Whatever he expected of his next battle – and to be honest he’s learned to stop expecting and simply go with it when it happens – he is always surprised when it is one of his own. A mock, a training – those are different altogether than dragging oneself to the challenge field and the watchful eyes of Beqanna’s magics. But no matter, he will go; the day dawns bright enough but overcast, and the bite of the air proves autumn is well and truly upon them. His breath fogs before him as he drops from the sky, joining his brother on the field.
Kratos is quite a bit taller than Brennen, and built like a tank besides. The once-general eyes him with placid contemplation; decades of experience tell him that while he is probably quicker on his feet, his overlarge black wings are ever a burden on the ground. He could – and has, in the past – give them up for the fight and even have them magically vanish for the duration but he is comfortable in the sky in a way that even interminably long hours of practice have not made him on the ground.
So after nodding to Kratos, solemnly, that is where he goes. Up and into the sky, gathering the wind which serves at his beck and call to swirl fiercely around them and underneath his outstretched wings, lifting him into the gray-blue sky faster than he could have achieved unaided. And the wind serves another purpose – he has done his research and knows well his opponent’s ability to summon lightning from the sky. But as he circles around to come at Kratos from the front, the strong winds that allow him to fly quick and low also buffet dust and dirt and air into the black stallion’s face, hopefully impairing his ability to see Brennen and target a bolt of lightning towards him. If he is lucky – and he often is – Brennen is also hoping the strong-moving winds will also affect the accuracy of such a lightning strike (for surely, lightning must burn up air as it travels and thus must be subject to the whims of the wind as much as anything else).
With the wind as his distraction and his aid, the pegasus locks into Kratos’ position, endeavoring to keep himself flying directly head-on, and low enough to put his opponent’s head into striking range. And strike he does, as he swoops down, knowing he will have only a few valuable seconds to land a good kick from his forelegs and another few seconds to do the same backwards with his hindlegs before he must pull away and up, circling back upon his summoned winds lest Kratos get a good look at him from behind to summon the lightning. He aims for the eyes foremost with his forelegs and the skull in general with his hindlegs as he passes; a warrior who cannot see (even temporarily) is a sitting duck and he knows from experience how painful and disorienting any type of headwound can be. He has seen death come from such a blow, though of course that is not his intent here with his Brother. For his own part he is wary of the sensation of electricity in the air that might signal a counterattack and also for the possibility that Kratos might rear up, striking back at Brennen’s underside if he dares fly too low or even entangling himself in Brennen’s legs or wings and bringing the pegasus crashing to the ground.
And once he is past, he must quickly rise up above the wind he has kept blowing towards Krato’s face no matter which way he turns, and instead use his own physical power to wing his way back towards his opponent, flying above his self-propelled wind, considering a second attack. Once now he has descended from the sky to engage Kratos physically, needing to feel the give of flesh beneath his hooves to fuel the adrenaline to battle, but he thinks it foolish to risk a second such close encounter when he has other methods of attack at his disposal.
This time as he wings round to face Kratos it is not the urgent, quick flight of before to take advantage of any unpreparedness. Surely by now the younger stallion is well and prepared. No, this time it is merely so that he can get the greatest view of his ground-bound opponent, watching any movements the boy might make while Brennen lets his consciousness reach deep into the earth, beneath the soil to where always there dwells ice, beneath where the heat of the surface sun has warmed it. Once upon a time he had to be close to the ice to bring it to him; once upon a time he practiced his ice magic mainly within the Tundra itself. But almost anything is possible if you are willing to pay the price for overreaching later, and he has had to his name so many years of practice.
When the spears of ice burst from the ground beneath and around Kratos, or at least where he sees Kratos to be unless the other has decided in the last split second to change his observable tactics and gallop off in another direction, it is sudden. Surely his concentration might have given some warning, and often the ground shakes with the effort of expelling such things, and of course there must be some sound, but if Kratos has not seen him do this before (or unless he is exceptionally sensitive to what the movements of the earth mean), Brennen still hopes to take him by surprise and in some way harm him with the jagged edges of ice which have sprung from the ground beneath his feet; they are two and three feet in length and protrude at odd angles, very few straight up but instead slicing sideways and diagonally in every which way (meaning they could strike at legs and the barrel and the neck as well as straight up towards a tender belly).
It is only after he has succeeded that he realizes he is dangerously close to the ground himself – he is not built for hovering after all but for soaring, and in his intense concentration he has forgotten to keep himself as high as he ought to. With powerful wingbeats he seeks to remedy his error, but the same wind he has been using to distract and annoy Kratos has pushed him in that direction, and if the other Tundra stallion is not now impaled on an ice spear and unable to spring towards the low-flying Brennen, he knows he must prepare to defend himself in close and not-ideal quarters.
