Character #1: @ipomoea Bonded: yes - fantasy deer Magic: yes - nature spirit Armor: no Weapons: yes - enchanted thing? can change shape Current Health: 60 Current Attack: 60 Current Experience: 111
Character #2: @Elena Bonded: no Magic: yes - empathy Armor: no Weapons: no Current Health: 34 Current Attack: 26 Current Experience: 52
the earth laughs in flowers
The Steppe looks surprisingly like Illuster in the winter. When the pock-marked ground is hidden beneath a layer of white, he supposes it doesn’t matter what lies underneath. It all looks the same from above.
But as he stands there ankle-deep in the snow, he can feel the roots lying frozen beneath. He can hear the echoes of blood and bones and the violence of flesh against flesh in them. He can taste the iron already, and with each breath he can feel the way his lungs are blooming, and his heart is turning into a blood-red poppy. The edges of it are trembling, each chamber a petal that flutters like something fragile that wants nothing more than to become something wild. It all makes the magic in his blood begin to sing sweetly in response.
It’s still singing when he sees the golden figure appear on the other side of the field.
“Elena,” he calls out to her, already moving through the snow. There’s a bundle of winter-flowers in his telekinesis that floats alongside him, their colors bright and joyful against the colorless landscape that surrounds them. “I didn’t know you were one for sparring.” There’s a smile in his voice that he hopes she can hear. And when he crosses the field and brushes his nose against her shoulder with a tenderness he thought he had forgotten, it almost —
it almost touches his eyes.
He is not sure he will ever relearn how to smile the way she does. He is too hard now, his edges too jagged and uneven to remember how to be so gentle as that. There is that darkness in his eyes that has passed the point of innocence and softness, a part of him that will never be able to look at a fresh blanket of snow without remembering the way still-warm blood looks overtop of it. All his pieces are broken apart now, and the only music he knows is the sound the wind makes whistling between them.
But there is an almost-melody in his steps when he offers her his winter-flowers. And he wants to be a thousand things other than broken and bloodied, to have a bit of the sunlight she brings with her filling the cracks of him.
So he pulls his wings in close, and spares one final glance to the meadows and the forests that lie behind him. The sun is watching them from behind a thin veil of clouds, unable to look away from the scene about to unfold. There is only one reason anyone comes to the Steppe and oh, it knows.
“Shall we?”
From a safe distance away Ipomoea gestures at the space separating them. With the flowers laid safely aside and the song of his magic and his blood beginning to rise in pitch, he is ready.
“Malachi, Malachi, can you teach me one of your sparring moves?” A young Elena asks the silver Malachi, as she does a small leap to the side, as if dodging an imaginary opponent. “Please, please, please, please, please…” and she continues on until finally Malachi tosses those imaginary hands into the air with an exaggerated look of defeat. “Alright, fine, but nothing too dangerous.” His words are a defeat, Elena has won. He sighs and looks at her with brown eyes. “There are some lessons you need to learn first though.”
Lesson Three: Never show an opponent your weakness.
It snowed during the night. She had been able to taste it even before she opened her blue eyes. It sticks to the roof of her mouth even now as she comes to the Steppe. When she sees it is him, coming to the battlefield, the vibrant colors of his flowers, his wings, it sends her heart flying with a joy maybe she should not be feeling on the cusp of battle, even if it is a spar. He brushes against her shoulder and she laughs, taking the flowers. They smell like summer and for a moment she forgets the snow. The sunlight in her shines through the cracks in him. The passerbys, the ones here for entertainment, look on in disappointment at the two. Laughter was not the sound of war drums, but ask Elena, and she will tell you it is so much better.
She sets her jaw, though the hint of a smile remains as she looks at Po. “Oh, well, I have been sparring since I was little.” Not a complete lie, Malachi did teach her very basic moves, though he mostly concentrated on the theory of battle for the golden filly, so eager to test her limits.
