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And there was no reason for him to let go. He felt the resistance under his hands which signalled the wards and his reaction was simply the one it had always been when presented with a problem. He decided to solve it.

Throwing his back into it, and with the same complete lack of expression he started to forcibly try and drag her by the throat right off of the training fields.

He wasn't going to kill her Not yet. He would be caught like this without question and she would be taken away from him like the bodies in the pods and that was the only thing stopping him. When he did kill her, it would be perfect and no one would have a single scrap of evidence on him. She would be his. But for the time being it did no harm if she thought he would.

He stopped just short of the edge of the boundary and gave her a faraway look. "You say as a bargaining chip when you have become the only thing I have to lose." And then he got right back to dragging her, mercifully keeping the claw blades around behind her neck, holding on with only the steel palm of the gauntlet.

He had no plan short of getting to feel her without a shield and letting her know that her walking away from this open defiance was like so many other things, his gift to her.

The reaction was what he'd been waiting on, fear, splendid radiant fear. She had been so arrogant and now the arrogance was gone. He held tighter and bringing up a knee to her gut threw his weight forward against her, trying to throw her off balance and pin her. And all the while he hardly sounded bothered, treating the attack with the same blank indifference one might treat making a cup of tea or changing a shirt.

"If you struggle you will only get injured." he said and it wasn't reassurance, simply blank fact.

And it was unfortunate. It was always unfortunate that people couldn't see. So much emotion and all it did was fight when it saw it's end, its cessation. People spoke of fear of death being a trait of all living things. He wondered sometimes what that made him.

He tightened his grip, methodological, careful, not too much pressure, he didn't want to kill her. He wanted her to stop.

The quiet was what he'd wanted, still and finally passive. But with the conciousness that went out of her, so too did the emotions that he was drawn to. The blank look he gave her was that of a wild animal suddenly confused by the absence of its prey. She would not die. Not yet.

He let go of her throat, his hands gentle and reverent as he stroked the skin he'd so roughly treated. She deserved more but she made him do such crass things.

Raising the razor sharp blade of the index finger of his right hand, he sunk it into the flesh of her chest, below her collarbone, right in the centre. Not deep enough to damage her ribs but enough to provide a canvas. With the same level care and delicacy he used on his nails as Chantelle and on playing the piano, he gouged a perfect treble clef into her flesh.

Only when he was completely satisfied with the symbol, with letting her know that it really started here did he lay a single reverent kiss upon her forehead and step away, fishing for her phone to delete the messages he'd sent her inviting her to spar and send one single text to Kostya, desummoning his gauntlets to do so.

astrazilla

To: Kostya
Message: By the training fields. Get there before I bleed out.

After wiping the phone off with his cloak he let it drop to lie by her side and turned to return to the dormitories. He would be sleeping as Chantelle tonight. And he would sleep restfully.

Her chest was messy with blood, Lawrence's handiwork starting just below her collar bone and dipping low between her breasts. But as the bandage brought the bleeding to a stop, it quickly became apparent that the actual wound was less a danger than all the lost blood. Her throat was a mottled band of ugly red purple spots, making small, abrupt motions as she took pained, gasping breaths.

The few medics on staff for the late night hours were at first startled and then irritated as they had Kostya carry her to an exam room. The general sentiment, from various mutters and looks, was that things like this should not be happening during spars anymore. Not with the dampeners in place. If they should occur though, it should not be at 2am on their shift, because this had paperwork written all over it.

The intermediate was made to cool his heels outside, and soon enough paperwork made its was to his side. At first just the standard check in papers, which were fairly brief compared to civilian hospitals. Then came the incident report. Then came Jane.

She was dressed in scrubs as she sat beside him, just another nurse taking a moment to rest her feet. "Good evening, were either of these two involved to your knowledge?" Jane held up a picture of Charlotte and then another of Sasha.

She took the phone and swiftly scrolled through the contents of his texts and personal messages with a pleasant smile. After several minutes of silent scanning, she handed it back to him. "Pity. It'll be on video as well, so it's something of a waste." Standing up, she ran a hand down her her scrubs, straightening them back into tidy, yet not pristine, order.

"Maybe next time."

And then she was gone, just as Sunny was stepping out of the exam room. "Whatever the ******** happened will be on the report so don't even ******** bother, because I don't want to hear it. You assholes manage to get hurt to matter how many ******** training wheels we put on you. Should be able to talk in a day or two, she'll stay here overnight to get her blood back up. So you can go away anytime now, you know." The nurse sounded bored by this point and there was a very likely chance that she would not bother repeating any of this to the actual patient. When he didn't immediately run off, she continued, "Except for the scar she'll be back to normal by the end of the week, which is honestly more than whatever rampant ******** stupidity led her to sparring," bunny quotes, "in the middle of the ******** night, really deserves."