The shock of impact radiates through muscle and bone, shivering down his spine and through his legs thrust like pylons into the earth. His pendant, caught between them, pressed deeply into the rose-grey hide as though to mark the place of his heart, to catch in a cage of spun copper. Though she is slighter, there is a solid-ness he had not really anticipated. Despite her wings she was not so bird-light and her body had weight to it. Though her inexperience showed in little flashes here and there, he imagined that it wouldn't take much for her to be every bit as good as any other warrior who braved this stepped.
And he doubted she would be caught off guard by such a trick again.
Of course, there were always the wings. He felt muscles surge beneath his teeth as her great wings beat, loosening his grip a little on her crest. Then again, but this time with purpose rather than panic the great white sails beat the air and she lunged past him. He couldn't move in time to block her. Ivory silk fluttered down from his jaws, shaken free of his teeth with a quick jerk of his head. His eyes squinted against the little dust raised by her wings and their dance.
He started to wheel, to follow her and keep his good eye on her. Then he caught the shift of her gilded hooves and he realized that her strongest weapon was now aimed towards him and that move put him dangerously side-on to her muscular hind. Slick as silk and fast as wildfire, she was more beautiful in the heat of battle, framed by twilight sky. In the dusk, she did not need the sun to halo her in radiance. She shown with her own vibrancy.
The scarred knight lunges backward, and awkward motion that he makes almost elegant with a surety of purpose. Her hooves strike the air just before his nose but he is no longer watching them. Instead he braces his rear hooves and rears with a bellow of challenge, the first such sound he has uttered this spar. It is deep as thunder, primal music. Coal black hooves lash out towards her flank. The strenght is a little less from his bruised shoulder and he can feel the ache of it as the skin stretches and blood weeps from the abrasions of her teeth.
Sweat has already begun to darken his pewter hide, though he has been careful to conserve his endurance. He is not in as peak a condition as he was a year ago before the lightning left it's mark on him and he can feel the strain of it in his shortness of wind. And yet something in him is alight with the joy of the fight. He was born and raised for war- it is his steady companion, a friend whom he understand more than perhaps anything else. All this time he has spent in Dusk Court he has struggled with people. With meeting them, understanding them, trying to find his place among them. That is so much harder than this.
This he understands. And yet, it cannot last much longer. His body is already feeling the strain of adrenaline and muscles put to serious use that have not been tested in too long. So he does not follow up on his strike, dropping back to the earth and concentrating on catching his breath.
"That counter charge wouldn't have worked if you were expecting it," he admits with a breathless laugh, dark eye bright with a liveliness that is uncommon to the reserved knight.
Summary: Diarmuid BLOCKS by lunging backwards to avoid her hooves, then rears and tries to clobber her with his hooves before she recovers from her buck.
Attack Used: 2
Attack(s) Left: 0
Block Used: 1
Block(s) Left: 0
Item(s) Used: None!
Response Deadline: 10/27/2017
Tags: @Israfel, @
Shoot, I didn't realize I was a day late! Dangit!
