[PRP] No Peace to be Found (Shaheen and Shik)[FIN]

[medigel]

He didn't look away once. Not when he felt her shield give a little under his assault, nor when she forced him back, nor when Shaheen smeared blood on him in so-called retaliation. It was clear even without her barb: not enough.

But he did not raise a hand to strike her this time. Rather, it snaked under the cloth as well and apprehended Shaheen's hand, sliding it out in a gesture that could have been almost tender if not for the sharp look in his eyes. "Am I fighting a dead woman already?" he growled, letting her hand fall away. "Or did your head become addled? Fight me. A brittle bone is easier to break under stress."

HP: 31
Damage: bad touchhhhh  

[Seussi]

Inwardly she cringed away from his words but outwardly her eyes raised from their fixed position on his chest, her breathing become more calm and even, to focus on his own piercing gaze. He had started this while she had stood and let it happen. Twice she had left herself open to him, and he had taken full advantage of that fact, not even bothering to worry that she didn't seem to feel a need to fight back, to return his "affections".

The grip on her blood streaked hand might have been gentle, but nothing in his face, the way he looked at her, was. His words were not gentle. But that was good, because if they had been she would have found herself completely disgusted with him, as he must have been with her at this point.

It was easy to slip her hand free and send a fist jabbing at his throat, aiming for his windpipe without any warning.

HP:23
Damage: 2. Are you happy?  

[medigel]

Close but no cigar: a hand managed check hers, softening the blow.

His eyes didn't leave hers. The curve to his mouth was almost amused, but it clearly said nice try. His nails dug into her skin briefly before he tossed it back.

"Is that all?" he asked, echoing her words.

HP: 29
Damage: 1 but still totally judging you  

[Seussi]

Cute Shik. Really cute. She fought against the temptation to roll her eyes at him, letting her hand get thrown to the side. Instead she let her own lips curl up into a smirk, the look she was giving him far from amused.

One hand discarded, tossed away like it was nothing. The other flashing upwards, a blade glinting as her fingers were suddenly curved around a hilt, gripping it tight, a slash that traveled from low on his body, around his hip bone area, and up diagonally across his chest even as she lifted one foot to stomp down on top of one of his own.

"No."

There was something strangely satisfying to be had from these actions, something surged up inside of her. A need, a longing, a gaping hole that wanted to be filled with more. He did this too her, every single time. She didn't know what it was, but it was almost comforting. It confused her, it was different.

She didn't like it. It needed to stop.

HP: 22
Damage: 7  

[medigel]

There was a flash in his eyes a split second before the dagger sliced at his shield. Maybe it was simply the metal glinting, but it was still a hint, a spark of something dark: a twisted pleasure in the pulse of battle, the kind that grew even as the Fear shield waned. What was a war without some element of risk to it after all?

That was a central problem for Shik, along with his insatiable need to be in control: a persistent impulse to push the limit and invite danger in, just to see how far he could go. Together, it was a deadly combination - and perhaps a toxic one at that.

Shik allowed pain to register on his features as he dragged his foot out from under hers, the lightest of kicks aimed back at her as he backed away. One arm clenched at his torso where the dagger had cut, but in spite of the blood trickling out the smirk remained.

He didn't need to say anything. It was clear this violence was pleasing him.

HP: 22
Damage: 1  

[Seussi]

A small scrape of claws from his foot was all she felt before he backed away, her eyes still on his, the smell of blood much thicker on the air then it had been moments before, almost intoxicating to the chieftain, spurring her onward, making her step forward to follow him in pursuit, to take him down, her dagger still raised and stained with his blood.

But then she stopped, something in her expression changing for just a moment, a flicker of confusion, and then annoyance. Her eyes hardened as something in her chest tightened painfully.

"Go away, Shik." She was tired of this. Tired of him. Tempting her, luring her, controlling her. He knew just what to say, just what buttons to push. He knew how to take the reins on her moods, how to play her, how to incur her rage and how to quell it. He was careful, and subtle, but she knew what he was doing. He was always toying with her, and even if he did have the gall to say that he cared....it wasn't enough.

It was all or nothing. She didn't want to settle anymore.

"Go away." She repeated herself, stooping down to retrieve a small rock from the ground, flicking it at him, aiming for the center of his forehead, more to annoy then to actually hurt.

"I'm done here. We're done here."

If she said it with enough conviction, it would make it true, right?

HP: 21
Damage: 1

Ol-j-man

 

[medigel]

She was met with an almost impish look, the kind he used to wear as a colt. The kind that said he was going to be stubborn just because he could.

