Under Attack!

[Talya]

Timestamp: Summer 33, 515 AV Talya had left the city to go on a little adventure. She wanted to gather some food during the day, just as she wanted to see the stars during the night. So, she moved along through the forest with her bag on her shoulders, as the sun's light streamed down through the trees. It was golden in nature and warmed her skin. Its caresses were pleasing, unlike the annoying screech that sounded in the air. Wait, annoying screech? Now that wasn't exactly what you would call normal. She looked up at the sky, and then all around her, then up at the sky when she saw nothing again. To find a large black mark blotting out sections of the sun. It was to big to be a bird, but she wasn't sure what it was. She watched as it circled, and her hand fell over her blade. She wrenched it free instinctively with her right hand, just in case she would have to defend herself, and let her fingers curl around the hilt. She bent her legs at the knee and waited, her whole body tense, scarcely breathing, as finally, the silhouette entered the treeline. It dived right toward her. Its image growing more clear and distinct, allowing her to realize that it was a zith. Its wings spread wide, its claws outstretched. Talya just had enough time to duck as it swiped at her. Although its nails shallowly grazed over her shoulder, and cut her lightly. Spilling a little blood. It ached a little but she ignored it. This was war. The monster cried out its war cry and then circled again before landing. Talya moved toward it- she shot forward, and swung her arm up and down. She was trying to draw a line from the zith's neck to its navel, but the young, hairy black zith deflected by knocking her arm away with its own. From there, Talya decided to try something else. She circled and whirled around the beast, trying to slice into his back as she brought her arm around. Perhaps the beast had perceived as much, or perhaps he had seen this move performed often enough before, if not something similar, because as she came out of her turn, Talya the zith waiting for her, teeth bared and snarling. He swiped at her with one of his massive arms, and she raised her blade to block his progression, before moving beneath their outstretched arms, into the open space. She ducked, as he tried to claw her again, and she brought her arm down, before raking at the monster's legs. She cut him shallowly as his arm swung back and she was forced to run behind him, and then turn back to face him again. When she got there, she began by moving forward on her left foot, and then the right. She let it slide forward across the ground, while the left trailed behind her. She bent her leg at the knee, and leaned forward into it. As she did so, Talya extended her right arm, allowing its shadow to fall over her leg as she inched it farther and farther forward. Extending it as far as it would go, as with a flick of the wrist, she turned her blade out of the reverse position, into the forward. Completing her lunge as she stabbed at the zith ahead of her. But it was too quick, and jumped back, and with a snarl, kicked rather unceremoniously at her. She stepped back out of the way of the leg's progression as she came out of her lunge, and then when the leg had dropped, darted forward and cut at the zith from left to right. Guiding her blade from its right hip, to its left shoulder, and then across the length of its collarbone, but again, the zith side stepped, and Talya cut at nothing more dense than the air. And it hurt, because right now her wound really hurt, and she had to brace it with her free hand to help keep in the pain, as she winced a little against the sting, and wished she could do the same to the wretched zith. OOCSorry this is bordering on sloppy.

[Talya]

The zith clawed at Talya, and rather lazily, she simply stepped back and out of the way. The zith made a second attempt for a spot at her middle, but she raised her blade and blocked the progression of the zith's arm, while narrowly scratching the surface of its skin. Narrowly in that it still wasn't enough to draw any blood. From there, Talya tried a slashing cut to the beast's shoulder, but the zith glided out of the way. Talya stepped forward, and completing the motion of her arm, swinging her blade over to her opposite shoulder, as she came within striking distance. She breathed deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth as she forced the blade out, following a crescent-shaped path that was level with her shoulders. The blade ran outward, and raked across across the zith's pectoral region, from the space above its heart, to the center of the two pectoral muscles, as he stepped back to avoid the rest of the attack and screeched angrily in the process. Swatting angrily all about with his arms, but striking at nothing. Excited she had finally hit something, and seemed to have done some damage, as she could see blood, Talya surged forward again, while moving her dagger wielding arm along the same line she had just taken, guiding it back from whence it had came. Before the blade had had the chance to move halfway down its intended line, the zith danced away again, so Talya retracted her arm and moved back and out of the way as the zith tried to kick her again. Talya smirked at the zith's apparent outrage, as she moved inward and they exchanged a rather simple volley. She slashed at the monster's right shoulder, and it swatted her arm lazily away. She slashed at the other shoulder, and it swat her hand away, knocking it to the side, before trying to complete a jab to her face. She simply backed up, and knocked his arm aside with the flat of her blade. Then Talya moved her arm inward, in a sort of awkward slashing motion, meant to rake the dagger against the zith's chest. But once again, she was knocked aside as the beast stepped back and she forward. She slashed at the beast's middle, then its right side, then its left shoulder, then the right shoulder, near the neck, by its belly button, (or rather where she thought it should be, as she could not see it with all the hair in the way), then she tried darting extra forward and going for the wings, as they looked easy to cut through, and would make sure the zith stayed grounded, and the fight would go more smoothly for herself, but each time, the zith blocked or stepped out of the way. Then it was the zith's turn to move on the offensive. The zith slashed at her right shoulder, so she raised her blade and brought it under the progression of the arm to protect herself. Then he slashed at her left shoulder, and she did the same. From there, he howled, and flapped his wings, inward, trying to close them around her and squash Talya in the middle of it all. For this, Talya stepped back and smirked, as she raised her blade high over her head, and then glided a little over to the side, so that the right wing was directly ahead of her. From there, she lowered her blade and brought it down into the wing's membrane. She forced her hand farther downward, drawing the cool metal down the length of the zith's wing. Slashing through it, with some difficulty, as the beast screeched and wiggled, and adrenaline coursed wildly through her veins, spurring her heart to beat faster and faster, while her breath became all the more shallow and short. She smirked as the beast spread its wings back out, and dislodged her dagger, as well as herself, knocking her back. "You're done for now," she cheered, as she moved forward again, and the zith turned to face her squarely once again.

