It smells like someone left their dinner to rot, doesn't it?

Hissing. Horrible, horrible hissing. It follows the hunter like the sleet and the shadows. He hides from the weather under nature's heavy cloak but the sounds of darker, more sinister beasts are still there. They whisper into his ears, they are naughty, wheedling things.

Colt, is that you, colt? The voices snort and snuffle; Knox sees faint flashes of them in the dark, feels them behind his eyes as if they are scratching and clawing. They are a bad rash, a venereal disease that's traveled far north and turned the features of even the beautiful into sour, disgusting things.

Though he is the hunter, he does not appear as himself. He tosses his head to the side, shaking it first left then right, and Huric's beautiful silken mane is what follows with every violent thrash. And the smell, the smell....
 
He eats meat no more, she says quietly, wantonly. With a pained cry the hunter looks for her, pink eyes wide with the mad desire that is loneliness.

Manhattan? he thinks, the words seeking out a bond no longer tethered, the emotion left hanging on the end of a shredded thread. He is sad and desperate, his rose coat still shivering and wet from the sleet he has escaped from. Manhattan... please... empty words, spoken as he hopes for broken promises to mend themselves. Come back, he begs, coughing as the stench of a rotting corpse (where is it? Why can't he find it, with a nose so attuned to prey and the hunt? Is it under his very hooves, sinking into decomposition beneath the leaf litter and frost? Why can't he find it, it should be here, it should be between his lips, cradled around his similarly rotting heart...) tickles the back of his throat.

Hmmm... has he not considered ghosts? They have followed him his whole life, should he not be looking for them now? a few imps speak in unison, their voices growing louder despite the distance between here and the old country, despite the haunted miles between that ruined castle and the hunter who walks alone now.

He is the ghost, Huric responds with a morose sort of duty in his tone. The mind of the body, the mind of the dead now falsely risen, speaks louder than all others. In the distance, over the faint sound of the cold rain, Knox hears a crack in the woods. Is it thunder or the shattering of bones? A ghost or an opponent, an enemy, or... her?

He sees a shape, too large to be the one he wishes for, and a snarling neigh claws itself out from his throat. "WHO DARES ENTER THIS GRAVE?" The question rings out in the dark like an accusation as the hunter's eyes strain for clearer vision and his ears pin back with disgust. "FIGHT ME OR BE GONE, SHADE!"

""

amaris

dragonborn

Haunting melodies, midnight rays, and a stench that spoke of a life once lived, a life once filled with unlimited potential, possibilities - a life ended, a life forfeit. Dragonsblood flowed through the veins of the creature who walked these woods, and dragon's senses dissected all the stories that were woven into the breeze that twisted between the bent and broken branches of the Deep Forest. It had become something of a home to the belle - its darkness offered her some security even as it delivered her with terrifying visions and excruciating nightmares.

FIGHT ME OR BE GONE, SHADE!

It was a booming challenge, a monstrous idea, and yet the queen dragon within Amaris rose up to meet it, to greet it, to welcome it. The dragonmare was wandering, not lost but nor had she found anything of interest - until now. Golden hues, muted to silver in the midnight cast of the forest, shimmered as they moved with svelte litheness and athleticism beneath the dark canopy. The queen looked for her challenger and saw nothing, so she looked with her other senses - and tasted the death and rain on the wind, but mingled in with that - stallion.

Fear excited her, the nerves that connected her limbs to her barrel seemed to enable her to float across the leafy loam below - but she held her wings close to her sides as she moved, for it would not do to bend and break one against a trunk or limb of a great timber that grew in these parts.

"I am here," her voice, though not booming, was firm, and laced with confidence she didn't necessarily completely believe in, replied to the stallion's challenge. Ever the martyr however, Amaris could not lay down the first strike against this unknown one, despite his challenge, despite the death that laced the air and the tension he generated with his booming presence. "And I will stay here, unless you make me leave," she replied with her own challenge, her own voice penetrating the silence of the night with tones that were steady and quietly spoken, but also stubborn, laced with a determination only the queen within her held - but that queen was who was in charge this evening.

That queen would write her history in the blood of her fallen prey.

