the Rift


Grief Counselling | Iso v Abraham

Isopia the Mountain That Knows Posts: 780
Dragon's Throat Apostle atk: 6.5 | def: 10 | dam: 8.0
Mare :: Tribrid :: 18hh :: 3 - is now aging slowly HP: 90 | Buff: NUMB
Hubris :: Royal Bronze Dragon :: Shock Breath & Frost Breath & Babel :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath Odd
#1

[For Isopia, continued directly after this thread. Permission from Time for her to PP Abraham standing in her clearing.]

Emotional resiliency was not one of Isopia's strong suits, nor an aspect of herself that she worked on often. And so, as the two wicked winged fillies and their companions finally left her clearing, the dragon-body Isopia had cloaked herself in seemed to disappear off of her. It wasn't so much as a transformation back into her equine body, but more of a collapsing. Her large shoulders were hunched forwards, and her knees almost immediately touched the ground as soon as dragon claws gave way to hooves, for balance was the farthest thing from the demi-goddess's mind at the moment.

A sound resembling a sob left her lips as she finally released the breath inside of her chest that revealed just how emotionally vulnerable and wounded she truly was. Spittle dripped off of her maroon lips as her mouth remained open in a silent sob of anguish. Her golden eyes remained closed as her large wings wrapped around her half-kneeling body as if to shelter her from the world.

Coherent thought had all but left her, for her mind was too full of flashing images of the fillies, and how they and their companions dug up the grave of her unborn child. Her murdered child. Her last link to Volterra.

And, because emotional intelligence was also not Iso's strong suit, introspection would have revealed that she didn't actually know what she was feeling all these emotions about. Was it because her last tie to Volterra had been desecrated? Was it the potential of her secret being revealed? Or was it a mother's grief and anguish at seeing the body of her child so unceremoniously dug up?

Before the grieving demi-goddess could try and sort through the fog of images and emotions clouding her judgement, a soft voice penetrated her thoughts. Immediately Isopia's body tensed, for even though she rarely displayed emotional outbursts such as this one, she knew that Hubris would not have disturbed her without good cause.

>>Here again<< The dragonling whispered into her mind, and flashed an image of Abraham. Immediately Isopia's mind paired this with nearly an identical moment last Frostfall. Abraham had stood silently just outside of the ring of trees that separated her clearing from the thick forest around it, only then she had been burying her child for the first time.

That he was here to see her do it for the second should have been poetic, or a marker of some sorted fated intervention, but instead of seeing it that way, Isopia only saw red.

Her quad horned skull shot up from its place beneath her hooves on the grass and her wings splayed from her sides. Snot smeared across her shoulder as she forced herself to rise and spin, wanting to pin the bi-dragon accompanied stallion in place with her golden gaze. Isopia's nostrils flared with each hateful punctuated breath as the rage she had felt when she first found the fillies - before they had scurried away - bloomed once again inside of her. Tears still dripped down her cheeks, and while a few moments prior, hidden beneath her wings her tears had felt soothing, now they only felt misplaced. Somewhere in her incoherent mess of thoughts this was his fault. Sure it was. It had to be. He was the only one who knew about the burial. That was all the logic it took to lift the demi-goddess's hooves from the soft but dry ground, and send them galloping towards him.

She might have screamed something at him as she ran towards him, Why are you here, or this is all your fault, but her lips were as numb to the workings of her mind as her body was. The Mountain was moved by pure instinct and emotion, a dangerous combination in Isopia's case for she lacked any real control over either. She was a rational creature and a cold one, not the weepy, emotionally volatile mess she had

Likely she would have to add this unprovoked attack to her growing list of emotionally-fueled poor decisions.

Rather than reaching for her magic, the demi-goddess sought to feel her body against his. Abraham was a formidable opponent - she knew that from experience - and she did not expect his flesh to yield beneath hers. But she had grown since their last spar, both in size and in strength. Though she did not expect to beat him, she vowed she wouldn't end this spar on her knees.