He moves away from her, and once set in position, Elena offers him a polite bow of her head. “We shall,” she says and stands proud once more. She fights how she lives: impulsively. She breaks into a sprint. The snow is slippery, the fresh powder gathering on top of the ice. There is an unsureness to her footing, and it is only when she reaches him, that Elena realizes how bad of an idea this is. But it isn't a bad idea, not really. Elena would have first had to have an idea in mind for it to be bad.
She aims at his side, and pushes off the ground in a sideways motion. She moves her golden head out of the way, seeing at the hospital what a head injury can do and she wished for no injuries today, from either of them. Elena lands back down on the ground with the crunch of snow, and the skidding sound of unsure footing. She grits her teeth inside her mouth, she had slipped slightly when she landed, and felt a twinge in her shoulder. She puts weight on it regardless, she did not want him to notice her injury. This is when her blue eyes flitter back to Po like darling butterflies, as a sudden spark of remembrance of a lesson Malachi had taught, a lesson she had forgotten.
Lesson Two: Never make the first move.
code by rallidae
picture by cannon
Summary: Elena is remembering the lessons her cousin, Malachi, had taught her about fighting. She enters into the area and takes the flowers from Po. She too backs up and bows her head politely. She runs towards him (not really thinking what she is going to do). She tries to throw her shoulder into him, aiming at his side. She leaps almost sideways, more diagonally. She slips slightly when she lands and hurts her shoulder a little, but she can still fight.
Attack Used: 1 Attack(s) Left: 1 Block Used: 0 (UPDATE THIS WHENEVER YOU USE A BLOCK) Block(s) Left: 1 (UPDATE THIS WHENEVER YOU USE A BLOCK) Item(s) Used: None.
Response Deadline: September 7 (because I am posting this so late on the 3rd) But also, timeline is still flexible <3 Tags: @Ipomoea, @Sid, @inkbone, @nestle, @layla
It has been so long — too long — since he last felt his blood singing in the way that it sings today.
It’s the war-song of the desert, a fever-pitch that fills his veins with fire and sand and makes each step feel like a sand viper preparing to strike. He shouldn’t know this dance that teeters on the edge of death more than it does life but oh, he does.
He had not known that war was what he had been waiting for. All those nights he spent galloping between the trees like a man half-dead, half-wild, fury and sorrow driving the blood through his heart more surely than a heartbeat, and he had not known. It comes rushing back to him now, the copper taste of blood on his tongue, the want, the need to feel something other than dirt beneath his pounding hooves. His magic rises both soft and feral inside of his chest, until he is choking on it. Flower petals and thorns dig into his throat, bougainvillea wraps itself tightly around his heart, and he —
He is going under it all, under the violence and the war-drum beat of the steppe. And perhaps it is a good thing that Elena laughs then, that her voice reminds him of spring and sunshine instead of winter and battlefields. It makes a part of him soften when he stops at the edge of the field, snow crackling under hoof.
It reminds him that he does not want to hurt the things he loves.
And so when she takes off across the ice, he watches. He does not move out just as recklessly to meet her, until their teeth and bodies clash overtop the snow (but oh! how his blood begs him to.) Ipomoea waits for her to come to him, wings opening and closing like restless soldiers eager to go to war. And he does not leap away when she moves to strike him.
Her shoulder crashes against his ribs like a wild beast against the steel bars of its cage, driving the air from his lungs. He hears her laughter from before ringing again in the back of his mind, echoing off in the muscles of his chest as they spasm and struggle to draw in air. The ache comes when he tries to inhale, burning him from the inside out, his own flowers suffocating him.
But in that moment, she is right there against him, shoulder to side, skin to skin — and when she slips, all the world seems to sing now, now, now! in his ears.
And everything in him comes alive with a snap.
Ipomoea is rearing before she gets the chance to dart away, twisting to follow after her as she pushes off of the slippery ground. Snow is kicked up into the air all around them, glinting sharply in the sunlight.
