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 Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 11:22 am
He was starting to hurt as much as she did, but he had fallen into their surreal dance and hardly realized what it meant. That pain was his body's plea for him to stop was a concept that Edgar only vaguely grasped, even at the best of times, and this was hardly the best of times.
His breaths came with rhythmic certainty, though now somewhat more shallow than they had when the duel had started. He swung, he blocked, he took the hits, and then... the quiet was shattered by her sudden roar, and the force with which she slammed her blade into his sent sharp, jarring pains shooting through his arm.
Then it all changed.
His face contorted briefly into a silent snarl, mostly from his sword arm screaming abuse. He let the wooden sword fall, jerked away from her, and felt her fist connect with the side of his jaw.
What in the! He reached to wrench her arm away by the wrist, fighting the urge to keep tightening his grip until he crushed her. He didn't want to hit the woman... something didn't seem quite right about the picture. But she was being her now, the Soibhan he always saw, crazy, reckless... she would do stupid things if she wasn't stopped, and Edgar was not prepared to let her throw more punches to his face.
He let go of her wrist and jabbed his elbow toward her collarbone, pushing back, knowing she had made a crucial mistake when she let her rage take over. With swords in their hands, at least they were made more even by distance and skill. Here, hand-to-hand, she was smaller, less strong, and there was nothing left to prevent him from using sheer, brute strength to his advantage.Ashtiel Arykosa XDD Meanwhile Dardanos is standing there like, "You humans are so barbaric..."
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Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 12:03 pm
MoonRazor I can see it now; if Dardanos were a person, he'd totes have his arms crossed and his foot would be tapping as he shook his head in disapprovel She could see it in his eyes; he thought to use his size and gender as an advantage, but Soibhan had spent a majority of her life around men. Men that were bigger, faster, and stronger than she was. Her own brother had taught her the best ways to take him down and to use her own smaller size to her advantage in a fight with a man. The only reason she hadn't been able to put that knowledge to use during her kidnapping was because of the stupid sack they'd thrown over her head. Grabbing the elbow he painfully shoved at her, she twisted it up and back, stepping behind him and wrenching the limb up. Her foot connected with the back of his knee to bring him down to a more manageable height. Her body ached but the adrenaline rush zinged through every vain. Words weren't something she would ever excel in. But this? This she could do. Physicality was something she was intimately good at on multiple levels. Whereas words could be manipulated, twisted, and bent by subterfuge and lies, it was almost impossible to lie with your body. She could be completely honest with her body language and didn't have to guess at the outcome. She was breathing more heavily now; it hadn't escaped her notice, his hesitation in wanting to hit her. And for some reason, that made her angrier. "Ye doona hesitate to cut me with words, but ye flinch when it comes te hittin' me wi' yer fist? Fight me!" she growled, lifting his twisted arm higher up his back to punctuate the words.
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Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 12:20 pm
What he was about to do next would hurt, but even as the thought occurred to him, the small voice of reason in his head told him, That's alright, as it had done on so many other occasions. Pain was nothing, and in fact was so pleasant when it stopped that he didn't mind it much at times.
He took a breath, then swung at her stomach with his elbow, gritting his teeth at the shot of pain through his twisted arm. But that was alright. If he knocked the wind out of her, she would let go. The leg she had kicked promised to be troublesome, but she was close enough that he wouldn't need it, and the minute she let go, he would swing around and deliver that punch she seemed to want so badly.
And still, she didn't understand. For all that he had hurt her with his words, they were simply words. She didn't need to beat him, just prove that she was everything he thought she wasn't. And she was doing anything but that.
