08-09-2019, 09:47 AM
She conserves energy by gliding up high, riding the thermals, trying her best to stay patient as she keeps an eye on the creature below. As much as she wants to be finished and just go home, Noah is starting to understand that this isn’t going to be a quick battle. She can’t fight Aodhan on his terms, and her talents aren’t those that can be utilized for a quick ending.
Below her, the rock sits under the flames for some time before it grows, and isn’t that interesting? The part of her that had wandered the world with her father wants to know more about a creature that can affect its own appearance so much: is he a magician? She struggles to keep her attention focused, no wandering rabbit trails of curiosity, as he moves slowly. First, the growing rock breaks free of the grass (it’s at about that point that she stopped feeding the fire anyway), and then it becomes a tree. An interesting choice, the Pegasus thinks, given trees have no more offensive properties than rocks.
What trees DO do is respirate, however unusually, and she is confident that Aodhan-the-tree will catch some form of the disease she planted in the wake of the fire. Still, he’s a tempting target this way, and she wonders how injuries sustained in one form affect his others. The fire burns at Aodhan’s base, but because he grew so tall, there is plenty of tree to target. While he waits, still and tree-like, Noah drops closer and closer, and when nothing happens, she strikes at a branch reaching up to the sky, hind legs kicking out powerfully. Somehow, she’s not surprised this time to have her hooves clang painfully against what feels like rock, even though it looks like tree. The impact ricochets up her legs, uncomfortable but not debilitating, as she takes back up to the sky in case he shifts again. She’s frustrated, irritable, and can only hope that the disease is doing its job because physically, it seems she can’t touch him.
As she rises back into the sky, the fire slowly dies down around the rock-encased tree, leaving a large circle of ash in it’s wake. She makes a few lazy spirals at the peak of her flight, and then before her eyes, the tree becomes a dragon, and her quiet soaring becomes an active scramble again, as she maneuvers to do her best to stay out of range. Fire breathing, sharp teeth, talons – nothing pleasant here. Out of the corner of her eye, Noah can see that he is only a dragon for a few wingbeats, and then he is something much smaller.
The rapid changes must be tiring, unless he practices them constantly, and she wonders if she could simply outlast him. At some point, would a shift be his last? She can’t be sure – but what she can be sure of, in this moment, is that the little falcon is more maneuverable than she is, and the last thing she wants is him getting close in this form and then changing – say, back to a giant rock and dropping on her from above. Her best answer now is to be erratic, and she is glad she’s been conserving her energy so she has the ability to be thus. Noah does her best to be unexpected, within her abilities; she goes side-to-side, up and down, pulls up sharply; it’s not enough, and she knows he is catching up to her.
A sharp avian cough just out of sight gives her a brief, immense surge of satisfaction and then he’s disappeared. She cranes her head, circles as tightly as she can, but catches not even a glimpse. If he can be a rock and a tree, what else can he be? She doesn’t feel the flea land, but a single flea wouldn’t even be enough to make a horse itch, not unless it bit her again and again and again over time. For the purpose of this battle, she probably won’t even feel it. And it’s not blood that gives her immunity to the disease but the disease-magic, and so it won’t do him any good. Noah doesn’t know he’s there, but when he doesn’t start healing he’ll have to try something else.
For her part, the little mare glides lower towards the ground, eyes searching for some sign of something unusual, or movement. She doesn’t want to give up her advantage of flight entirely, not knowing it takes more time and energy to get back off the ground than to stay aloft, but she doesn’t know how long it will be before he makes another move, and at some point she might want to rest. Her short burst of evasive maneuvers sapped energy. Unless perhaps he gave up, and decided to go try and steal another land out from under it’s inhabitants? She hesitates in the sky, as low as it’s possible to be without actively expending massive amounts of energy, and wonders to herself how she will even know this battle is over.
Below her, the rock sits under the flames for some time before it grows, and isn’t that interesting? The part of her that had wandered the world with her father wants to know more about a creature that can affect its own appearance so much: is he a magician? She struggles to keep her attention focused, no wandering rabbit trails of curiosity, as he moves slowly. First, the growing rock breaks free of the grass (it’s at about that point that she stopped feeding the fire anyway), and then it becomes a tree. An interesting choice, the Pegasus thinks, given trees have no more offensive properties than rocks.
What trees DO do is respirate, however unusually, and she is confident that Aodhan-the-tree will catch some form of the disease she planted in the wake of the fire. Still, he’s a tempting target this way, and she wonders how injuries sustained in one form affect his others. The fire burns at Aodhan’s base, but because he grew so tall, there is plenty of tree to target. While he waits, still and tree-like, Noah drops closer and closer, and when nothing happens, she strikes at a branch reaching up to the sky, hind legs kicking out powerfully. Somehow, she’s not surprised this time to have her hooves clang painfully against what feels like rock, even though it looks like tree. The impact ricochets up her legs, uncomfortable but not debilitating, as she takes back up to the sky in case he shifts again. She’s frustrated, irritable, and can only hope that the disease is doing its job because physically, it seems she can’t touch him.
As she rises back into the sky, the fire slowly dies down around the rock-encased tree, leaving a large circle of ash in it’s wake. She makes a few lazy spirals at the peak of her flight, and then before her eyes, the tree becomes a dragon, and her quiet soaring becomes an active scramble again, as she maneuvers to do her best to stay out of range. Fire breathing, sharp teeth, talons – nothing pleasant here. Out of the corner of her eye, Noah can see that he is only a dragon for a few wingbeats, and then he is something much smaller.
The rapid changes must be tiring, unless he practices them constantly, and she wonders if she could simply outlast him. At some point, would a shift be his last? She can’t be sure – but what she can be sure of, in this moment, is that the little falcon is more maneuverable than she is, and the last thing she wants is him getting close in this form and then changing – say, back to a giant rock and dropping on her from above. Her best answer now is to be erratic, and she is glad she’s been conserving her energy so she has the ability to be thus. Noah does her best to be unexpected, within her abilities; she goes side-to-side, up and down, pulls up sharply; it’s not enough, and she knows he is catching up to her.
A sharp avian cough just out of sight gives her a brief, immense surge of satisfaction and then he’s disappeared. She cranes her head, circles as tightly as she can, but catches not even a glimpse. If he can be a rock and a tree, what else can he be? She doesn’t feel the flea land, but a single flea wouldn’t even be enough to make a horse itch, not unless it bit her again and again and again over time. For the purpose of this battle, she probably won’t even feel it. And it’s not blood that gives her immunity to the disease but the disease-magic, and so it won’t do him any good. Noah doesn’t know he’s there, but when he doesn’t start healing he’ll have to try something else.
For her part, the little mare glides lower towards the ground, eyes searching for some sign of something unusual, or movement. She doesn’t want to give up her advantage of flight entirely, not knowing it takes more time and energy to get back off the ground than to stay aloft, but she doesn’t know how long it will be before he makes another move, and at some point she might want to rest. Her short burst of evasive maneuvers sapped energy. Unless perhaps he gave up, and decided to go try and steal another land out from under it’s inhabitants? She hesitates in the sky, as low as it’s possible to be without actively expending massive amounts of energy, and wonders to herself how she will even know this battle is over.