Break The Sky [Sophia]

[Victor Lark]

“I'll break the sky, for you and I are going nowhere;
Kiss goodbye a dozen times before we get there.
Why do I need anyone else
When I can break the sky myself?”
– The Hush Sound

90 Spring, 511

They had walked for many days.

For fear of slavers and worse, they tried to avoid the main road. But it had been too long since she had been outside of the forest, even though their destination was her first home. The only plan they knew was South; it was not a good means to travel any distance. A few days of virtually aimless wandering finally led them back to Kabrin, and so they opted to follow it at night instead of shunning it entirely. Her eyes were keen and their encounters were few, but the travel left him tired and irritable, even more so than usual. Ultimately they chose a safe daytime distance away from the road. They took turns checking their vicinity to it and usually only walked eight hours a day, else he complain.

In exchange for his human dexterity, which could adequately pitch a tent and cook a piece of meat, she hunted and usually carried his trunk. Both of them were convinced that the protection they offered one another was mutual, though in reality, she had more strength and prestige than he could ever dream.

While the road traversed through the outskirts of the Filrian Bog, one or the other had gotten too close to a giant pink plant in its lovely spring bloom. It reflexed with an almost animal flourish and spouted a thousand little spores at the pair. Within minutes, they were both consumed in profound hopelessness, their minds wrought with visions of death and despair. Lacking the sense to move away from the source of their sorrows, the irritated flower cursed them twice more with its peculiar depressant before they stumbled away by accident. As the toxic effect wore thin, they learned to be careful of the swamp’s creatures, but still they talked for days about the encounter as they walked on.

Miles outside of that wretchedness, he grew tired of raw and half-cooked meat. He had sampled a familiar-looking red berry growing between the tall grasses. (“Only a bit, to see if it’s good!”) Within hours he was retching and miserable, able to drink only water and eat little else. His moans rose into the sky like smoke from a campfire, broadcasting to the area their location. For two days, she ran to fill his waterskin when she was not circling their camp to ward off potential enemies. After the second day, he reluctantly packed up and, slowly, they walked on.

They had encountered a caravan heading north. It was a terrible idea, to attempt to intimidate an entire wagon of people for the sake of sport and perhaps a little food, but he convinced her it was worth it. She approached growling. Some fled to the safety of their giant wooden box, but others removed their stew from sight and pointed torches at her, yelling and grunting to shoo her away. He had been proud to watch her hold her ground even though she did not seem inclined to grant him the show of a fight. Then there was a peculiar noise and her roaring whimper, and one man lowered his bow. Luckily, the man had good aim and a kind heart; meaning only to scare an animal from attacking, the arrow barely scratched her shoulder. She had rightfully fled and he had tended her wound to the best of his abilities, wrapping dirty gauze around her arm and chastising her cowardice. So they walked on.

The aging Spring lead to warmer, longer days. Victor woke to every day assuming that the last had been the very worst, and anticipating the next would be better. He had no idea how close he was, or if they had already passed their destination. But through the trials and hunger and unrelenting irritation, he managed to maintain his confidence and optimism.

Though her vague stories and gradually returning memory began to bore him, he knew he needed her if he intended to eat. Perhaps it was that he could release his frustrations on his travelling partner that he retained some semblance of sanity. He did not seem to care how she felt about any situation, because she did not often object to his arbitrary decisions and tantrums. It was for that reason that they had delayed setting out for the morning. Dagger gripped in his right hand, the Ravokian had decided he should train. What better way than to train with a body?

Soft scars were still visible beneath the sheen of sweat on his bare chest, which had come to cling to his ribs for malnourishment. His condition did not seem to daunt him, however. His stance was wide, back bent in a ready crouch. He dance around Sophia in search of a blind spot or a weak area, bouncing with energy he should not have been spending. After a brief pause to feign one direction, he darted in the other and slashed the little blade sloppily at her shoulder.

[Sophia]

Though it had been scarcely little under two months, already she felt as though her life had been nothing but by this man’s side. By now most of her past memories- that which she spent within the walls of the city of Syliras- had returned to her and she spoke of her past life in the few times that she spoke at all. During this time of their traveling, the bond common to Kelvics had become the very purpose which drove Sophia. It was not as if she had no knowledge of it; in fact with every burst of pleasure that came from successfully completing a task that helped him she was reminded of how much she was tied to Victor. She simply did not care. Before, she had been nothing more than a creature wandering the Everstone Forest. Then this cruel and beautiful man had come from seemingly nowhere and delivered her up from her self-imposed solitude, bringing back her memories and all that made her a person.

This is what she believed anyway.

