[Judged] WARDOGS

[Marisol]

THE ARCHIATER.

She knows he cannot hear her. She knows it does not matter. The words still mean the same thing. I am right to love Her.

She loves Vespera she knows how to love anything: violently, whole-heartedly, always too stubbornly.

Marisol smiles when he starts to move, circling her like a cat. She follows, opposing his steps as perfectly as a reflection, so that they move in an orbit around the edge of the steppe. The sun splices the dirt between them into shafts of too-bright light. The Commander has to squint to make out silhouettes. Smart boy - Asterion is not weak, just soft, and even she knows enough to respect one if not the other.

The distance closes between them until it is just a stone’s throw. The air is thick, strangely, and Mari realizes she is finding it harder and harder to breathe; it is then that she sees the little droplets, swirling, crystallizing, twisting and turning, and her body tightens. Asterion is indistinct now through the silver curtain, and she strains to keep her gaze tight on him. Oh, he does not deserve his magic, not the kind that comes straight from their God - not when he slanders Her with the casual cruelty of his apathy. 

And here he is, using Marisol’s own worship against her. Kingly indeed.

The cyclone gathers strength until it is a rolling, tumbling thing of teeth and salt and foam, and before Mari can think what to do it comes crashing down on each side of her. Oh - she freezes, stunned, as it all showers her - her wings plaster to her sides, drenched and frigid, and the cold sets into her veins like a disease. She clenches her jaw to stop it from chattering. Water pours from the waxy-dark back of her wings, her furrowed brow, her curled lip; it puddles on the ground around her hooves. 

Marisol shakes like a dog, sends droplets cascading into the air around her. But still her wings hang heavy at her sides, and the effort it takes to move them fills her with an unexpected anger, hot and bright in the root of her chest. Asterion is near enough she can see the whorls of purple in his coat. Near enough she could reach out and touch him - 

The Commander snarls in a breath, digs in her hooves into the dirt and lunges forward.

The distance between them closes in an instant, and Marisol is on him like a jaguar on its prey. She bares her teeth and extends her legs, lashing out with the curve of her hooves, aiming for the soft slope where Asterion’s shoulder melds into his neck. She knows well how precious are the tendons there - how much it hurt her, as a youth, to exercise those muscles when they were sore. Sharp enough, focused enough, a blow like that could make it hard to walk.

Even weighed down like she is, Mari’s years of training launch her through the air with less than a moment of hesitation.

She does not even miss using the weight of the spear, yet.

@asterion

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Summary: Mari gets doused by Asterion's wave and does not enjoy it even a little bit. She shakes off, then lunges at him, aiming teeth and hooves at his left shoulder to try to disable his left front leg.

Attack Used: 1
Attack(s) Left: 1
Block Used: 0 
Block(s) Left: 1
Item(s) Used: n/a

Response Deadline: 04/02 (I think??)
Tags: @asterion, @Sid, @inkbone, @Sparrow, @nestle, @aimless