"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
- Two posts each.
- Two attacks/counter attacks per post (though I'd be willing to reduce this two one attack per post in the interest of shorter post length if you wish).
- Four days between posts.
- Reasonable extensions allowed.
- Traits allowed. I can limit Lexa if you like (perhaps to carbon armour or carbon weapons only?), but I'd like to have some traits because they can be fun.
- I don't really care who goes first. If you'd like me to go first, give me the stats of your character (Lexa's are all on her profile).
You wanted two posts each, so that becomes a 4 round mock
2 turns per round (this was the two attacks per post)
NO full blocks/dodges allowed (so only -3 DMG)
1 BONUS roll per character (this is for her RAGE ROLL lol, we'll say it's a possible +10 DMG with the same rolling chances as an L1 attack??? If that sounds good to you)
Lupei
Anglo-Arabian Stallion
5
15.3"
Maneless/Tailless
White fire manipulation, wolf shifting
I'm so glad that he let me try it again
'Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
TURN ONE:
He’s getting old. Well … scratch that, not old, just less flexible. He can feel the tender ache in his shoulder and on his lower spine from previous skirmishes when the weather turns, but that’s not enough to keep the wolf of the Chamber from any sort of fight. Breeding season is right around the bend and Lupei needs something to occupy his mind and take a little of the edge off, so why not here and now? The spring rains are mostly gone even though this particular morning is hazy with a light fog. It’s not enough to blind a horse, but it is enough to feel the weight of the humidity in the air around you. He’s already sweating in the creases of his belly as he eyes the spotted girl a ways off - she’s attentive and it seems he’s caught her interest.
“Let’s dance.” He thinks, chuckling softly to himself. There’s too much energy to be wasted in chasing her down or trying to keep tabs on where she’ll move, so he’s willing to hit hard and fast without an apology. Thus far he’s been walking, making it appear as if he’s going to pass her up, but he lifts with his hind and rolls into an easy canter on his left lead, headed directly for her right side. His intentions are clear now, so he focuses on her in case she would move - drawing on his inner flame before shaping it into a tangible, physical wave of white fire. The rising tide of blazing inferno is arced in a semicircle in front of him so he pushes it outwards to her, swelling the upsurge until it becomes a beast of a thing that will be difficult for her to escape from either side. With any luck she’ll be caught in the surf as it crashes back to earth, and Lupei will have gotten perhaps a step ahead in the game.
[L3 ATTACK]
TURN TWO:
No time to waste now that the deed’s been done. He switches leads and slows to a trot, heading away from her right side while keeping his left open to her. He’s got a better eye on her now but he won’t be so rash as to expose his front or turn his back on her. There’s something curious about this one, with that hard stare and the odd pattern blacked out in her otherwise white blanket. He gets the feeling that he’s seen her before, somewhere, but he can’t put his finger on it just now. Instead he stops, backing a few steps so that he can lift his front and put his weight on his back legs, in case he needs to quickly pivot one way or the other, all the while trying not to get farther than the twenty or so feet that may be between them now.
She’s more than a little surprised when a member of the Chambers answers her call for a mock. Relations between the two kingdoms have been understandably strained since the war. The thought of facing off with someone who’d also been in that bloodbath doesn’t exactly appeal, but … she can’t bring herself to decline. She doesn’t want to create the chance for him to take offence, or give off the impression of weakness. Besides, the thought of having the chance to beat a little Chamber-ass isn’t completely off-putting.
She eyes the Chamberling stallion from across their little patch of the mocking grounds, taking in his vibrant colouration and his rather distinct lack of mane and tail hair. Bit of an odd looking one if you ask her, though she’s not about to tell him that.
There’s no time to waste on idle thoughts however, as the stallion gets right to it. He picks up speed and moves to run past her. She stands her ground, eyeing him suspiciously, and as it turns out, for good reason. Instead of moving past her he turns at the last moment, charging for her right side.
And then a rising inferno of white flame blazes towards her.
She’s frozen for one, tiny moment.
Her mind flashes back, frozen images flickering through her head.
A grullo appaloosa mare soaring overhead, a wolf latched on to her shoulder …
A massive explosion of blinding white flame consuming them both …
Him.
Lexa absorbs carbon from the earth in one massive gulp. Her body instantly covers itself in a thick, solid, carbon armour. Her voice thunders as the blaze consumes her. “IT WAS YOU!” The fire rages around her, but does not burn, though she can’t entirely escape the affects of the heat. The fire is so hot that the carbon of her armour begins to sublime, and even though she’s fighting to absorb more carbon from the earth, the armour begins to thin. One of her ears begins to burn. She’s not thinking though, she can’t think. This is the bastard that had killed her mother.
[BLOCK]
TURN TWO:
He’s running now, heading away from her, but he’s not going to escape. A violent scream escapes her as the flame dissipates and she breaks into a canter after him. She’s still not thinking, rage blinding her to reason. Her armour fragments away as the mental effort of keeping it up becomes to great.
