Lena hoped the mist and shadows hid her trembling legs, her restless, anxious heart fluttering wildly within her chest. Confidence spurned and invoked, convictions composed from purpose, from decree, from oaths and protection, then spinning close to a standstill, where nerves ate at her flesh, tore against her innards. Perhaps it was the waiting, the inevitable beasts lurking amidst the abyss, causing her perseverance to shrivel and decay, igniting the infernal apprehension still coiled in her being. Imogen chirped once, a hopeful, delightful sound in the silent void, the pressing, eerie cataclysm they’d gone to kindle and instigate. One quavering breath shuddered through her lungs, cracked and withered across her mouth, and she attempted to reawaken the savagery, the ferocity boiling beneath her sinew; rage at stolen comrades, children snagged from their mother’s sides, the preying ghosts stretching their fingers, desperately trying to snag more and more of their souls until there was nothing left within the Basin but an aching, cold chasm. Brutality bloomed again, rustled and rankled ferocity, and narrowed eyes searched the vacant forest, ears shifted to encompass the sounds and secrets nestled in the thick haze.

Imogen was the first to detect another’s presence, senses far more heightened than Lena’s, capturing the beat of wings amongst the crowded copse, answering the hushed drumbeat of war, driving behind the Nurse’s sienna figurine for a vicious assault. Through their connected minds, where she had once delivered reassurance, she now conveyed awareness, short snippets determining Lena’s course of action. Behind. Right. As Imogen shifted away, the nymph was prompted into action, ushered into defense, into siege, into the quick play of warrior prowess, into mastering machinations usually foreign, usually unfamiliar. But she remembered the monsters, the prior invasion, conjured the ardor she’d formulated then, and concocted the steady composure of her rare heathen tendencies. One word jumbled from her membrane and into Imogen’s. Hide. She didn’t want the fox seen, not now, not when she too could become a victim of these foreshadowed strikes (the memory of her body mottled, covered, stained in blood at the hand of a behemoth struck in her eyes and tossed fire into her ichor). The kitsune complied, settling her small body in mist, gloom and bushes.

Thereafter, close proximity in constant dusk and abyss was perhaps the only blessing the songbird could grasp. The other mare’s form lowered itself next to Lena’s right side - in response the sylph shifted forward in a rapid motion, and instead of her elbow becoming impaired and hindered, she felt the Pegasus’s shoulder bump into her right haunch. It was a rankling jar, rattling through her hind limbs, the steady reminder her sentiments and hopes were not without pain, not without rancor. But there wasn’t any time to reflect, to pause and ruminate over the matter of her wounded, aching muscles, or the physique or proportions of her opponent, for nearing her face was the biting, scraping teeth of the mare. Having moved forward enough in her prior action, the rasping ivories only met the right side of her nape, grating against pelt and mane, tearing off hair.

But here was the opportunity she needed – and with a flying figure for a nemesis, one didn’t know when another chance would occur – to unleash her own assailment. Twisting her aching neck back towards the passing creature, she aimed to drag, lacerate, and grind her horn across the left side of the beast (perhaps by the shoulder, or the beginning of her barrel?). Did this make her part of the infidels again, marching into villainy, into violence and immorality, to justify her rationale, to steel her emotions out of the clambering, fearful frenzy, and into the turbulent shade of vengeance?


[621 words.
1/4 invasion duel system.
0 + 0/1 additional Basin Champ magic used. 0 companion used.
Imogen senses Sage’s appearance from the behind, warns Lena and hides in the mist. Lena moves forward to avoid the hit on her right elbow, and instead takes it upon her right haunch. This movement also allows her to miss the teeth aimed at her face, and instead take it along the right side of her neck, tearing off tufts of hair. She uses the opportunity to twist her horn towards Sage’s passing left shoulder or beginning of her barrel.]