---

@Knox
0/3 attack posts
391 words
happy with all your terms, yipee Jen spar :D

sky above me — earth below me

and fire within me

The voice (for once not in his head) is defined by defiance. It makes Knox want to kill. However, Huric is not made for murder. He is the martyr, the bold brother who lived as he long as he could before fate took him too soon. Now that he commands breath and life again, how could he let it be ended on his watch?

Other voices teach Knox to control that desire. Hasn't it been so long since he's tasted blood? He has a son now, doesn't he understand that he cannot descend into fits of insanity? Stuck in the dark, the hunter paws at the earth with nervous energy and seeks the creature who dares remain. Don't they know how much he has lost?

How could they? is Manhattan's voice, is sorrow.

"Don't you know how much I've lost?" he calls, as if hoping he can still make her go. Is it Huric or Knox who tries to delay a fight? Huric's a warrior, Knox a thief, but it is Knox who wishes to strike. It is Huric desiring peace.

"You should have left," he calls again into nothing, into a quiet interrupted by the patter of the sleet on the roof of leaves. "I won't back down, I can't," Knox says, hearing the words echo inside. Isn't it true that he is beyond his own control now, so desperate to find success in means other than those already explored that he will try anything?

Knox is no warrior, he borrows the face of one now only to bolster himself in a time of need. He needs battle, he needs something to forget the pain of everything, to forget the total hurt that consumes his heart. Is there anything that remains? His one best friend dead, his lover gone, his son mute with grief, everything has collapsed around him. Even the dark betrays; how can he strike a distant enemy who is nothing but the occasional glimmer of low moonlight? Even this, Knox is not sure he believes. The light reflects like the shine of a dead snake killed moons ago by his companion. Surely no equine could give off such a glimmer.

This enemy must be a monster. Its voice is feminine but its vessel impossible to make out. Even the position is vague, hinted at only by sound partially covered by sleet. The smell of the corpse blocks out the monster's scent entirely; Knox can sense nothing of her that he cannot hear. Snorting, the hunter turns to the only thing he can rely on when all else has left him and failed: magic.

His blinding magic springs forth first as its typical trail of silver smoke. Let the moon's magic seek out the enemy, let him follow the pull and traces of it towards whatever body lies waiting. Second, he cloaks himself in shadow. He pulls it over himself like a blanket, taking comfort in its warmth and the idea that at least for a few moments, he cannot be seen. If he cannot be seen does he not exist? Perhaps he is alone, perhaps he is in a void of un-being. This is as he always has been, never here, simply floating...

No. You lived. You live. I've died.

Her voice, cutting through the dark, hurts. Knox shakes his head, trying to shed Manhattan's ghost and do as planned. Blind the beast, follow the trail of his own magic to find her, and do as he can under the cloak that hides. He must stay in control...

Pay attention, colt! shouts an imp, returning Knox to the pecking order of his youth. Yes, pay attention. He watches his blinding magic, hoping it leads him to the enemy, and follows it at as quick of a lope as his heavy body can muster on such short notice. Knowing little of his enemy Knox can make no attempts at aiming. He merely charges, hoping he is headed in the right direction at all and bracing his body for impact. Knox does all that he can. He's alone now, though, for one of the first times in his life and with a permanence that never before hurt him so. There is little he can do, like that.


""

amaris

dragonborn

Do you know how much I've lost?

The question rang, it echoed through the leaves, a challenge in its own right. Do you know how much I have? she wanted to reply, to shout to this demon of the deep forest, to rebutt and refute it - but she held her tongue silent, she didn't allow the words to leave the confines of her skull, for what was the use of an argument of words when one had decided their bodies would decide the outcome?

You should have left, it called again, and Amaris the mare agreed with its words this time - but Amaris the queen roared in defiance (and when she heard that this demon couldn't back down, the mare within sent her own silent plea in reply; neither can I).

If sunlight had shone upon her, and lit her up for all to see, she would have appeared more dragon than equine for once, though no scales had moved - merely her demeanour, her expression, her posture - Amaris had become the queen that her scales told the world she should be. Though her wings were tightly packed to her sides, she held herself with a ready poise, tension clear in the tautness of muscle and sinew just beneath her skin. The sun was not shining, so she was instead a muted beast, a wraith of the night, a majestic and terrifying creature created for destruction and death, destroying and conquering.