It is only at the last moment that he tucks his hooves and aims with his knees instead, for her mane, her back, her hips — wherever he can reach. And while he throws every ounce of his weight into the contact, the nip he tries to place along her neck is far too gentle to satisfy the bloodlust roaring in his ears.
Summary: Po watches as Elena canters towards him and waits for her to reach him. Her shoulder strikes his side and forces the breath from his lungs, but he was waiting for her to get close. Before she can get away he rears up and tries to force her to the ground with his weight (but tucks his hooves because he belatedly realizes he isn't trying to break her spine.)
Response Deadline: 09/12/20 (putting this a day late since it's nearly midnight novus-time - also still flexible!) Tags: @Elena, @Sid, @inkbone, @nestle, @layla
09-08-2020, 09:59 PM
Played by
Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50 Signos: 900
“Po?” She questions, with just a moment of hesitancy as blue eyes look at him. She can feel something there, just below the surface, inside his blood. It pants like a dog’s hunger, and it lurches like an eagle striking. Elena watches him before heading off into a fight, a spar, she had no business ever being in.
Shoulder to shoulder. Bones press against each other. And Elena, who is more prone to hug, to kiss, to hold, she does not realize the sheer strength of another’s body and the power it posses when they clash into one another. The last time she had pressed her body so close to someone else, it had been with passion, not violence. Elena finds she hates the hollow sound their bodies make when they hit each other. It sounds like nothing else exists inside them except this fight. It reminds her of when she was small, she watched the way a soldier had dropped dead in front of her when he returned home from war.
Her own shoulder burns with impact and with the pain of Po’s own muscle. She has her head turned from him, but quickly those blue eyes snap back to her opponent, Malachi’s lesson like a buzzing in her ears. But when her eyes turn, staring up at the larger stallion from beneath those long, dark lashes of hers, she sees not his eyes, but the deadly aim of his hooves before her. She lets out a panic, girlish cry, as she watches him tuck his knees, as if he were at an alter and not a battlefield. Snow darts around them like shards of glass, catching the light of the sun that peers out at the battle, eager to watch the violence blaze a pathway through the snowfield.
Lesson Five: If you get hit, it’s going to hurt.
He makes contact with her hips and Elena feels the way they twist out from underneath her as if she was an unsteady ballerina, her dance floor made of ice. Her hips crash diagonally and she feels her hindquarters land on the ice, the cold cutting into her summer skin. Winter eyes close for a moment, and open to see jaws coming towards her. She uses the ice to glide her hindquarters back up with a giant push of her legs. That golden head is pulled back just in time as she avoids any nip from reaching her sunshine kissed skin.
Elena see. Elena do. As his own face pulls away from hers, she acts like a magnet, first repelled and then attracted, as her own jaws open wide to aim a nip upon his neck. Though she looks so fierce in this moment, flaxen mane flying against the snowy landscape, those teeth pushing forward to find itself amongst his crimson splashed skin, there is still something in her blue eyes that is laughing like winter is far away, and it is as bright and warm as a summer’s day.
code by rallidae
picture by cannon
Summary: Summary: Elena barely has a chance to right herself before she turns to look behind, slightly her side as Po crashes his knees against her hips. Her haunches slide downwards and slide slightly against the ice and Elena uses the momentum to raise them back up. This happens just in time to pull away from Po’s mouth that tries to nip her. She pulls her head back and quickly rushes it forwards to try to nip Po.
When he descends upon her, it feels a bit like hitting himself.
He can see it in the press of their bodies, the way muscle remembers a fight years after it has happened. Beneath him it is no longer Elena, crumbling beneath his weight — but himself. And he sees again Asterion kicking his legs out from under him, sees a flash of stars and smoke, strands of grass braided together in ropes, turning brown and brittle as all the water goes out of them with a sigh.
