colossal bruise on his shoulder whilst also hopefully causing him to get shocked by her ice. Perhaps shards of charged ice will break off and stab into his tender spotted flesh - perhaps he will bleed for her.

Her head aims to flick to the left, trying to slide her horn up the skin just behind his left foreleg. She doesn't attempt to go too deep - although the temptation is there, the tantalising urge to cut and ruin - but she does hope to leave a stinging rebuke etched into him, a memento, a trophy.

Don't play with lightning, Ice King.

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NYX USES VOLT TACKLE

3/3 - 781 words