The Queen had risen.

Ears were pressed forward and eyes were bright and open - for the night was dark (and full of terrors - she was one of them) and-

- she was blind.

A sudden intake of air flooded her senses with nothing but death, her hocks quivered and buckled for a second, the surprise of the realisation that great, that confounding to her. It was so subtle, and yet so sudden, and so massively constricting - she was expecting something to happen, but not this, not the sudden, complete, total loss of her most precious sense. Hind legs trembled in readiness to turn a flee the scene, an instinct, a reaction to this insult, this slap in the face. But even if she had her vision, she would not have been able to make a hasty retreat, and besides, the onslaught had only just begun.

It was fortunate that her limbs had begun to lighten, in readiness for flight, for movement, though they never got the chance to execute said intentions. He came in silence, this shade, this demon of the deep forest, and the point of his chest collided harshly against her left hip, though the impact was absorbed by her already bent legs - she was pushed back, her hooves scrabbled in the undergrowth, a deep, resounding grunt echoed from within her barrel, and she was blind, I'm blind, I'm-

She shook her tiara, but it was no use, she couldn't shake the darkness that clogged her vision. She scrambled to get her feet beneath her, all the while her inner voice cried blind, I'm blind. Her feet found their purchase and her thoughts continued to churn. She couldn't see, and she couldn't hear him - all she could smell was the stench of death and all she could hear was the rush of her own breathing, the pounding of her own heart.

The Queen raged. She raged and cried and tormented herself - blind, I'm blind, she cried, she wailed. A deep snort rumbled through her nostrils, as her crown bowed to below the level of her chest. Her hip ached, her left hind limb did not want to bear weight completely anymore, but her tail still swung, long and dangerous - with a heavy flick, she extended the whip that was wrapped around its serpentine length. With another, she sent its stinging, burning length crackling after the area she surmised her foe had trekked. While she was physically able to complete the task, it did place further strain upon her injured hind - move, she encouraged herself, remembering croaked commands hastily given by the gladiator of her previous herdland.

So move she did, ambling and blind, shifting her position through the brush in the wake of her own attempted assault against her foe, a moving target in this midnight charade, this blind date, this challenge of demons clashing against one another for no purpose than to dance on the rooftop of hell's cavern below.

---

744 words
1/3 attack posts

sky above me — earth below me

and fire within me

The feeling of the hunter's chest (so hollow and aching but somehow still strong) pressing against her hip sings victory in his mind. In this fumbling dark any contact is a blessing, and any successful strike is a testament to skill.

But Knox's skill is unearned, perhaps even imagined. For when has he fought, save for in the days of his youth? Once, before his time, he was challenged. Knox was a child then, nothing more than a colt. Since he has murdered, but what sort of challenge is the destruction of the weak?

For the first time, the dark hunter fights the strong. He fights the strong when he is at his weakest, when he is alone and half his heart is empty. It beats hollow, and where once its even thumps were calmed by an echo they now land muffled in endless silence.

His shimmering and shadowy cloak fades when his body meets the enemy's, the brief moments of its effectiveness gone from this world of no comfort. Outside of that blanket the hunter is vulnerable; Huric's dark pink eyes roll and his young lips shine white with spittle. Knox presses on but speed has never been a strength of his. He has the power to wound with sheer collision and be more numb to the impact, but not the quickness to recover. Were he granted Huric's skill along with his form, perhaps he could have escaped--perhaps.

That, however, is not the case. It is no surprise then that the singing, sparking whip finds Knox with ease. It was a mistake for him to slow and look back, to shine his whites in this dim and try and find the traces of the monster in the dark. It is vision and touch that he hopes to rely on, with all scent masked and impossible to distinguish from death, but it is his dependence upon it that leaves him vulnerable.

Had Knox kept moving and found her some other way, he might have avoided the stinging bite of the whip. Instead it cracks, striking him square on the rump, just to the left of his ancestor's silken tail, and leaving an anxious burn that sends a cry out from betwixt his lips. His nostrils widen but do not inhale, the breath instead leaving his lungs in forced shock.