He sighs now, when his legs stumble against her skin like a heartbeat. He is falling, falling against her, falling down her side, falling into the snow, falling. It might have been funny then, the way they collide against each other like stars knocking each other out of orbit, had it not been for the ice bringing back a thousand memories as sharp as the snow is cold. Another fissure opens up in his heart, and another rose is blooming to fill the cracks of it.
When he came here the first time, he was battling a king.
And now, he is the king.
He sees her teeth reaching out for him the same way he sees the laughter shining in her blue eyes. Her eyes had always known how to smile, and he had always been jealous of that — now he is only thankful. He has forgotten how much teeth can hurt, how violent a fight can seem when it is against friends instead of enemies. He has forgotten, too, how easy it is to smile through the pain when there is a friend there beside you.
He smiles now, when he pushes off the ground and runs away, away, away from her teeth that glint like diamonds against the snow. He imagines they snap closed like a wolf’s on empty air, but if they do he does not hear them over the pounding of his heart and the roar of his magic. It is rising like a snowstorm inside of him, begging every last root and taper buried in the frozen earth to come alive, come awake, and grow.
There is not much for his magic to call to, here on the steppe where the ground is more often watered by blood than by water. But there is still a thistle that answers his call, shooting up like a wildflower in spring, tangled stems reaching to wrap themselves like a kiss around her back ankle. And if they do, she will find their touch as gentle as it is insistent — and he hopes that in their gentleness, she feels the laughter that his lips have forgotten how to make.
Summary: Po falls down as Elena does, sliding off of her and into the snow in the process. He pushes himself up before she gets a chance to return his nip, and moves away. As he does his magic reaches out to the plants of the ground, which he uses to try and wrap the branches of a thistle plant around her legs to trap her in place.
“I highly doubt you will use most of these lessons, in your life, Elena.” The baritone voice of Malachi comes to her. “You are a healer, not a fighter.”
A healer.
Not a fighter.
And she thinks this as he falls against her, burying those knees into her hips. She thinks this when she reaches out with her teeth to snap onto him, but bites against only air, her teeth snapping together with a solid, ‘click.’ And she finds herself grateful. She is a healer, she stops the flow of the blood, she brings flesh back together, she soothes headaches and sores. She is not a fighter, she does not taste the copper of blood on her lips, she does not feel the break of bones beneath her own, and she does not listen for a grunt of pain or a cry of agony. So when she sees him run away from her bite, from her attack, she is grateful. When she sees his smile, she thinks, ‘his smile saved me.’
She tosses that golden head in the air, flaxen tresses sprawling for a moment across the snowy landscape. There is a laugh that purges from her lips, like she has been holding her breath this entire time, and only in joy can she truly breathe once more. The palomino darts forward, only to be halted by the steadiness of magic wrapped around her ankle. She turns to look at the plant, tethering her in place, and maybe it is his joy seeping into her, or purely her own bliss, but Elena laughs. The end of their battle has come. “Well fought,” she says, and blue eyes glisten like the ice of snowflakes when she turns to him. “Although, if you wanted to do friendship bracelets instead of spar, I wish you would have told me, might have saved me a few bruises come morning,” she says with laughter like lipstick and an impish glint lining her blue eyes. “Next time, then?” She asks. “I will be sure to bring you Dusk’s finest flowers.”
code by rallidae
picture by cannon
Summary: Elena tries to bite him, but he dodges, and she is weirdly happy about that because I guess, Elena doesn't actually understand battling. She makes to run after him, but his plant wraps around her ankle and she is stuck. Then she just kinda laughs.
At first there is only the furious beat of the desert in his heart, twisting and churning like the sands in the Mors begging for more, more, more. He can feel it lingering there, ready to devour her body whole in thistles and vines and morning glory flowers. It is what keeps his heart beating, when he lets go of the magic and lets the stems of the thistle plant fall back into the snow.
It is what has always kept his heart beating, all this time.
And to their east the desert is watching. Ipomoea pretends not to notice.