He stops suddenly, and Lexa picks up speed, moving into an all out gallop aiming for his left side. If she was in full control of her faculties she’d know how foolish she’s being, but she’s beyond reason. There’s no true battle plan in play now, her goal is to run him down, knock him over and throw him into the dirt. He could get out of the way, but at the adrenalin-fed speed she’s moving he’ll be hard pressed to avoid her entirely. She’ll probably hurt herself in the process, but she’s beyond caring. He killed her mother.
[ATTACK: RAGE ROLL ]
and the living are hungry.
lexa.
I think I've done this right? If not, please send me a pm and I'll correct it!
I'm so glad that he let me try it again
'Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
TURN ONE:
Beneath the carbon and the flame he can barely hear her, a muffled noise growing with resonance until it explodes from the force of his gift. “What was me?” He thinks, body poised for her attack. Like a foundling hatched from some great, black egg she rushes into a canter, headed directly for his exposed side. It’s only when he backs that he sees she’s put all her force, all her energy, into this single hit. Lupei has no time to plan a quick escape. If he pivots to his right, she could miss, but she’ll still plow into him. Leave his left as a wall - they could both end up tangled in the dirt. He chooses the lesser of two evils, front right taking the lead as he pivots on his bunched hind to the right. The dark mare slams into his hind and the impact sends him spinning, back legs crumbling beneath him as he lurches forward to try and grapple at the earth for footing.
[BLOCK]
TURN TWO:
It hurt like hell. The force of their collision has him shifting, tumbling head over heels as a black wolf. When he’s done rolling in the dirt he lifts his head, blinking rapidly to try and discern where she’ll be. If her impact was as powerful as she intended, she might have ended up not too far off, nursing a sore spot of her own. His left hind is practically useless, the pain from the impact shooting as a searing, white-hot reminder to be careful who he interacts with in the future. He rises as quickly as he can manage, ears flicking to catch a sound while his eyes finally make sense of her location. He won’t be able to lunge with this defected leg, he’ll have to stick low and maybe hope that rushing her will give her less time to react.
A three-legged dog isn’t as useless as it sounds though, so once he’s pinpointed her, he makes quick calculations while he lurches forward. She hit him with his back turned - his left side taking the brunt of the impact from what he assumes was her chest. With any luck her right side will be the nearest available area to land a blow. The dust hasn’t quite settled yet - so he chooses to use what resources he has left in order to make the best possible return attack, mouth opening wide to ready his rows of teeth. If she’s standing, and her right side is nearest to him, then his low-blow could hit anywhere along the canon or the pastern, possibly injuring a useful tendon. The same could happen if she’s turned around and he’s somehow attacking her left. If the force from the impact has her prostrate on the ground like it had him, he could be striking anywhere from crest to croup - depending on how she’s laying.
Either way, he does he was he can but he refuses to hold on to this one. He’d been dumb enough to try that once before and it nearly killed him. Snapping hard for good measure the wolf takes his shot and then slinks away to his left, favoring the leg she’d taken from him.
She rams full bore into his hindquarters, sending the green and teal stallion reeling. He scrabbles at the earth to stay upright, but Lexa has no time to take advantage. At full speed she stumbles, then somehow manages to keep her feet, her body careening past the Chamber stallion.
The pain of the collision shakes her though. What the hell is she doing? She’d promised Lagertha that she’d never lose control ever again …
For one clear moment, the Khaleesi’s voice rings out in her head, repeating what she’d said during their last meeting. “We all lose control at some point, and like it or not, it will probably happen again. Emotions are funny like that. Apparently it’s how you know you’re alive, or some similar saying.”
Turns out Lagertha had been right.
But she doesn’t have the luxury to ponder that now. She can’t afford to lose control here - she has to put the needs of her kingdom first. If she were to kill him, she could put the Jungle in a very difficult position. And the Jungle cannot afford a situation like that at the moment.
But, she can still give him a good thrashing. And plot for a day when the Jungle is far stronger …
She stops several metres away from her opponent, taking the moment to catch her breath, while keeping one eye on the stallion. Her right shoulder and the right side of her chest (where she’d made impact with Lupei) are burning - a deep, sharp burn that lets her know she’s bruised herself badly, probably even done some muscle damage.
There’s no time to truly consider the damage however - the stallion has become a wolf (she cringes mentally at the sight, remembering her mother, but keeps control this time), and is clearly considering his next attack.
The wolf lunges at her injured side, mouth wide, teeth at the ready. Despite his obviously injured hind leg he closes the gap between them in seconds, and she has just enough time to pull carbon from the earth and wrap her legs in armour before the vicious teeth sink grasp onto her canon bone. But she doesn’t have time to properly thicken the armour, and while his teeth do not rend her flesh, the crushing force of the bite does not miss the tendon in her leg.
[BLOCK]
She stumbles back when his teeth finally let go, her leg screaming in pain. She doesn’t take the time to test it (though she’s sure it will hurt to walk on for a while) and acts instinctually, pulling carbon from the earth and sending a great solid ball of the material soaring after him, as fast as she can whip it. She would have sent spikes at him from the ground, but that would have been more likely to fatally injure him. She’ll just have to settle for bruising him and possibly breaking a few bones with her ball of carbon.
Attack completed, Lexa stumbles backwards even more, favouring her right foreleg, and creates a full carbon armour. She wants to be out of the way of any possible backlash.
] 