[Training] climb these hills we cannot flee

Elide

The arrows fly and pierce and yet, they are ineffective. What is he trying to prove to her? That she'll have to do better than this? There is no beast she's ever known that would rise up after an onslaught like that. A more impulsive person might fume with anger and shame. Elide's mind is racing, gears turning, emotional responses hurled away.

Elide doesn't try to run. There would be no point. If an animal could not die by means of piercing its flesh, there is only one last thing to do. All animals have a head; a central nervous system in which all movement and thought operates. If that is gone, the animal will cease. Even Elide would not recover from such a wound.

So she pulls her crossbow back against her chest and shoulder, not to aim it, but to press it back, charging up her strike. She will let the monster think it has her succumbed to its terrors, to think she has sunk into the stone. Her feet come up to hold it back, legs locking. Then, throwing all of her might into the motion, the crossbow itself becomes the projectile. She moves upward with gritted teeth and bashes the target across its head, aiming to completely 'decapitate' it.

sewn together, my humanity and my immortality
together, they hang, trading places like sun and moon