His mind, many minds, reel and contort. Press on, the martyred Huric demands. Press on.

It isn't advice, it's a command. There is no other option, Knox cannot give in. As much as he wishes, as much as the burn hurts and the cry cannot be contained, he must press on. Even in the dim light, the shimmering, silvery-gold of the whip cannot be missed. He follows its slim line like a beacon, chasing after its owner even as the burnt skin on his back rubs against itself and scratches at the inside of his flesh. The sensation is unique but not unfamiliar; his ancestors have felt this before.

Doing the best that he can in the dim, Knox lumbers after his opponent. The movements are not graceful, and with Huric's svelte body as his mask they seem uncharacteristically slow. They are not directed towards anything in particular, they seek only the last vision of the whip returning to the body that bears it. As moonlight fades from that patch of earth, so too do Knox's chances of striking.

If, though, he somehow succeeds, he might find himself back on her left and parallel to her form. Wherever he is, his proud head twists to his right and his ancestral white teeth--like fangs in their mercilessness--snap down, hopefully somewhere upon her flesh or even the same part of her hip he had bruised before.

There is nothing more that Knox wants, that Knox needs, than this fight. Surely there is no explanation, no justice or reasoning, but this is what the stallion must do. This monster's offense is so slight but its damage irreparable; he views her as a nemesis long hated and feared.

It's not her fault, that hate. His eyes roll and his breath is a heavy pant, his rump burns and his heart is an abandoned, fragile thing. His every manifestation of loneliness, of desperation, could not possibly be her fault. The hunter wants it to be, though. Everyone, especially the ancient and lost, needs someone to blame.

""

amaris

dragonborn

Blind, her mind kept screaming, as her eyes blinked uselessly, blind! it wailed, it cried into the darkness, as her tiara continued trying to shake the ailment away; but it would not budge. How long had she been handicapped so? How long would it last? Panic filled her - what if the last thing she was to ever see was the darkness of the night, the tall, thick timbers beside her, blocking her view from the stars and moon above?

No, she raged, even as she felt her whip meet flesh, as she heard the cry of pain its touch surely caused. Over her shoulder she threw a glance, but it was useless - her sight still had not returned, and she internally wailed all over again at the thought that it might never return. Amaris the Blind, Amaris the Fool, she berated herself, as she pushed herself painfully onwards. The strain on her hip was nearly unbearable - but to stop now would be to die, and this queen might be blind but she had no intentions of dying tonight.

If she could see what she was fighting, perhaps Amaris-the-Mare would have made herself run away, forced herself into the skies despite the coverage of branches and trees, as it was; she was blind, and utterly ruled by the prideful, vain queen within. There was no backing down, no bowing out of this - there was only blood-lust and survival of the fittest.

And Amaris-the-Queen would settle for nothing less than being the fittest.

A growl, deep and rumbling, crooned in her chest, as she knew that it was her ambling, lame gait that allowed the beast to catch her again. Try as she might to lean to her right, away from him, his snaking, savage attack still grabbed at the skin of her flank and pinched until it bruised, pulling back sharply to tear, rip, shred the sensitive skin. Amaris thought the night was cold, but as her warm blood trickled down her thigh, it felt like fire dancing down her flesh.

Fire, Amaris-the-Queen thought, and suddenly, there was fire burning through the very fibres of her soul - Amaris pulled on the magic of her being and then there was a very real, very red dragon-soul glowing. It came screaming and shimmering (though she was still blind to its beautiful existence), and it aimed itself directly for the monster's pinkish gaze, wanting to blind him, startle him with its bright brilliance.

It started at the edges, a soft glow, a hint, a whisper of a wish - her sight was returning - and she used the red soul's light to focus on, and celebrated internally its sheer, simple existence. Amaris kept her hindquarters turning to the right, away from where this beast, this cretin, had so savagely kissed her, so that her injured side was further away from him. It was a slow, inelegant motion, and during it, she called upon another friend, another soul from the great beyond, to return and aid her cause here this evening.