"No." Shik lifted an arm to defend his head from the rock. It was just another verbal fight to add to the one they currently had. There was no real meaning behind her words to him. "Gone" was just four letters she used to get him back to his tent. "Not unless you make me."

HP: 21
Damage: hurrr  

[Seussi]

Oh she so badly wanted to attack him. She so very badly wanted to lunge at him and beat that impish smile off of his face. But again, it was what he wanted, wasn't it? He was just baiting her, another form of the control he wished to possess over her, knowing just how to make her react by words alone. She gave a small shake of her head instead, face carefully blank, eyes still steady on his.

"I said we are finished here. And when I say finished, I mean finished Shikoba. I want you to stay away from me." Something in her gut wrenched at the words, but she ignored it. She couldn't do this anymore.

She turned on her heel to walk away from him. She was done.

HP:21
Damage: 0  

[medigel]

But he wasn't. Not by a long shot.

Lan too had walked away form their first fight before he had extracted a proper defeat, and that had frustrated him for a while. A battle was not something to leave unfinished, not with the emotions it brought in him - lust for blood, for competition, for the sound of weapons clashing, and the deep satisfaction of a win or the scouring blow of a loss. These were things Shik did want denied in him.

Much less from her.

So he grabbed the rock as Shaheen turned to leave and tossed it at her.

"Turn around and finish this."

HP: 21
Damage: 4  

[Seussi]

He would hit her with a rock as she was trying to leave, trying to deny him of something he wanted so very badly. Of course, the instant she felt the sharp sting from the rock as it hit her between the shoulder blades just above her wings she stopped, her teeth bared as her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Oh how she wished at that moment that she could transform, that she possessed the Fear necessary to take her lioness form so that she could turn on him and claw his chest into bloodied ribbons with her claws, to leave him bleeding and weak on the ground. But no, that power was not hers. She had lost so much. They all had.

"Fine." She hissed out. "But this is the last time, Shikoba." She intended on making sure of that as she whirled around and lunged for him. She didn't bother with her dagger. She wanted to murder him with her bare hands.

HP: 17
Damage: 0  

[medigel]

He was almost bearing a boyish grin when she faced him again, a colt triumphant. sometimes manipulation took careful words, specific touches, a certain look. Sometimes it took the subtlety of a rock.

Either way, Shik wanted to drag the fight out even more if this was to be their last. He didn't believe it of course - they were magnetic forces, always destined to draw the other in at some point. But if Shaheen wanted to try and believe they could break that, he'd let her. There wasn't any way they could as far as he was concerned.

She lunged at him and he met her, neither getting a true grip on the other, grappling and snarling like animals as they fought for power. The way a battle should be fought.

Gods, but he felt alive when they bared their teeth like this.

HP: 21
Damage: 0  

[Seussi]

The grin on his face only further angered her. If she hadn't been so busy grappling with him she likely would have tried to slap it clean off. He was so irritating, not letting her go, not letting her pretend that she could just walk away and that would be it, whatever they'd had, enmity, friendship, or occasionally something more, ending for once and for good. So annoying that in a weird way, she actually enjoyed what they were doing right now, because it was something she could still do, and something she still understood.

Still didn't take the edge off of the unbridled rage in her eyes, or the snarl in her voice as she yelled at him. "What do you want from me? My success always seemed to piss you off, so you should be happy to see my failures! You were right before! So why aren't you happy now? Why won't you leave me alone?" Each word growled, bitten off and spat out intermittently between trying to get an edge in, on trying to force her strength against his until he buckled beneath her. Her eyes bored into his, full of wrath but also questions. Why did he insist on doing this, on driving her crazy? Why did he assume that this was just a pattern to repeat itself as it had in the past?

Finally giving up, realizing that they were in a gridlock of strength, she abruptly pulled away. She wasnt planning on using her dagger but it just suddenly flashed in her hand as she jammed her Fear into the blade, causing it to glow faintly yellow in hue. She the struck forward, blade aimed towards him as her fist swept upward, intending on slicing him until she pulled towards herself just slightly and let her fist connect with the underside of his jaw in an uppercut. It wasn't the most powerful attack she'd ever pulled off, but it should have done its job.

HP: 17
Damage: 13  

[medigel]

It was wonderful. It was almost perfect. There was a symmetry in battle, a deadly syncopation and rhythm that created the music he so loved to be a part of: screeches, clanging, the whiz of an arrow, the hum of power when Fear was invoked - just as it did when her dagger sliced through his shield. He almost missed the familiarity of a punch to his jaw even. So many other times it had been her prime target, the one thing a person could not strengthen. The one true place to make someone shut up.

Even as he howled with pain from the assault, even as he clutched his mouth and crumpled in to protect the place she had slashed - even then his eyes did not leave her. That fury, that wrath, that passion - it was the essential element he desired.