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Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:03 pm
Soibhan hadn't expected the man to willingly deal himself more pain, so when he wrenched his own arm to elbow her in the gut, it came as an honest surprise. The wind exploded from her lungs and her diaphragm seized up, making it hard for her to draw her breath back in. She tried to step back, but he had already spun, already risen high enough to swing. His fist hit her in the jaw so hard that stars exploded like a flash bang across her vision, snapping her head to one side. She felt herself falling, but didn't immediately feel the pain. It was as if he'd smacked her conscious self completely out of her own body, and she was watching from above as she fell. Yer too arrogant, wee cub. Yer all teeth an' claws, all the time, an' ye doona know how te retract those claws when ye should.I'm no' a kitten, brother. I'm a warrior.Ahh, bu' a true warrior knows when te keep control, when te le' the anger go. Anger breeds recklessness. An' recklessness is the bane o'a leader.The scene played in her head clear as the daylight breaking over the courtyard. It had been years ago and she'd brushed off her brother's words like an irritating cobweb. To remember it now was like another slap in the face, bruising her ego as much as the hits had bruised her body. She hit the ground hard, barely keeping her head from snapping back and hitting the dirt. A myriad of emotions hit her all at once, but the foremost was the anger that had dogged her the entire duel. Right behind it was the wounded pride, the embarrassment, the frustration. Each one fed the others and as her fingers dug into the dirt, she stared at the sky and tried not to cry. Crying would be the icing on the ******** cake, and she couldn't give him the pleasure of seeing her tears. I'll die before I cry like a Sunderland b***h...
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Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:42 pm
The intense focus slowly left him, and he became suddenly very aware of everything else around him: the trees, the sunlight sneaking across the sky, the harsh sound of his heavy breathing, the taste of blood in his mouth, the steely look in Dardanos' eyes. Had he gone too far? Had he crossed the line at which "she asked for it" was no longer an acceptable reason? He could see in Dardanos' gaze a silent warning not to make the situation worse.
Edgar rose to his full height, resting on the leg she hadn't kicked out from under him, knowing he might just collapse if he tried to stand on both. His good hand rubbed at the arm she had twisted, trying to convince it to stop throbbing even though he knew it wouldn't be the same for days, and his jaw was starting to twinge from her punch.
He thought he ought to say something, to help pick her up off the ground, to maybe show that he wasn't the complete a*****e she thought he was, but he couldn't envision her taking well to any of those actions. He had no intention to tread on her while she was already down, but she would take it that way, he knew she would. So instead of saying anything aloud, he gestured to Dardanos. Let's go, he thought, and the Guardian agreed.
The buck made his way to Soibhan, looking at her with all the warmth in the world. He knew. He could sense her emotions better than his Chosen could. He could feel the tears bubbling beneath the surface. None of it transmitted to Edgar - he didn't need to know, and she didn't need him to know either - but Dardanos stopped beside her and lowered his head to breathe warm breaths on her and snuffle her hair. It was alright, he meant, all of it. Losing, crying, being alone, anything.
Then he was gone, returning to his Chosen's side to support Edgar as he limped carefully away.
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Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 4:16 pm
She refused to look at him. Refused to move until he'd gone, because she didn't want to show him how badly his punch had hurt her. Her jaw throbbed; she could feel the unbelievable pressure as it swelled and bruised, and tasted blood on her tongue from where she'd bitten it. More aches and throbbings dotted her body and she knew without looking that she would be black and blue all over within a matter of hours. All she could hear was her brother's voice, chiding her over and over again in her head about being reckless, and the longer she lay there, the louder his voice became. Except it was Edgar's voice now, though he didn't speak aloud as he stood above her. Was he going to gloat? Would he add his wounding words to his physical blows? When he turned and walked away without a word, she squeezed her eyes shut, fists clenched at her sides. As his footsteps receded, his pace disjointed as he limped, she bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. And she almost succeeded... Until Dardanos approached her and bent to nibble at her hair, his breath warm and somehow soothing. She was a thousand miles from home, in a land that didn't understand her, and surrounded by people that looked at her as if she were mad. Most didn't trust her, and those that did had their own problems to deal with. Her golden eyes met his and he seemed to see right through her. The buck was amazingly astute, and she knew... Somehow she knew what he was trying to say as he stared at her with that warmth in his gaze. It was alright. Then the Guardian turned and left her to help his Chosen. When the quiet buck and wounded man were gone, a deafening silence fell over the courtyard. It was still too early for movement in such a place. Numbly she realized that the entire confrontation had taken less than an hour. Finally, the tears began to fall. They stung her face and caught in her throat, choking her until she turned to her side and curled in on herself. Soibhan Breanainn, warrior daughter of Belenos Breanainn of one of the mightiest clans in all of Gaels, had been left beaten and broken in the dirt of a foreign, unloving country. And as she cried, she wondered....where? Where had it all gone wrong? FIN
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