Starflame13
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Délaila sways, starbursts swimming across her vision and partially obscuring Admete’s moonlight form. Strength and determination fill every line of the fate-chaser, and only the echoes of Order’s words prevent the Caplata from staggering forward. But even dismissed, even cast aside, the Knight of Consequence lives to her title - strings of light dancing amongst the curls of her whip as it curls around Prillyi’s arm, as they slice through scarlet cloth -
And then Admete goes flying, breath leaving her lungs in wisps of starlight as she crashes to the tiles between herself and her final foe. Her ally gave her cycle’s end to give Délaila a greater chance for final victory. She swallows, once. Salt stings at the shallow scrapes across her cheek.
May you be reborn into a kinder fate, Admete.
Murky eyes blink once before raising slowly from the fallen form to the blood-drenched and battered Knight of Madness.
I will use your gift well.
Prillyi sways before her, veils of mist drifting in between them. There’s a smile on her broken face. Not a crazed grin, not maddened laughter. For just one moment, a true smile. A flicker, however brief, of sanity.
But not Balance. Not Order. Shredded hands close into fists, splinters digging deep as blood drp-drp trickles down her palms to the tiles below. If she wins here, if Order finds her victor - then Prillyi’s cycle starts anew as well.
Then we all have a chance for a kinder fa -
CR-AAAAACK!
The strange contraption in the reveler’s hands bursts, and suddenly Prillyi rockets towards her. Délaila ch-chnk shifts back, stumbling slightly as another starburst flickers across her vision. She blinks, trying to clear her sight, to gauge how fast her foe approaches - and suddenly the distance between them vanishes. Black and white gauntlets sail past her shoulders and Prillyi’s head th-NK smashes into the priestess’ chest, punching the air from her lungs with a sharp, strangled gasp.
Crimson flashes across her eyes, swirled with black and white as her head CRCK slams backwards into the tile. She coughs, gags, iron spittle flying from her lips as her hands drag at skin, at cloth, timbrels ch-ch-ch-chink slicing neatly through some resistance and send up ch-CHNK sparks along the floor. Tangled limbs roll across the tiles, crushing weight sliding free as cold air claws across her back - only for the weight to slam back into stone. Cracks form beneath scrambling fingertips, sliding along a floor slick with blood until her nails dig in with a wrench. Muscles strain, her own weight recoiling through them as Prillyi’s momentum casts the reveler another rotation, and Délaila drags herself away. Blood dribbles from her lips, and she hacks, coughs, spits a glob of blood and phlegm aside even as trembling arms push her upwards, knees raw through torn cloth as they dig into stone. She sways, ears ringing loud enough to drown out her ragged gasps - and not loud enough to hear the reveler shouting. At… something to shut up.
Ah. Délaila swallows back bile, managing a shallow breath even as wetness trickles down her side. There’s the madness. Not much time until another charge then. The Capalta levies herself up, sliding one foot forward, hands splayed in bloody prints across the tile to keep her steady. Just a bit more. She can push a bit further, can strain a bit harder, can -
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
A hooked blade slides into her vision, spinning along the floor until it comes at a rest by the knee still upon the tile. Her head jerks up - and finds Prillyi there, grinning, the twin to the blade resting by Délaila’s hand raised in the reveler’s own. A challenge.
Well.
It’s not her rattle. But she is more than her weapon.
I can make this work.
Shredded palms stretch forward, curl slowly around the handle. Délaila raises the sword slowly, then digs the hook into the tile. Thick crck-crck-crck fractures spread out across the floor as she leans into it, leveraging herself slowly to her feet. Hey eyes never leave Prillyi’s.
She does not have the strength to beat the reveler at her own game.
The Caplata takes one chnk step forward, hooked sword dragging behind her.
Her exhaustion weighs down her voice, too soft now to call on the spirits to play her own game against Prillyi.
Another chnk step.
So let’s twist the rules.
Délaila swallows, blood coating her tongue and throat. Snakes hiss around her ankles, and she invites them in, feeds them her pain, her desperation. Her fear. She needs to win here, or she’ll have failed. Not just Order, but Admete. Spirit. Herself - and her own world, the struggle to maintain the balance on a razor's edge calling ever more to walk the path towards the Ioa. Her mind flickers back to sun-bleached rock, to whistling grasses, to the buzz of mosquitoes in stagnant water at her back.
If she leaves without one to take her place, the cycle is lost.
She can only change how its fulfilled if she proves to Order there is a different way to maintain it.
The cycle turns slow
Carried forward only on
Choices made in life.
Délaila lunges forward ini a swaying sprint, steps ch-ch-chink-ch-cnk uneven a lurching as it jars her broken side. Only four more steps, three. Ch-ch-chink. Prillyi rears back, grin returned to her face, the twin blade raised high overhead. Two more steps, one. Ch-chnk. Prillyi lunges, blade flashing towards the borrowed weapon -
And Délaila dives to the side, letting her sword slip from her hands. Hook catches against handle as the reveler barrels past her. Blood bubbles at her throat as the priestess twists further, ribs crraa-c-ck stabbing through flesh and blood weeping through her leather. She buckles, curling in - but flings her hand wide all the same. Her first, her last, her greatest weapons glint in copper glory along her wrists, sharpened blades of blessed music flashing towards Prillyi’s throat.
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