In the days leading up to the epic battle, Ro Vasuva had done absolutely nothing to prepare himself. In fact, he had not even realized that he would be participating in a battle of any sort, epic or otherwise. He had mostly just been very glad to get out of the stinking, sweating, sucking swamps. By the time he got through them, he was wishing all sorts of death and misery on them, beyond the fire that had already left it a blackened place with even less plant life than one would ordinarily find in a swamp. Ro didn't know a great deal about swamps or their flora, and he didn't really care. He was just beyond thrilled to be away from the damned place.

On the other hand, the second combatant, Voiboi, had been ready and waiting for a fight for some time. As part of a somewhat unconventional viking strategy, his captain had set several of his band in strategic locations he was certain would attract rogues, and thereby save them the trouble of actually having to hunt them down. Voiboi liked hunting rogues down, and although he didn't mind lazing around when he was at home, he objected to it when he was viking. It was supremely, horribly dull. It also made for boring stories when he came home, and that was almost worse, for a Stormborn.

After two days of sitting at a pool of clean water, the only really clean water the band had scouted out within a day's walk, Voiboi was positively giddy to hear the sound of someone approaching. The fact that he heard the person coming long before he saw them was just icing on the cake, as it were, because it gave him ample opportunity to get into position for an ambush, while simultaneously disguising any noise he might make in the process.

"...doesn't live somewhere like that swamp. Though given my instant dislike for the place it doesn't seem very likely. It seems like I ought to have some sort of innate affinity for the place I come from, and I certainly had no affinity for the swamp. I suppose I'll just have to hope that my father isn't a swamp dweller."

Ro Vasuva had always been a talkative lion, and the time he spent alone in the rogue lands had mostly served to exacerbate the condition. He chattered to himself for hours on end, taking all the parts in a conversation and voicing them aloud. Sometimes it came across as pretty moronic sounding, but it also helped him reason through things and work out solutions to questions and problems.

At home there had been people who theorized that if he was muzzled and prevented from speaking, he might also have been incapable of thinking. No one had ever made a successful attempt at muzzling him though, so it was just another mystery that the world would never see solved.

"Not that I should really be calling the Aikanaro'hini home anymore," he reminded himself. "When I left I made it clear that I had no intention of returning, and that hasn't changed. I suppose it's just habit to think of it that way. It was my home growing up, after all."

His dialogue with himself was cut short when a hulking brute with a buttery coat sprang at him from beneath a natural ridge in the ground, throwing him to his side and opening a gash to on his back where his butter colored attacker's claws had scrabbled for purchase. Ro's answering snarl was partly a pained reaction, but mostly it was meant to be an intimidating noise. In his former pride, a lion learned to bear pain without reaction, and he had been good at it.

Voi's attack had come a little bit early, but he had grown tired of listening to the other person talking to himself. It had seemed as if he never shut up, and after two days of nearly total solitude, all that speech had been a terrible nuisance to the Stormborn reaver. He privately vowed that he would do his level best to remove the dark lion's tongue, either during this fight or after, once he had beaten the outlander.

First, though, he had to defeat him, and that was not proving as easy as it ought to have been. He was larger than the outlander, though not by as much as he usually was, but despite his inattention to his surroundings, the outlander fought like a demon. He twisted and snarled, contorting his body into shapes that defied even feline physics to sink his teeth and claws into points of Voi's body that he hadn't even realized were sensitive until he found himself gasping in shocked pain at each new attack.

For his part, Ro was surprised to find that the lion who had ambushed him was able to bear as much pain as he was dishing out. When he had been learning to fight, Ro had been forced to endure the same sort of attacks he was using now, with the claws going into pressure points and targeting hidden weak spots. In those times, he had found himself brought low, unable to continue fighting. This pale lion had an absurd constitution, and entirely too much stamina. Against his superior bulk and muscle, Ro was beginning to tire.

In point of fact, Ro was not a warrior. He knew how to fight, and he had been given the skills to hurt people, but that was not his primary occupation and it was not his area of expertise. He was much better at attracting people. Well, female people. So far he had not made a very good impression on many of the male rogues he had encountered. The pale yellow lion was the first one to actually fight him though.

"Why...are we doing this?" he panted after an attempt to bite his opponent's ear went awry.

Voi could feel that the tide of the battle had turned in his favor, and so he could afford to be magnanimous. Besides, he would be telling his opponent all of this anyway, once the fight was over and done with. Perhaps he could put a little fear in him now, make him give in without fighting any more. Voi would appreciate that.

"Once you're defeated, you will become a thrall, a slave in my pride. If you surrender now, I'll see to it your lot isn't as miserable as it could be."

The two had parted to have this conversation, as it was no easy task to converse with one's mouth full of someone else's flesh, and it was equally difficult to pay attention with bits of your flesh in someone else's mouth. It had been a mistake for Voiboi to release his hold on Ro, however, because another one of the demon's talents was for getting out of unpleasant situations by any means at his disposal. Ordinarily he would not have chosen flight, but this was a somewhat extraordinary circumstance.

He ran, and although Voi pursued him, he had been given instructions on how far he was to pursue escapees. It was more important that he remain at his post than that he hunt down strays, according to his captain. He sulked for the rest of his time at the oasis. Meanwhile, Ro continued on his quest to find his father.
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