Archibald moved fluently and like a tidal wave, powerful body crashing forward to swallow everything in his path. Locket moves forward like a bird, body quick and sharp, and rears to defend himself. Archibald’s blunt teeth grasp mostly air, but he feels the attack hit the smaller male’s shoulder and his head clicks with one point of success and, like the machine he is trained to be, moves on to his next plan of attack. Feathered hooves slam to the ground and his legs splay some, balance shifting while his weight shifts, and the Chief slams his body hard to the left. His intent, all focused on his greater weight and height than the Arabian Locket, is to knock the panda-marked stallion off balance. As the behemoth’ weight moves rapidly and strongly to the left, Locket’s teeth grasp onto the thickly muscles part of his rump, closer to the hip join than anything else. With pinned ears and arched neck, Archibald turns his head sharply to snap his jaws on Locket’s own rear, but misses as the chestnut slips away with rapid speed.

The fleeing action of the emerald eyed stallion gives Archibald time to turn and face his opponent, golden eyes locked onto the prancing Arabian as they both turn to face each other. Gears turn in Archibald’s head, rolling over and calculating possible moves. Behind all of his machine like actions and thoughts, Archibald is glad Locket is keeping his cool and keeping his attacks shy of bloodthirsty. None of Archibald’s past opponents had displayed the same type of foal-like love for sparring that Locket did. Each one of his brothers, all manipulated to be cold killers, were emotionless and forward in battle. And although they practiced in the same manner throughout their lives, none of the Mandrake sons could help the carnal desire (or, what they thought to be the carnal desire) of bloodshed and often left great wounds on each other if not stopped. Even Romani, a mare that shared a similar desire to Locket’s of learning and protecting, was hard to keep controlled. Locket, on the other hand, seemed to thrive off of the spar with joy and exuberance, his prancing movements painting the picture loudly.

Locket advances towards Archibald once more, his prancing trot high and fluid, and the Dauntless rolls back his weight to center on his back end. Locket, though in a fluid trot, meets Archibald’s front in perfect time and sends dainty hooves poking for the right side of the Dauntless. With his weight focused backwards, his pillar like hinds bend underneath him and his front hooves leave the security of the muddy earth. His rear is low and balanced, muscles tight to keep him aloft. Dirty, feather covered hooves strike out towards Locket’s right humerus.



[WC: 465 | 2/2 | Archibald goes into a low rear and strikes out to hit the front part of Locket’s shoulder, i.e the humerus.]


**Edited to add OOC commentary**

Firstly, my favorite thing you did, was clearly display Locket’s inexperience in sparring; not exactly in his skills, but his actual lack of spars. It probably won’t get you points on the rubric, because I believe that is for only mentioning previous spars, but if it was my decision I’d give you a point. I like it for that fact, mostly, it gives Locket /reason/ to spar with Archibald, aside from him being the military leader of the herd, so that Locket can get used to fighting huge breeds that definitely outweigh him in mass and strength.

Locket’s range of emotion in this post alone is beautiful. His emotions are real and logical, and still well-written. His mix of excitement and nervousness to begin as well as his relief when Loretta leaves is brilliant. I feel that I, personally, would feel similar when faced with something brand new and (frankly) quite dangerous, and that helps me connect to Locket on a deeper level which is what roleplaying and writing is all about. I also felt Locket’s excitement grow as he attacked and pranced—not only did that reflect his emotions but his hotblooded lineage. I like the concoction. You also did well at including breed differences.
One thing that shines bright is your knowledge of the battle rubric itself. Reading your posts, you outlined in your writing points that you would get on the rubric, and that is excellent.

On to the other side of my comments: Locket is faster, and by him running away you used that greatly to your advantage to give him time to turn, and I was able to also use it to my advantage for Archibald to turn. However, having Locket come back in at a trot was not the gate I would have chosen. The slower speed of his trotting gait gave Archibald a lot of time to calculate his next move and couple it with Locket’s approach. Locket wants to show his skills as a warrior, and if he had come back in blazing-hot and possibly giving Archibald less time to think, I feel that Locket would have gained an upper hand.