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The mountains howled as the sheer force of the midnight wind forced itself through the jagged cliffs, the trees moaned miserably as more and more snow was harshly deposited on their branches, and as that same wind effortlessly sliced through his layers and layers of coats Ophion was highly tempted to call it quits on his mountainous expedition. It would have been logical too: he was out of coats to layer on, he was already round from the ones he did have on, it was only getting colder as the night went on, he was exhausted from climbing...the list went on and on and yet, so did he.

He had to go on. Every time he closed his eyes he could see it: the shadow of his first hive, the jagged lines of the mountain peaks as the moon shone bright behind them, the shallow group of potholes by the entrance. Ophion knew it would be impossible to find his old hive...but he had to make it to one of the peaks, one of the hives...he had to make it somewhere where there was more than trees and snow and ice. His closure was here, frozen but intact, waiting for him. Or so he hoped. He hoped and he hated as hope was for the foolish and weak and somewhere, deep down, he feared that nothing would settle his dissatisfaction with living in Old Hemisect. He feared that this nebulous, ebbing misery he had been feeling as of late would soon swell and engulf him in his entirety; that it would crush both him and his grandiose plans for Alternia and that he would leave the world without even leaving a smear. Ophion shuddered again, but this time the cold wasn't the culprit.

As Ophion ascended, he noticed that the moaning and groaning he heard wasn’t solely from the trees. It sounded more like…a creature. Above even the sound of the wind there was a voice…a brash, angry voice calling for it to...march? Did he hear that right? Was this creature a lusus? And the voice was its troll? He doubled his pace up the mountainside toward the sound of the commotion and, when the two finally came into sight he stopped and quirked his head in a slight display of amusement. While he knew troll and lusus were bonded deeply with one another, he never had seen a pair that seemed to be mirror images of one another…well, if that mirror happened to be a reality altering mirror where lusus and troll were swapped.

Then the two began to approach him and, for a moment, Ophion felt his hand stray to his side where his pata was. He was out of his element, and while the troll didn’t make him terribly uneasy, their lusus certainly did. Even from this distance the purpleblood could tell that the large beast was hungry. But rather than display any signs of fear, Ophion let his hand rest on his hip and then, when the troll’s blood color came into sight, cocked his hip to the side in a rather haughty manner. “A blueblood,” he thought with a concealed smirk. And from all that yelling about marching he could easily surmise him to be military oriented, which probably meant he would follow the caste system.

Probably. “Well,” he mused with a chuckle. “Let’s see how this goes now~”

“Insolence?” Ophion thought and, in his surprise, he also said it aloud as he watched the other troll glare daggers at him, amusement plain as night all over his face. The boy’s lusus (which is who he was more concerned about) seemed to be utterly aloof to the whole situation and, as such, seemed to be of no threat to approach…well, a little. Ophion wouldn’t be getting cuddly with the creature, but being in talking range of the blueblood was probably safe. Well, as safe as it ever is on Busthind.

At being ordered to show his blood color it was only then that the highblood realized he did indeed look like a hemoanonymous coward. Bundled up from horn to toe his caste and symbol were both hidden amongst layer upon layer of warm clothing. There was a half moment of consideration for flashing his purple hue to the other troll, but his hand paused at his jacket and simply adjusted it instead of unbuttoning it. Perhaps he could have some fun with this blue blood military nut. It certainly would make for a lovely distraction from his current expedition and all the sordid little feelings associated with it.

“Your mountain you say,” the concealed highblood said with a smirk. “What exactly makes this your mountain? You certainly don’t look to be the…type…to own such a marvelous and vast swatch of land. In fact,” Ophion put his finger to his lips in an exaggerated gesture of contemplation, “you look quite the opposite! Like a little wiggler going for a stroll in the snow, keeping his lusus close lest something ravenous show itself. Or…perhaps your lusus is there to simply dig you out of the snow?” Ophion grinned, though it was more of a challenging baring of teeth than anything else.

Stopped cold in the cold. It was poetic really, though Ophion gave no thought to poetry at all, ever, so it flew by unnoticed, just like the delicate bits of snow blown off the branches of the trees. His gobsmacked and blue flushed face tickled a chuckle out of his chest. "Did he really think he had the upper hand? Such a simpleton," he thought as his head tilted, almost swayed really as he observed him. "Manipulatable." What he did notice, however, was that this troll seemed to believe a victory to be his while the battle cry still echoed around them. "Inexperienced soldier." Ophion shifted his weight slightly, tempted to move closer, to move period as standing still made the cold unbearable, but the bristling badger put his weight back on his heels and the purple-blood stayed firmly in place. How frustrating, that his lusus would afford him the initiative when Ophion so rightly deserved it.

So when Sempur finally did make his move, a lunge, he was not surprised. Though he had expected him to simply keep his crop in his hand, not exchange it out for a knife. His pata was far too long for him to draw it in time. If he had kept his distance he might have had time, but such was the price one paid for having a gauntlet sword. He should have expected a strife the moment the other troll's face turned blue, but he had been too busy being amused and observing him, deducing the characteristics of this...well, character.

"At a losss for wordsss?" he hissed, and his pupils shrank in horror has he realized he had just <******** hissed. He hated when he got over-excited and he hissed. It was such an absurd verbal quirk and made him seem like the comic relief instead of the imposing (future) overlord he imagined himself to be. Ophion bit his tongue, a little harder than he had intended as he had been huffing and puffing up the mountain and it was now numb from the cold, in retribution for his slip up. There was a slight tingle in his mouth followed by a gush of warmth. Oops. It seemed as though he had made himself bleed...though perhaps it was better than having this oaf shed his blood for him.

"You want to see my blood," Ophion grinned, "very well." His next movement was quick and he was surprised that, despite the cold, he still maintained his agile reflexes and was able to seize Sempur's knife hand and apply a swift jab of his thumb to a pressure point. Given the cold, his hands were probably too numb for it to be painful, but that was not Ophion's intent, no. He wanted it to be surprising so that his hand flex would involuntarily and that the knife would drop right into his other waiting hand.

As soon as the knife was firmly gripped, he took half a step back, almost a sidle, and held it to his tongue, slowly coating the blade with the bloodied appendage as he never broke his gaze with the blueblood. "Here is your blood!" he shouted maniacally and threw the knife back at Sempur as though it were a throwing dagger. He wasn't skilled in projectile weapons, nor was this meant to be one, but he would be oh so pleased if the purple-stained blade found its mark in Sempur's foot and not the snow.