Consequently, she strove to do his every bidding with enthusiasm. During their travels many things had happened, mostly to her in the process of aiding him. Typically, aiding him consisted of doing all the hunting and catching prey. She knew the devices of man, and how effective they could be in their hunting, but Victor seemed to know very little of the wilderness. He had no way to make traps, no bow and arrow, nor even a flimsy spear. From what Sophia had seen, all Victor had was the little dagger he carried around every now and then. Rather surprising, considering he had come into her territory in the forest by his lonesome. Victor did, however, know how to survive on the essentials. He pitched his own tent, cooked his own food and did all the things that Sophia did not require. She spent most of her time in the form of a cougar, silently padding alongside him.

One day, their stomachs began growling once more. Wordlessly she stalked off into the woods to hunt again. Her paws made hardly a sound among the dewy leaves, leaving her only with the sounds of the forest around her. Soon she grew to contemplating, thinking over the events of the past few days. There wasn’t a single one of her thoughts did not have Victor in them. She was enamored, and she did not care. Sophia decided that she wanted to do something for him, anything. But what more could she do to impress him? She found most of the food they ate, carried his stuff, and waited on his beck and call. So what else was there?

In the end she had thought of the perfect gift. In the trees birds sang gaily, bright and colorful. Their song was beautiful. There would be no doubt Victor would love it. She spent almost an hour, clawing her way up trees and stalking the songbirds that twittered in the branches. Eventually she got a nice plump one, perfect for her bondmate. She trotted back and laid the corpse in Victor’s lap. She had been expecting some praise, possibly even a smile and a pet. Instead Victor had leapt up in disgust, angrily shouting at her and throwing curses like knives at her. Upset and embarrassed, she had run off and had not returned until Victor had calmed down and coaxed her out of a tree.

Those days had passed, and now the both of them looked as feral as they felt. It was nothing new for Sophia, but she could feel the exasperation rising in Victor with each passing day. He was not built for outdoor living, but he wanted to survive out here. It was the main reason why she had agreed on this notion of practicing. She stood poised, but not sure what to do. She wasn’t as agile in her human form, but neither was she defenseless, and she hardly wanted to be cut by the cold steel. She ducked at the feint, and dropped to all fours at the slash towards her shoulder, getting into a height she was more comfortable with. Without her claws she could not really hurt him, but she would entertain the impression of actually attacking him. She pushed off the ground with muscled calves, ducking in her head and making to tackle him to the ground. Not necessarily what she was used to, but it was certainly better than trying to chew on his neck with the blunt teeth of a human.

[Victor Lark]

He huffed and rolled his eyes as he watched her hands touch the ground. His defensive stance faltered: his back was not entirely straight and his arm did not drop all the way to his side, but still his guard was down. “You can’t—” be began, but was forced into awareness again when she lunged. He heard himself yell a noise between annoyance and surprise as his reflexes pulled him back a few more hasty steps.

She might have still wrapped her weight around his legs if he had not managed to leap into the air just before contact. He dove for the ground on the other side of her, but her shoulder collided with his scrambling shins and compromised his agility. He could not duck his head in time for any decent tumble; he could only twist himself around just in time to land on his back, behind her. With a kick, he threw his legs over his head and rolled to standing.

His breath had escaped him. Only then did he remember to regain it, and with it he said, “Come on, Sophie. Fight like a man—er, like a human. You’re a human, right?” He was restless. He danced from one foot to the other as he spoke, waiting for her to stand and face him again. Victor could not say what exactly he expected of her. He had not exactly discouraged her shifting, though he had reminded her how bad things always seemed to happen when she took to her lesser form. And he had a weapon where she did not. What else could she have done, to avoid a blade without her own? He did not care. It was his training, not hers. When he stopped moving, his joints reminded him of how much they ached.

Victor raised his unarmed hand behind him, because he thought that was the proper stance. Then with a sudden lurch he jumped forward, attempting to startle her, and shoved the blade towards her stomach.

[Sophia]

I am a human! She shouted in her thoughts. Sophia soon after recalled the many times that Victor had shouted, sneered, or just generally had been irritated at the fact that she rarely spoke her mind, and decided to vocalize her thoughts.

"I am a human!" She roared with added gusto than she had imagined in her head. She rose to her full height then, feeling exposed. She had no teeth, nor claws to rip and tear. She only had the strength in her arms and legs. And yet there was an advantage: she did have the use of a thumb now. Though she was not as used to a human form as she might be in the shape of the large cat, there was that. If she could, she would improvise weapons in the sense of broken tree branches, stones, other objects one might find lying around in the wilderness. But there was no time for that now. Victor came flying at her with the cold blade thrusting towards her midsection.