Horns lowered, Iso aimed to collide her left shoulder with his, and to rake her horns down his neck if at all possible. She folded her wings flat against her sides to prevent unnecessary damage, which would likely prove to be one of the only intelligent decisions she would make for the next few minutes.



Spar with @Abraham !

Attack: 1/3
WC:797
Setting: Iso's hut/clearing. Midday. Tallsun.

Isopia
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
Image Credits

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Abraham Posts: 113
Absent Abyss atk: 4.5 | def: 8.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Hybrid :: 17.3 hh :: Three years HP: 71 | Buff: NOVICE
Gwyneverre :: Plain White Dragon :: Fire Breath & Brienne :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Frost Breath Time
#2


See I've come to burn your kingdom down

The last time Abraham had made his way into the Hidden Falls looking for his sister, he had stumbled upon something he truly did not want to see. Unfortunately, he stumbled upon the same damn thing a second time--except, somehow, this time was worse. Way worse.

The emotions coming from the large demi-goddess swirled in the air, making it thick and hard to breathe. Cold eyes looked on with knowing behind them. Abraham understood to a degree the sorrow that fueled Isopia's uncharacteristic outburst of anguish. The leviathan watched his father stand his ground, sobs racking his monstrous body as he stood above the dead body of his mother. He would never forget that scene. Abraham knew grief, if not from himself than from the others in his life.

Could the beast feel grief himself? Sorrow? Hopelessness?

He was not sure. He knew he could feel anger, offense, rage. Those emotions, however, were nothing compared to the unexplainable feeling the loss of a child brought--and to have lost that child over again, a second time, was nothing the behemoth could fathom.

He was at a loss, watching Isopia display her broken heart. He wanted to leave. Perched in the tree above him his dragons pulled to him, trying to get his tree-like limbs to move and for his body to turn away the way he had come. He did try to leave, but as he lifted a hind leg to begin his exit backwards, the woman's head shot up and her eyes landed straight on him. Abraham froze, unsure of what to expect from her. Would she let him leave, as he had done when the snow covered the earth and he saw the child's first burial? Would she chase him off, biting at his heels? He waited for a moment, a breath, a mere second before the decision was clear in his mind: Abraham would not come out of his scene without battle scars.

The grieving tribrid sent herself flying at him, and Abraham knew what he had to do. He was not a man to turn and run away from a fight, from any threat. Even as the sorrowful mother galloped at him with anger, the hybrid was prepared and ready to meet her head on. This was not their first fight, and Abraham knew this battle would be arduous and strenuous. Isopia was taller now, stronger, faster than she had been at the Flats in their first duel. Abraham, too, was older, wiser, stronger. Whether this growth was enough to bring him to victory today was unknown. The biting question was: did Abraham want to win? Of course, the surface of his heart and mind screamed that Abraham would always fight to be the victor--as he had with this woman before--but something deeper inside of him, some semblance of the understanding of the grief displayed before him, whispered that he merely needed to be her punching bag today.

Snorting, Abraham lowered his head and braced himself for impact. His twin, twisting horns pointed for the charging Isopia, and his dual colored eyes watched her body. He had been taught the art of battle well, and even as he stood on the defensive side of the line, he knew to prepare himself for an assault. His muscles tightened and a light bulb brightened at the slightest shift of Isopia's weight. Left, he thought to himself, shoulders coming forward and haunches tucking. Isopia was just an inch taller than him, the difference hardly noticeable despite the massive wings sprouting from her shoulders. Despite it, Abraham knew he was stronger than the woman. This upperhand in strength did not come without a handicap, however, and it was displayed as Isopia closed the distance between them much faster than Abraham himself could. With his plan placed firmly in his mind, he shot forward at the last second. His body turned slightly to bring his left shoulder forward, making Isopia's intended target clear to her. This target was not naked however, it was covered with his bone armor. Her assault was volatile; her horns raked down the left side of his neck, leaving two long wounds. Blood flowed from them and his twin dragons screamed with the pain Abraham would not let himself admit. Turning his neck would be hell for the remainder of his battle, however long it would be, and he knew that. Blood stained his dark hide as he turned his head in an attempt to bite at her own neck, pain stinging and screaming from his new wounds.