He slows to a stop and turns, ignoring that part of him that wants nothing more than to go on and on and on. If it were not for Elena’s laughter pooling like the breath of spring from behind him, he might never have stopped running. As it is he only tosses his head and smiles back at her, lets her sunlight shine through all of his cracks like holy water in a leaking basin.
“Well fought yourself,” he bumps his muzzle against her shoulder in a manner that is far more gentle than the ending of a battle has any right to be. “You fight well. Who taught you?”
Already he is looking over her for bruises, tracing the path his legs had taken down her hip, eyeing the scrapes of her knees and ankles. But her laughter is infectious, and it is all too easy to lean in and forget the way they had crashed together like monsters instead of friends only moments before. “Who says we can’t still do both?” Something terrible and awful inside of him is curling back up to sleep, a desert-born fiend bedding down for the winter again.
“Come, let’s find somewhere warmer, and we’ll find better flowers for a friendship bracelet.” And just like that the Steppe is behind them, and Ipomoea kicks his heels up into a counter and turns south. Away from the desert — away from home — but towards a friend.
is heart beats like the rolling dunes of the desert, and hers beats like the rolling waves of the ocean. Yet it is only fields of flowers that stand between them, flower children through and through, at the very heart of it all.
Who taught her, he asks, and Elena smiles wider than she has in months. “My cousin, he was a knight—a king.” A guardian, she thinks. The eyes that hit her skin are something of a relief, they do not look at her with expectations, nor lust, nor hunger, or promise, just with care and compassion. It makes Elena want to throw herself into his eyes, but it is restrained if only because of the emotions she can feel falling from him like sand.
Her eyes alight, and gone entirely are any traces of winter, it is summer skies, her coat glows warm like the sun. “Nobody, nobody said it,” she says and moves to his side. Like Michael, there is something about Po, something about Po with Elena, that makes her trust him entirely. She walks shoulder to shoulder with him, such a gentleness in the way she bumps him, to let him know she is beside him, the memory of them clashing together already distant. “I hope you like daisies!” She calls out before she too runs, and tries to pretend when she looks at him—she does not taste something like desert sand in her mouth.
Creativity: originality, imagination, and attention to detail.
Realism: mechanics and whether you accurately reflect your health and attack
Overall writing: creativity, realism, and writing mechanics (spelling, grammar, punctuation, run-on sentences, etc.)
FIRST POST (intro)
I admire the writing in this and just the way Po is. It reminds me of Thana and how she's shaped Po since they've been together. I also love how he's carrying around flowers- it's like a reminder that he's still himself even beneath his inner turmoil. Also a unique gesture for someone who's about to spar lol.
SECOND POST
Defensive: Despite Elena slipping, he takes a bit of a hit which I think is important so Po doesn't seem too OP. So this definitely adds to the realism of the fight.
Offensive: Aiming with his knees is a different move to take, but also realistic since Elena has slipped, it'll be the best way for him to reach her to attack fairly.
Mechanics: No real comments, writing is clear and well done.
Notes: A unique way of describing the adrenaline rush of the start of battle.
THIRD POST
Defensive: He's able to pull himself up to avoid Elena's attack. Since he was just on his knees, this seems easier for him to do and would've been a natural reaction anyway as Elena stood up as well. He too is having fun with it and adding to the humor by running away.
Offensive: There is realism that he wouldn't be able to find much to use his magic with beneath the snow and ice. The little that does come up isn't too extreme that it doesn't make sense. Also this is just a unique move to use his magic to catch Elena. Definitely not something she would be expecting and I love the playful "caught ya" at the end.
Mechanics: Still not much to comment here, a fun read!
Notes: It's interesting to read how Po is seeing himself in Elena during the battle, remembering how him and Asterion sparred some time ago. I love that he too is finding the fun in it though, despite him kind of fighting with his emotions at the same time.
FOURTH POST (closer)
I feel this was a good ending. They really balance each other out and I thought it was sweet how Po was reminded of how to just have fun.
Creativity: originality, imagination, and attention to detail.