Though experienced at ambush hunting, Sophia had hardly any experience in confrontations and skirmishes. Much less so in her human form. Awkwardly she leapt back as she might have with the use of four legs, but with only two and no tail to hold her balance, the Kelvic instead ended up flailing her arms about in the air as she tilted slowly backwards, a tree root acting as a fulcrum in the instrument of her tumble. She sailed briefly through the air before cracking her head on the hard ground, ringing her bell with a grand fervor.

The fall had been hard and now her head throbbed, but when Sophia groped to the point of impact her hand came back clean, and thus no damage had occurred. And if she knew Victor at all, he would keep the fight going regardless.

And so she jumped back to her feet, hands stretched out before her in an attempt to mirror a stance of an experienced hand fighter. She had no claws, only fragile nails, but in this moment she realized a way she might better make use of the familiarity she possessed with claws by locking her fingers into curved shapes. In this manner she struck out at Victor with quick jabs aimed at his chest with her fingertips being the only part of her body that connected, something she found far more effective than a balled up fist. It made use of her natural agility rather than the raw power she hardly possessed, and it did not hurt her hand when it actually connected.

Sophia began grinning savagely and pressing her attack to try to push Victor back. This may not have been her training, but it was certainly her that learned something

[Victor Lark]

His hand retreated as quickly as it had attacked, completing the swift but harmless jab within an instant. He laughed triumphantly when he saw her fall, apparently unperturbed that his blade had not found the dissenting hug of her flesh. He stepped after her, as quickly as his tired feet could carry him, so that he might try to pin her down and win the duel.

Her reflexes were better than he had anticipated. He should have known the way she moved; he had been with her for so long. But he had never thought to pay too close attention to the habits of a creature who was not even the same creature, half the time. The slightest pause heralded Victor's first and fleeting doubt about his own superiority in the match. How well had she examined him, over the stretch of a season? He could not tell what she was thinking. He had not thought to look, for so long. An old hollowness, which he had forgotten to feel in the distraction of surviving, replaced whatever cockiness had once filled his empty gut. As he reeled in hesitation, he did not notice her advance.

Flimsy nails scraped fruitlessly at the scars on his chest, where her true claws had mounted a similar attack. “Gah!” He yelled, annoyance dripping on the syllable like blood from a wound. He stumbled backward, each step catching him from persistent imbalance. By the time his weight reoriented, he had moved far enough from her that it seemed like he had fled. Unwilling to admit any sort of concession, he rushed to her again, dagger flailing.

“That’s hardly a human maneuver, Sophie,” he said bitterly, swiping upward at her collarbone. Faint red lines had begun to well up on his own. “Don’t scratch me; hit me!” The blade dropped over her chest again. It would not have made a deep cut, even if she did not move. “Grab me! Throw me! Haven’t you learned anything?”

[Sophia]

The blade made a thin red line as she moved too late to avoid it, but it was hardly more than a scratch and did not phase her much. His words however, sliced deeper than the blade. She thought that this maneuver might impress him, that she was learning to adapt both of the aspects of her psyche to improve at least some part of her, but all that Victor wanted was the human parted from the animal. Or at least that's what it seemed to her.

Very well, she thought. If he wanted her to fight like a human, she would fight like a human. Humans dominated beasts by making use of tools, so she needed to find something to fight with. Obviously she wouldn't find a sword lying in the brush, so she would have to improvise. There were rocks and sticks around, but none seemed large enough to use. She contemplated briefly taking his advice and attempting to grapple him, but he would be expecting that and might draw her in for his own advantage.

Finally Sophia spied a branch that she had originally took for a root sticking out among the fallen leaves. She leapt into a clumsy roll that would probably illicit more of a bruise than she was comfortable with, but for now she could ignore it to focus on the skirmish. She wrenched the club from the ground and brandished it threateningly.

Unfortunately, unversed as Sophia was in the use of tools, she did not realize that the branch she had chose was old and rotten, a weapon not even fit for the lowliest bandit. Nonetheless she lunged with it, swinging it overhead with a cry of effort. Even if she had managed to make contact with Victor somehow in her sad attempt, the stick would barely do any damage. Instead, a loud crack! resounded through the forest as the branch snapped in two on the tree behind him. The sudden loss of weight caused her to once again meet the forest floor with her face. She groaned in pain and humiliation, wondering if she felt like standing up ever again.

[Victor Lark]

Victor’s arms thrashed as he twisted out of her new weapon’s reach. He could feel his spine arc to its limit, but because of that strain, her clever solution claimed nothing but the sweat that fell from his knobby ribcage. His complementary grunt of effort was saturated with something like surprise, or maybe approval. Then it was cut short by the collision of wood against rotten, breaking wood that resounded through the trees. Stumbling, Victor caught his balance against one. His breath came with difficulty and his vocal chords were loose; each exhale was a short moan. Still, he was not fatigued enough to let anything weak or pitiful seep into his voice. If he could not be strong, he could at least seem so.