Spikes aimed for Isopia's charging left shoulder, and as she made impact against him Abraham grunted, shifting backward some in the dirt from the force of her impact.  


[PC: 1/3 | WC: 788 (wordcounter.net) | LET'S GO.]



Image Credits

Holy water cannot help you now
Thousand armies couldn't keep me out
I don't want your money
I don't want your crown
See I've come to burn your kingdom down


pixel by tamme

Isopia the Mountain That Knows Posts: 780
Dragon's Throat Apostle atk: 6.5 | def: 10 | dam: 8.0
Mare :: Tribrid :: 18hh :: 3 - is now aging slowly HP: 90 | Buff: NUMB
Hubris :: Royal Bronze Dragon :: Shock Breath & Frost Breath & Babel :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath Odd
#3

Isopia, who did in fact believe in a certain kind of fate, might have appropriately reached out with her mind, to thank her Father, the universe, or some infinitely larger deity who may have interfered, had she been thinking clearly. How else could she have evaded the spikes protruding from Abraham's armor? Skeptics might have chalked it up to the slender shoulders she had inherited from her mother's thoroughbred lines or the fact that probability dictated that because there were spaces between the spikes it was possible to luckily evade them. But what a boring explanation that would have been - much better to think that perhaps some lesser god somewhere who ruled over the broken-hearted and scorned lovers of the world, was on Isopia's side.

The demi-goddess rebounded to the right, relishing the satisfying pressure against her left shoulder as she shoved Abraham back. Had she not been running straight for him that feat would likely not have been possible, for despite her (slight) height advantage, he was built much more thickly than she was, regardless of her draft-heritage. Her cape fluttered behind her as she skirted around one of the many trees that ringed her clearing. She expected to feel tugging on that cape (she had heard the snap of teeth behind her), or to feel some sort of attack on her retreating backside. But there was ...

nothing.

The moment of gladness due to the success of her attack that had pierced through the mental fog of pain she felt, was quickly replaced by more anger - though of a different variety. The deathly-mask that marked Isopia's face became a snarl as her lips peeled back from her teeth. He was playing with her. Her attack (and his lack of defense) replayed in her mind. He had allowed her to run right at him. He hadn't moved or balked, but merely absorbed her attack and subsequent horn-scratching without complaint. His dragons (she had just remembered them), had done nothing, and yet during their previous spar, it was the dragon queens who had taken centre stage. 

Furious that she was being robbed of a reasonable outlet through which to express her anger, Isopia forced her body to skid to a stop. Her hooves crunched loudly on the dead grasses, scorched by Tallsun and the wildfires that it had brought to the Falls. She awkwardly cranked her head around, allowing her larger body to clumsily pivot after it, glaring at the golden stallion all the while.

"Don't you patronize me!" She roared, the normal academic cadence of her voice breaking and wavering, as if yelling wasn't something she did often. Childishly (for I'll remind you, Isopia was robbed of a childhood due to the genetic speed-aging she experienced), The Mountain groped for her magic. She seized upon the earth around her, forming it into three misshapen lumps. These she directed towards Abraham, meaning to pelt him with earth and whatever stones might have been enveloped inside, just like a child on the playground. 

"Fight back!" She screamed, her voice wafting after the lumps of earth she had thrown his way. 

Hurt me! Hurt me so that I can't think about the one who hurt me before-



Attack: 2/3
WC: 534
Setting: Iso's hut/clearing. Midday. Tallsun.

Isopia
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
Image Credits

Blu the Bootyful Posts: 443
Administrator atk: 99 | def: 99 | dam: 99
Mare :: Other :: 5'7" :: 25 HP: 99999 | Buff: TWERK
Blu
#4
Abraham has exceeded the time limit and defaults to Isopia. Isopia earns 0.5 VP.
 HP: 1100

Helovia Hard Mode


Forum Jump:


RPGfix Equi-venture