[SE] a maze of unmapped ideas

ISKRA

The flames did not burn the beast clean through as Iskra might have hoped. In part because his strength still lacks, but mostly because the void is resilient and fierce, proof if it could withstand her fire with equal ease. The heat of it rolls back in stark contrast with the cold against his face, causing him to wince back for a moment. "Sure can!" he says with a near wild laugh as the festering creature crashes into the rocks with a well deserved rage. The spill of adrenaline is reminiscent of all their daring adventures in childhood, and for the first time since he can remember, Iskra doesn't feel a wisp of darkness lingering through him. There's a lightness born with the shedding of the grief and the fear and the doubt, and it sings through him with a reckless fervor that begs him to fly.

However foolish.

"Keep him busy!" Iskra throws to Mel just before he pulls Ampere back in his hand and whips her blade down towards the void ursur's head. All his keen axe handling and the practice of tossing them that he'd started alongside her came to a point as the crack of the lightning tool sung out clear and violent upon contact. Iskra doesn't wait, hopping off the rock in the wake of the static, teeth clenched against the frenzy of reclaiming Ampere amid blood and claw. He doesn't linger to see if it's a corpse or a really pissed off bear he's retrieving his axe from, in part because it's friend is still very much alive and nearby, and Iskra doesn't have half the skills for scaling rocks as he does for swinging an axe.

---

Iskra uses the following on void ursur 1
Type: Dark | Style: Offensive | Level: Basic
Ampere | A greataxe decorated with engravings depicting feathers and lightning bolts. Produces lightning where its blade strikes.

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie

Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

The answer didn’t grant her any relief; her face turned into a petulant frown as she watched the beast indeed begin to scuttle up towards them. Rolling her eyes at it though, she nodded at his statement, already engrossed in the finery of violence. Absorbed by the vehemence, the vicious wiles of menace, she could admit it was nice to have someone else joining in on the indulgent mayhem with her.

Even if he was putting himself right out in the abyss.

Keeping and honing her concentration, she narrowed her eyes and avoided the sweep and crack of lightning nearby, steadied her heart, took a deep lungful of air. The bear roared in avid defiance while the sparks soaked and absorbed into its entity with bitter pain and contemptuous upheaval, and the Honeybee took the opportunity to steel and forge herself, snagging at another touch of flame. Notching it quickly, she watched as the ursur continued to climb, climb, climb, until she could nearly feel its rampant breath, before taking aim and firing the ember-embedded arrow straight into its eye.

Melita

ISKRA

The crack of Ampere is satisfying along the length of his arms as he slams her into the void ursur, but it seems she's only as capable as the one swinging her, and the beast doesn't crumple with the finality Iskra had been hoping for. It's guttural defiance continues while Iskra struggles to reclaim his weapon from its meat and blood and fury, grateful that it's infected mind is snared on Melita, in a weird twist given his normal over-protective nature. She's at least still safely perched on the stone, though its paws and maw rise higher with every moment.

Her arrow loosens like a breath and the beast finally grows still and silent, the blazing point of her ammunition smoking around it's lashes as it slumps to the ground. Iskra grins up at her with triumph, though the moment is brief, the bellow of it's friend cracking across the cold air with newfound rage at their audacity. Iskra's attention jerks towards it, feeling far too exposed down here now, and settles on hauling Ampere back and flinging her at the bear's head. The slap of lightning he hopes will be enough to buy him the time to scramble back up the meager defense they have.

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie

Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

The satisfaction, and the smirk that followed, was short-lived. The other bear remained, and maybe if she’d been fast enough, she could’ve shot two arrows instead of grandstanding with one. Perhaps that was neither here nor there, but something kept in the back of her mind as she watched Iskra go to lay waste again, not far behind. “I’m going invisible!” She shouted, intentions to be distracting and needling, while possessing all the flair of prowess and power – just that this bear wouldn’t be able to figure out where it was all coming from.

Nor did she want Iskra to be the main target, so she meandered towards the right, giving a show of moving rocks pummeling and rolling down the crag. Snagging at another in her quiver, she went for lightning this time too – a little shared display of the element while striving to more forward and ahead with its sparks and derision. These ones weren’t going to maul and murder her – they were hers.

The first shot missed, skimming just above the roaring bear’s head, but it’d be enough to cause its nasty little features in her direction (or would – had it been able to see her – for now it just looked around in confusion). Her second one though sat and anchored right into its paw, and the sizzling, crackling sounds were music to her ears.

Melita

ISKRA

He glances up just in time to see her vanish, foot slipping on the stone as he clambers up its surface. Behind him, Ampere's bite has died down, but the lightning continues anew as Mel fires. "Nice one!" he calls out to her with a wild grin, as if there isn't a monstrous beast attempting to dismember each of them if only it could get close enough.

Drawing from the still smoldering corpse of it's fellow, Iskra sends a stream of flame blasting towards the bear's other paw. It'll be distraction as much as something damaging, especially for such a tender region. Ampere still remained too close to the beast for him to risk grabbing her, and reluctantly, he has to admit Mel had been right, again. He does have his regular axe. Seems like maybe he needs a shield, or embed the recall she suggested, or just have something more.

This has wet his appetite, because slaying something vile, and doing it alongside her, it's worth everything.

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie

Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

She could hear the triumphant little call, and simply wanted more. More bloodshed. More ruin. More satisfaction. A wicked grin settled upon her features, unseen and merciless, as she forged onward, grabbing hold of another arrow as she saw the bear twist back towards Iskra. A brief moment of panic settled into her soul and returned as spite, pettiness, and that conniving, covetous, greedy parallel in rage and viciousness.