Realism: mechanics and whether you accurately reflect your health and attack
Overall writing: creativity, realism, and writing mechanics (spelling, grammar, punctuation, run-on sentences, etc.)
FIRST POST
Defensive: Realism is shown with acknowledging the footing- it is winter, so there's going to be snow and ice and that can cause some problems. For Elena it does when she slips, but this kind of adds a touch of humor to the battle. I haven't read many battles, but I feel like it's a unique move to have her try to attack but also manage to fail a little at the same time rather than wait for Po's post to completely determine how successful she is. Also no one is perfect, so definitely adds to the realism of the fight.
Offensive: It could just be me but I'm a little confused on the exact movement happening for her first attack, or at least the way that it's written. I did have to check the summary to get a better understanding of the actual physical attack attempt.
Mechanics: Despite the confusion in the attack, I always admire Sam's writing too. It's interesting how memories are used in relevance to whatever Elena is doing in the present. In this case, it's remembering a lesson she had. Adds an interesting layer to the writing.
Notes: Not much to add here, but poor Elena lol
SECOND POST
Defensive: There was a lot of focus on this, both with Elena's magic picking up Po's emotions and also her reaction to the hit. I think it's a natural response for someone who is already sensitive to others. She's able to react quickly before the bite hits her, although I'm not too sure how she uses the ice to pull herself back up when it's already been established about the uneasy footing.
Offensive: She mimics Po's move which is kind of humorous, as Sam writes "Elena see, Elena do". Although since it does mimic the previous move, it's not entirely unique.
Mechanics: The very last sentence is very run-on, but I like how she's still taking this as a fun game despite the pain she felt initially from the hit.
Notes: I like that the lessons continue to be sprinkled in there, like a thought process as Elena figures out her way through this spar.
THIRD POST
Defensive: I find it interesting that Elena is reflecting on how she is more of a healer than a fighter. Not only does it show in her moves, but her attitude and it's different that she's almost grateful she hadn't been successful. She did this more for the fun of it than to really fight, so it's fitting to her character.
Offensive: N/A
Mechanics: Nothing really to comment here, I thought the writing was lovely!
Notes: Her dialogue here is cute. I could totally see them making flower friendship bracelets together!
FOURTH POST (closer)
Okay but this first paragraph is beautiful. Overall the post is short and sweet, a good ending and representation of their friendship.
Closing Remarks: Even though there were some parts that were a bit confusing as far as movements go, I enjoyed reading this battle. It was quirky and adorable which to me doesn't seem to be typical of battles. There is a little darkness there with Po's inner conflict, but Elena in typical Elena fashion brightens it up and it's just an innocent spar between friends. A delight to read overall!
@Ipomoea
100 (battle total) + 120 (HTH + ATK) = 220
220 * 2.0 (100 EXP) = 440 (Per staff decision, characters who have over 100 exp are being capped at just 100 in battle judging to provide more fairness in the dice roll)
Proof of dice roll can be found in Novus’ discord, #contests channel at 7:43pm EST on 09/30/2020.
@Elena wins.
All damage taken in the thread is still applicable and cannot be retconned!
Participate in a Battle or Challenge: +1 EXP to Ipomoea +1EXP to Elena
Win a Battle: +1 additional EXP to Elena
Total: +2 EXP to Elena, +1 EXP to Ipomoea
Both character’s official experience has been updated to reflect these changes, so there's no need to post in the Experience Updates thread!
![[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8026a53b-dc57-41ab-b574-9f8a8fe57ce4/ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db0780.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwMjZhNTNiLWRjNTctNDFhYi1iNTc0LTlmOGE4ZmU1N2NlNFwvZGR2b3R3ZS01OTMwMmJhNi02YTgxLTQ3YmYtOTg0Ni0zMGM1YTVkYjA3ODAucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ujCJH7FAbsQhfZlQniMmEd_vw-VmvaTDn0iFb4PvyXE)
