LIGHTEN UP BUTTERCUP
GET A HOBBY
It’s raining.
“Rain” is perhaps too mild a word for the hurricanic storm that has enveloped Solterra, but Seraphina is not unaccustomed to Solterra during the rainy season, and it is far better than the blizzard several months prior. With the Elatus’s high walls as shelter, the tumultuous winds and the cold rain are almost tolerable, and, as she steps into one of the arches of the Colosseum, she shakes herself off. It is a pointless gesture, and she knows it; she’ll have to step back out into the rain and the almost overwhelming darkness for the spar. She blinks rain out of her eyelashes, squinting out into the arena. At least the torches near the center are still ablaze. Even a storm of this magnitude seems unable to put out the enchanted flames. (Of course, they are blessed by the sun god’s fire – why would mere rain be capable of stifling their blazes?)
She lingers, for a moment, at the edge of the arena wall, shielded by the overhang. At the other side of the arena, she sees a movement in the blackness and squints against the rain and gloom. She can barely make out the shape of Caine, so she draws forward towards the torches; she can barely make him out until they are both in the vicinity of the flames, and, even then, he might as well be a shadow cast against the wall, save for the brilliant silver of his eyes. They gleam when they catch in the torchlight. He looks darker like this, and, if he didn’t somewhat resemble a drenched cat, she might have been able to see him as the assassin and spy she knows – or should know, but knows without understanding - that he is.
As she moves, she feels a little twitch of nausea; the darkness swirls at the edge of her vision, threatening to overtake it entirely. This is only a friendly spar, but her last battle with Raum runs circles in her head. In her mind’s eye, she still sees herself bleeding out on the Steppe. (Her scars burn at the thought.) She is a soldier, and she has always had some degree of confidence in her abilities, but she still fell to him. This isn’t dangerous. This isn’t a threat. (He is a raven, not a crow.) She isn’t sure if the lurch in her stomach is coming from the persistent memory of her near-death or her smothered, disappearing pride, which demands that she prove that she can still do something right.
The sand feels oddly tight and hard beneath her hooves, packed with rain. She doesn’t like the sensation, but at least it is relatively sturdy ground, in spite of the storm. The arena walls provide some shelter from the wind; it is almost pleasant, if one can forgive the subtle nip of winter and the chill of the rain.
“Charming weather tonight.”
She wonders if it is his first winter in Solterra. “It’s far more charming than the blizzard was,” she says. (Seraphina has never been fond of the cold; even now, with only the barest chill of winter and rain on her coat, she has her teeth gritted so they don’t chatter.) He sheds his dagger (a pretty, ornate thing), and she follows suit, first stripping off her golden scarf, which is all but plastered to her skin, then the rest of her armor, which is heavy and dripping with rain, then her sword and sheath, and finally the steel arrow, which wraps itself neatly in the sopping pile of her scarf. She is grateful, at times like these, for her telekinesis. It is not as showy as some other magics, but it is practical.
Though the rain drips down her lashes and threatens to fall in her eyes, she is somewhat grateful for the way it slicks Caine’s fur, making it silken and glossy as pooled ink; it shines in the flickering firelight, making his void-black form a bit easier to see, even in the cloud-covered night. (She is sure that her ghostly, pale silver is a much easier target.) He is taller than she is, and lean – probably fast, with endurance that is, at the very least, reasonable. She is not sure that he is hard-hitting, however, and he isn’t built bulky enough to take too much damage.
Those wings might be a problem; arguably, they might be even more of a problem because this was a spar, and she couldn’t do anything about them. (In fact, she’ll have to make a dedicated effort to avoid them. While he does have two sets, she suspects that damaging either of him would inhibit him in the air, and, given how delicate his work is – how delicate their work is – it won’t do to harm them.) If she were actually fighting him, she would try to break them immediately, but she doesn’t to give him much more than a few bruises, so she doesn’t spend much time contemplating where his weaknesses might lie.
His long tangles of dark hair are up, and it takes her a moment, in the flickering darkness, to realize she recognizes the style. The sight of her handiwork fills her with a fresh wave of embarrassment, and she narrows her eyes at them for a fraction of a second before returning her stare to his face. “Nice hair,” she remarks dryly. She wraps the fingers of her magic around a chunk of the braids and gives them a yank for good measure, though the gesture is not especially sharp.
He draws back, then, with one of those graceful bows. “By your move, then.” She watches him draw back with narrowed eyes, her muscles tensing beneath her as she considers her first move. She would have given it to him, if only to see what he did, and she’d honestly expected him to take it. As it is, she lingers in place a moment. Without her sword or her arrow, her only options are, of course, her teeth and her hooves. Unwilling to actually kick at him yet, therefore exposing herself, she decides to opt for teeth.
“Ever the gentleman, Caine,” she says, the faintest hint of amusement slipping into her tone, then dashes forward, kicking up clumps of wet sand in her wake. He is already near the edge of the arena – if she presses him with an urgent enough assault, she might be able to pin him back against the wall, restricting his range of movement. (Of course, she had his wings to worry about; she doubted that pressing him would prevent him from leaping into the air, likely hitting her in the process, so she hopes that the storm will be sufficient enough to keep him grounded.) She approaches him quickly, all but sprinting; the only thing that reserves her is the weather and the slickness of the sand beneath her hooves, but she is hardly unaccustomed to slippery footing. (Even without the rain, sand is treacherous, and she has walked it for her entire life.)
It does not initially seem like she will stop.
She wants him to feel pressed, as though she is going to barrel right into him; if he does, he might step back, and that might prevent him from being appropriately defensive. Either way, she comes to a skidding stop when she is only a hairsbreadth away from him, her hooves skidding and digging into the sand to pull her to a halt. Without a moment’s pause, her head jerks up, and she lunges for his neck. She does not go for his throat but instead turns her attention to the flesh just below it. There is no real force to her bite, should it find purchase; it is more of a nip than anything, a way to say that I could do more than this if I wanted to, and likely wouldn’t even draw blood.
@Caine || heeeere we go indeed.
"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
Summary: Sera contemplates the weather, spots Caine, takes a good look around & a good look at him to get her bearings, and snarks(?) a little bit. He lets her have the first move, so she rushes him, trying to back him up with a pretty unhindered offensive, and snaps at his neck, a little bit below the throat; it's not really intended to do any damage, though, because it's a spar.
Attack Used: 1
Attack(s) Left: 1
Block Used: 0
Block(s) Left: 1
Item(s) Used:
Response Deadline: 5/10
Tags: @Caine, @Sid, @inkbone, @Sparrow, @nestle, @
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