Bearing down, she fired off two of the electric arrows, watching as they embedded straight into the beast’s skull. There was a spark, a snap, as the ursur was thrown back in the heavy maelstrom, waves pulsing through its form –

Until it simply fell, sizzling and sparking. “Yeah, get fucked!” she shouted in response, waiting for something else to erupt or happen.

Melita

ISKRA

There's a moment where the target swaps back to him, the only visible foe, flame still in hand, and suddenly the rock he scaled doesn't seem like enough. The ursur's rage is palpable enough Iskra could practically wrestle it too, but Mel's is quicker, more violent, and it feels the beast before Iskra can even devise his exit strategy in full.

There's a moment where everything is just still after her shout. It's the brief stasis of disbelief that follows something terrible and thrilling, where's the calm of the world creeping back in feels somehow too wrong after the chaos of survival. It breaks then, as Iskra whoops after her and leaps back off the rock. "Hell yeah Mel!" he cheers breathlessly, grin too wide to talk around, as he glances around for her. Perhaps a normal day for her, but he hasn't really wielded his strength or skills into the demise of something before, and it races through him like a new hunger.

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie

Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

Feeling far more potent and powerful now that she’d felled multiple monsters, she unfurled from the invisible proportions, features smug and pleased. “Well that’s all done then,” and the Honeybee kicked one, watched as it didn’t move at all. “You good?” Her gaze went back to Iskra, brow arched; she wouldn’t have been able to do any healing if he wasn’t, but it seemed fair to check, regardless. It would’ve meant a quick journey back to Halo.

Thereafter though, while still pumped and content with the arrangement of disaster and mayhem, she hummed a little, winding her way around both corpses. “Probably ought to burn them, yeah? I can’t imagine you guys like having this shit out here.” And it wasn’t like they could use the meat – all contaminated and nasty.

Melita

ISKRA

The moment her hidden veil is cast aside, Iskra's gaze sparks to her, his jubilation unyielding as he closes the distance, nearly tripping over a wayward bear paw in his rush. "MEL!" he exclaims as he reaches for her, grabbing her into a twirling hug of celebration, laughter spilling free. He sets her down after a spin, the hold on her shoulders lingering as he fully regards her. "You were incredible," he says with a breath of wonder, never having fully been able to imagine the rough and tumble girl of his youth as this honed warrior of ferocity, until now.

He leans in, faster than thought, and claims her mouth around the continued beam of his smile. His hands drift from her shoulders to gently cradle the bottom of her jaw, thumb brushing along the slope of one. It's a kiss that grows into something unhurried, fed by the adoration for her that only manages to catch into something larger each and every time he's with her, like a great sail that's found an endless breeze (and she may as well have been for all her layers). Pulling back for a breath, the awareness of what he's done fully sinks in, hands dropping back to his sides with a flop against his jacket.

"Yeah, yeah, burning them is a good idea," he says quickly, trying to keep back the creep of nerves with the task of setting things on fire, something they can both agree on.

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie

Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins

His yell brought her attention away from the bear corpses, brow arching as he bounded, reached, and seemed to lift her up for a spin. Her eyes rounded, large and wide in bewilderment, and she didn’t have much time to react until his exclamation brought a feral grin to her features – picking away at all the irritation that had been there before (yeah, she probably was incredible was a thought that ran rampant through her brain for half a second). She cast one audacious little shrug of her shoulders and a keen “Thanks,” before his next move though, and then everything else seemed drowned out after that.

His mouth on hers was a fast and fleeting memory from before, when she’d been the bolder one, and she didn’t give or lend or bend any notions to it. Instead, she lapsed into feeling and the present, taking what was given, granted, freely and foolishly, leaning into the embrace and then trying to find traction on her end. Gloved hands could only do so much to the lapels and grasping his jacket though, so in the slowness she dragged her teeth purposefully over his lips, waiting to see his reaction –

And then he backed away, talked about fires.

Blinking, she could feel her mind striving to catch up with everything, suddenly very much lost and drifting out there on the tundra’s edges. “Right,” she initiated again, head tilting in his direction, brows furrowed as if she was trying to puzzle through the winding, twisting maze and ending up at dead ends each time. Deciphering anything seemed to be a lost cause, so she hastened to what she understood readily, snagging back at her bow and flaming arrows in her quiver.

Melita

ISKRA

There's a moment where he feels her surprise melt into acceptance, where he should have grasped for more, or at least maintained. Yet the unwavering worry that he is not enough, that he has overstepped a line, that she can't fully feel the same for him, keeps him reluctant. Because for every bright and wonderful thing she is, he seems to be lacking it, and how could she want anything less?

Before it had been the drinks to blame, now it had been the rush, her response nothing planned or intentional, just as his.

So, yeah, let it all burn. His fingers flex, drawing on magic to help set the remnants ablaze, trying to keep back the burn that threatens to bloom up his neck with the evidence of it all. The fur smolders with something acrid, and flame licks along fat and flesh with a curl of smoke that summons a cough. "C'mon," he says with a glance towards her, waving away some of the fumes as he steps back towards the way they'd come. "Let's head back into town, find somewhere warm."

[FIN]

I think I lost my mind a while ago
'Cause I've been seeing some ghosts
And I'd be lying if I told you I'm fine, but I lie