FIRE! the thought boomed through the pseudo-bond she created with the green that burst into life, swooping to attempt and position itself behind the hulking form of Knox, and spewed forth very real flames of dragonfire. It wanted to engulf the beast, to consume it and reduce it to ashes - and the queen within Amaris revelled in the sight of the fire, the feeling of it surging through her.

The stench of death was thick in her nostrils - the body of a badger laid to her right, but it only added fuel to the flames that burned, that raged on within the queen dragonmare. Nothing would stop her, nothing could contain her, not once she was awoken - and she was very much awake now.

---

635 words
2/3 attack posts

sky above me — earth below me

and fire within me

Funny that though it is the mare who has been blinded, it is Knox who cannot see.

In the dark that should be his home, the hunter has no idea what is coming. He is too emboldened by the purchase he makes on her flesh, too overwhelmed by that rush of pride. Is it his own or another's? Perhaps it is his father, for the first time witnessing his son sparring as a stallion. Perhaps it is Cem, silently smiling with tactical pleasure as Knox's teeth manage to take hold even as the stranger tries to peel away. Or perhaps it is Dovev, admiring hungrily as he watches his descendant rip the mare's flesh away in a bloody mess.

The many masks Knox has worn, the many minds he has let rule himself... all play the game, now. It is Huric that flings back Knox's head, and Zsoka's gleeful neigh that strikes haunting chords in the night. It is Dovev's bloodlust that licks the red from Knox's lips before letting them close over long-stained teeth. All of them ghosts but all of them so present, so enchanting, so alive.

Knox does not have the good sense to do as his enemy has tried to and move away. Too enthralled is he by the idea of striking again that he continues to press on, his legs pumping to chase after what is now just a memory of her position and sending him in useless, tight circles. With his size and condition he tires quickly and moves slowly, but with so little experience in the art of war it doesn't occur to the hunter that he should be still. His rump burns, a persistent and festering mess that seems to worsen the more he moves. Knox is too rash to stop and think if there is a connection. All he knows is the blooming bruise and the fire of where her weapon struck.

Before Knox can find her, before he can even try and see if he is close enough to strike, something red bursts onto the scene. The creature is a bold and glittering creation, coming from nowhere and filling Knox with rage. Even in the dark the descendant recognizes the scream of a dragon. Instinct turns his face away, and Knox bares only his right to the reptile but does not stop moving forward. How dare this stranger use a companion against him? Doesn't she know? The dark stallion knows how much it hurts, so why doesn't everyone else?

He wants to scream, to tell this stranger how much pain she causes him, but he is not quick enough to both move and form the words. Already as he tries to rush forth he feels exhaustion tugging on him, and the bite-mark left by her whip nagging. Besides, isn't her intention likely to hurt, even if not like this? So distracted is the hunter by these pointless and circuitous ruminations that he does not have the good sense to stop when confronted by the crimson soul the mare has summoned from seemingly nowhere. When the beast breathes fire, Knox is thrust too far forward by his inertia to avoid the flames.

The scream that comes next is unearthly. Heat brands the hunter, destroying features that he has for so long kept beautiful. Knox, so long spared from such physical pain, cannot find words for the hurt. It is unlike the breaking of his heart, but sharper in a way that it makes him feel where death makes him numb. The flames lick at his face, clawing the right side that he so foolishly bore to the creature, and he realizes with panic that the longer there is pain from the fire, the faster his sight begins to fade on his right.

How does it feel? a voice whispers, sounding satisfied as if it has hoped for so long that Knox would feel this pain.

"NO!" he cries as he shakes his head wildly, trying to fan the flames. It is with luck that he catches the glimmer of green, and out of a panicked adrenaline rush that he manages to keep moving. Desperate and ashamed, distracted by new hurt and haunted by the old, he throws himself to his right (what he remembers as her left) again, avoiding the second bout of flames, and hopes he can at the same time ram the mare with his side and press his blazing features against her. The flames still eat away at him, and he realizes with urgency that the smell of the rotting corpse has been overtaken by something far worse: the hideous burning of his flesh, and the blackening decay of his right eye. Knox knows nothing but the fire, can see nothing through the encroaching blackness of defeat.

""