"Your successes give me room to jibe, your failures material to laugh. Both the same in one regard: they were yours to make, mine to take pleasure from. Just as surely you would do for me. What is an insult but a means to push someone into proving them wrong?"

She was so quick to be riled, so quick to ruffle his feathers back, and that ability to deliver and demand was what kept bringing him in. No-one else would allow him that. It was a dangerous game, but one they enjoyed privately. One he was sure Shaheen darkly enjoyed as much as he did.

"We bring out the worst of each other. We bring out the best as well. The balance has always been tenuous, but what is war but a power struggle? A shift from good to bad and everything in between?"

Blood-stained teeth were bared in a grin at the chieftain as Shik lowered his hand and flexed his fingers in a grand gesture at their battle. He was beginning to tire, but by no means was he cowed. No, this last push, the final stretch, this was what mattered.

"You ask me what I want, but I believe you already know: what I want is you, my screeching fury," he said simply, slinking forward with the strides of a predator, injured or not. "The you that laughs at danger and stabs back when it chooses to leer in response." He looked as if he would say more, but instead the executioner launched forward, his own dagger summoned in mid swing to mimic her own slicing action.

HP: 8
Damage: 6  

[Seussi]

His howl of pain brought a surge of elation roaring up inside of the chieftain, her teeth bared in what might have been considered a grin and her eyes narrowed. Her breathing was heavy from the effort put into the attack, from the Fear that she had shoved into it with little to no regard to his well being or her own. She had just wanted to end it, had wanted to show him that she could end it and he had no choice in the matter. Once it was over, they were over as well. Done. Finished. If she kept telling herself that then it would be true, even if she knew, deep down, that it was a lie. Their conflict was like nothing that had ever been or would ever be again. She knew she would not find this with anybody else, this type of relationship that was wild and reckless, dangerous but without a care. She knew what they were to each other didn't have a name, that it couldn't be so simply labeled, and nor did she wish to do such. But she did want to know why, why he insisted on grating on her so, on getting under her skin, on driving her completely mad? Why did she insist on reciprocating?

But at the same time, she really didn't want to know. Was afraid of the answer, and instantly regretted each word as it had fled her mouth in her fury driven state. Just another thing she could blame on him, another transgression on the list of many that he probably didn't even care that he'd committed.

She relented, in any case, her eyes still locked on his as he would not look away from her, and she would not look away from him. She took a step back and let him have his moment. He could have chosen to heal himself then, if he wanted. She almost expected him to do so. But he didn't. He just kept on talking. And his words, she hated to admit, made sense. He was giving her the answers she had said she wanted, though each word in itself was an unexpected blow, something to leave her chest suddenly tight and her breath halting after one sharp inhale of air into her lungs as she listened with rapt attention.

He wanted her......

For a second, just a second she could have sworn that her heart stopped, and for that slightest of instants, her eyes widened just the tiniest hint in surprise.

He wanted her?!?

Before she even knew what she was doing, her eyebrows shot up and she scoffed out a laugh. It was obviously just another trick, another ploy, just more smooth words used to manipulate her. The voices whispered, and doubt and paranoia trailed through her mind in their wake, their tendrils lacing out and taking hold, gripping her tight. She had no doubt that he wanted her. Wanted her to warm his bed just one more time. Wanted to leave her humiliated and lonely when it was all said and done. He drove himself at her, and she welcomed it, welcomed the pain, though she gasped as his dagger drew upwards against her belly, forcing past her shield and drawing blood in one angry, red line that began to well up slowly. As sincere as his words might have sounded, she did not believe them for an instant, not right now, not like this, not when he had proven too many times to be nothing more then a devious and conniving b*****d.

"You don't mean it." She hissed. No, he didn't. Not in the way she wanted him to mean it at least. And the fact that she wanted anything from him at that moment actually came as a surprise to herself.

As though to accentuate her point she tossed her dagger blade down into the ground and threw a fist at him again, her arm swinging around so her punch would meet the side of his face.

HP: 11
Damage: 4  

[medigel]

He wasn't surprised she didn't believe him. He wouldn't have believed him. It was crying wolf at this point, no? Over and over and over again until eventually it became just noise.

It didn't make Shik any less offended at her response, though, less so with the incoming punch. He raised an arm to deflect some of the blow from his face, but the impact still came through. Baring his teeth as he tasted blood, he curled his fingers into a fist as well.

"Think what you'd like, then. That's what you've always done."

He swung his fist in an uppercut to meet her jaw in response, too annoyed and caught in the bloodlust at the moment to think to use his nails.

HP: 4
Damage: 3