[Utena's been crouching in the dirt for hours and her calves burn like riftfire. In her black copper armor, packed with a soaked undershirt and breeches, she feels sweaty and bloated....until the first pieces of artillery crash and boom and splinter among the rider camp and their morning routine is replaced by spiking adrenaline, swords drawn.
She sprints from her hiding place, and as she gains acceleration, she seems to gain something else. She's thinking of the villages that the raiders burned, the weeping of peasants. Her sword seems to be brighter, and soon she's bright too, blindingly so in the anemic rays of dawn.
She thinks of hovels on fire and the first dragonrider is down before his sword is even all the way drawn, what was supposed to be a parry turning into a chop that bites into his wrist. He brings his arm up in disbelief to stare at the hand that now hangs by a useless strip of mangled bone and skin from his wrist. Blood spurts his tied beard and another slash opens his carotid. She's moving and parrying the next one now and blindingly bright. Everything around her feels slow and archetypal, as if the whole battle were a tale told long ago and her opponents are faceless minions with no name. She grapples with one, trips him to the ground and stomps on his head, to propel herself into a lunge that drops her weight and that of the edge of her sword onto a third rider.
Anyone who can sense magic will feel it radiating off of her in heavy waves.]
Re: Battle Proper
She sprints from her hiding place, and as she gains acceleration, she seems to gain something else. She's thinking of the villages that the raiders burned, the weeping of peasants. Her sword seems to be brighter, and soon she's bright too, blindingly so in the anemic rays of dawn.
She thinks of hovels on fire and the first dragonrider is down before his sword is even all the way drawn, what was supposed to be a parry turning into a chop that bites into his wrist. He brings his arm up in disbelief to stare at the hand that now hangs by a useless strip of mangled bone and skin from his wrist. Blood spurts his tied beard and another slash opens his carotid. She's moving and parrying the next one now and blindingly bright. Everything around her feels slow and archetypal, as if the whole battle were a tale told long ago and her opponents are faceless minions with no name. She grapples with one, trips him to the ground and stomps on his head, to propel herself into a lunge that drops her weight and that of the edge of her sword onto a third rider.
Anyone who can sense magic will feel it radiating off of her in heavy waves.]