Within seconds, he had pushed from the rough bark and assumed a vaguely defensive stance. But she was not yet upon him with another retaliation. A pulse of panic shot through Victor’s gut. He looked around to find some unsuspected angle of attack, then up to see if she meant to pounce from the trees. When his eyes fell again he saw her, prone against the raised roots of the tree that had stolen her temporary weapon. The irritation that tightened on his mouth threatened to throw his eyes into another contemptuous roll, but suddenly he found himself laughing.

His hands dropped to his sides and he stepped toward her. Bending at the waist, he offered his unarmed hand to her. “Keep it up, Sophie,” he said, failing to keep the airy fatigue out of his words, “You’re doing better.”

That was how it was: he would neglect and berate her until she became flustered or even annoyed, then he could offer some encouragement, and she was his again. Sometimes he resented how predictable it was, but mostly he depended on it. It kept him sane.

But in the throes of combat and exhaustion and dissatisfaction, his own sanity was becoming less valuable a thing. What about hers? He did not know if he could make her really feel, make her show any emotion outside of the taint of feline instinct or the subjection of her bondmate’s petty whims, but he could try. He could try to bring her beyond cougar, beyond human, and beyond him... by making her believe that he meant to do real harm with his dagger. As he trained himself to wield that tiny blade, so he might train her to express what he could only hope to feel.

He made sure she found her footing. Then he let go of her hand, reoriented the slippery hilt of the dagger in his grip, and pushed his weight into a stab at her side.

[Sophia]

The blow came unexpectedly. She hardly had time to dodge it at all. She had let her guard down, thinking that their short training session had ended when she had lost heart. No sooner had she finally reoriented herself that Victor's biting dagger came at her once more, but now the time it would take to move herself out of harms way proved too short for the poor Kelvic.

Fiery pain shot through her abdomen like Victor's dagger had somehow managed to shrink and travel through her body in a fraction of a second, and her breath escaped her in a whoosh. She groped at her side and her fingers came back warm and wet. Her legs threatened to give out underneath her, but she fought and staggered backwards, holding the grievous wound with both her hands as if trying to knit the flesh back together herself. She stumbled back away from him.

Sophia held up a bloody hand in submission, a pained look across her face. "No more- Victor, no more! Please!" She pleaded and groaned.

[Victor Lark]

He felt... resistance. Then the slimy squish of parting innards, and the rushing air of her surprised gasp. It was not like cutting a steak, or slicing the fat from a chicken bone; the feeling was entirely novel. When Victor withdrew his arm, he was only just beginning to realize what he had done. His mouth hung, so he closed it, and deliberation wrinkled on the dirty, sweaty flesh between his eyebrows. She spoke, sadness—or, no, panic—wrought on breathless whimpers and stained with red. No, she said. Though hardly as firm as the assertion she had once made to save his life from slavers and wolves, it was almost like a command. His expression softened. A thin smile tugged at the edges of his lips.

She was more than an animal, he knew it. She had to be. If she wasn’t, with whom had he spent the entirety of Spring? With whom had he shared the folly of his journey and the weakness of his mind and body? And that meager assertion of hers, though it was late in coming, was like a promise that she could still grow. His eyes met hers. There was more than panic there, in her heaving shoulders and the upward slant of her brow. He looked harder and saw her eyes were moist. When he brought himself back from the appraisal, he noticed that his own breath was coming short.

Close eyelids squeezed distraction form the forefront of his mind. He reasoned, “You get hurt in fights, Sophie. You know that, and you know that you have to pull through to the end.” He stepped forward, aiming the stained and shining dagger at her still. “You can’t stop, until you have won or lost. Stand up straight now, and attack me.”

Say No. He pleaded inwardly, as his face glared at her limply. Defy this. Be more, or be nothing.

[Sophia]

In her panic the forest around her wavered and shook. She was losing blood rather quickly as it seeped out through her fingers. Her mind clouded, her instincts rose. She was now, in spirit, a cornered animal.

That animal heard his voice and only vaguely understood the words in it. She was trained to obey him, and obey him she was going to do. On reflex she attempted to shift into the cougar, but she was too weak and the change did not come. So she hunched over, reluctantly allowed her palms to slip from her wound, and flew into a frenzy.

She made a huge, bestial cry of anger and pain and lunged at the man, her newly adopted fighting style clawing furiously at him. She dove this way and that, doing hardly any damage with human nails. Still, she was in a white hot fury and had no logical grasp in her mind. She knew only at this point that she was injured, and this creature had done it, and she could not run. Pure instinct had completely taken her over.

Sophia was lost. Only the beast stood in front of Victor, snarling and angry.