[Talya]

Talya moved within striking distance of the young zith, and swept her right arm from left to right- forcing the dagger to slash outward at the beast. But each strike missed as cautiously, the zith stepped back, or swatted her arm away. Realizing that this tactic would not work pretty early on within their fight to the death, Talya decided to try something new. Instead of simply cutting her blade across the zith's body, she decided to let the dagger dip downward, as though forming a smooth plateau, before letting it rise up again toward the opposite shoulder. This, while not extremely effective, seemed to work out a little better than her previous attempt, as the zith wasn't expecting the dip of her blade- so its point raked lightly against its belly. She cut shallowly, raising the skin and causing a few beads of blood to seep out and into the open air. Somehow, it smelled more metallic and more rancid to her than human blood. But this may been in part, the work of her imagination, which had never thought much of the zith and their vile ways. But in any case, her nose wrinkled, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, and she pressed on. Talya decided that she didn't wish to perform the same sort of attack again, in order to maintain some level of an element of surprise, which she felt could allow her to maintain some sort of an upper hand in the battle. So instead of dipping the blade up and down, she tried another simple move, which was rather similar to the first. She cut her blade across from the right shoulder of the zith, over to the center of its left side, in the place between its hip and its shoulder, and then across to its right hip. All of this was blocked by swats of the zith at her own limb, and then followed up with a few slashes of its own. Cuts diagonally across her belly, and another across her neck. But she avoided these by taking a step back, and when she realized that another didn't appear as though it were forthcoming, she moved into the open space that the zith had provided her with, and jabbed outward at it with her dagger wielding hand. She aimed for the heart, but again, the beast took a step back and avoided her strike. But Talya proved relentless, and would not give in. She tried the same move on the opposite side this time, but it proved to have the same effect. Talya tried not to let this worry her, especially now that her wound was beginning to ache even more, which meant, she knew that she would tire faster and have to find a way to end the fight a little sooner than she might have had to do otherwise, if she weren't injured for example. She would have to try something a little more advanced, a little more complicated than she had been, she felt, in order to finish the zith off, and limp back off to the city for medical attention, in a piece relative to one. In any case, the zith growled, and spat several drops of saliva onto the forest floor as it charged her, ducking its head down as it stretched its arms out to the side as though it were planning to tackle her to the ground. Now Talya couldn't allow for this, as it would mean that everything would be over for her. So she stepped rather unceremoniously to the side, and as the zith swept past her, she stuck her right arm out a little, so that the point of her blade would rake against the zith's side. She wound up scratching his arm, and she felt that although not what she had wanted, exactly, it would do, as it raised more blood and the monster screeched in pain once more.

[Talya]

As the Zith howled, it stretched out its massive, uninjured wing, and pushed Talya back. She could feel its surface molding against the curvature of her body, urging her away. She feared that if she were not careful, the zith would somehow, make it out of this encounter alive. She could not let this happen, and within an instant, turned abruptly on her heels to face the zith once again. The zith had done much the same, and the two squared off again for a moment, before Talya darted forward. As she did so, she guided her right hand out to the left side of her body, so that it moved alongside her left shoulder. When she was within striking distance of her attacker, she guided her blade back out in a semi-circle, across the line of her collarbone, and over to the right side of her body, past the line of her shoulder as far as it would go. The blade didn't strike the zith the way she had intended it to, just sent it back a few paces, closer to the line of the trees that towered over them in that direction. Talya grit her teeth, she felt as though she would be the one to growl soon as she surged forward again, and moved her arm back in the path it had just followed. Talya swept the arm around, pushing it back toward her left shoulder. Although the line of its movement was far cleaner than that of her previous attempted strike, Tal missed with this one as well, as the zith stepped to the side, and then slashed at her with its claws, growling all the while. As she listened to the sound of her heart beating in her ears, Talya raised her right arm, the one that bore the blade, and pushed it beneath the zith's hairy limb, knocking it aside. Into the space she had created Talya moved, and without truly thinking about it, slashed wildly with her blade again. From left to right, east to west, north to south, and then everything in-between she cut. But each attack was swatted away. The nudges jarring her as much as her arm, which was growing all the more sore in some areas, and a little number in others. She did her best to ignore this as her dark eyes widened, and she glared at the beast. Why couldn't she just have a nice day out in the forest by herself? Was this simply to much to ask? Apparently it was, and in her frustration, Talya stepped forward until the fighters were almost touching, from there, she swept her right arm back toward her shoulder a little. Then as she stepped forward again as the zith tried to dance away, she moved the limb back inward in a sort of sidelong punching type motion. But again, she was deflected. She would not relent. She stepped forward, as she guided her right arm down to her side, into the pocket position with the blade, so that it rested beneath the line of her armpit. Meanwhile, the zith tried to kick her, and she stepped to the side to avoid it, before moving back into her previous space as she lifted her arm. She swept it out from beneath her armpit area, (down closer to the hip than directly beneath it so she would not injure herself), and moved it upward toward her opponent's chin. Before the zith had the chance to tilt his head back to avoid most of the blow, she had the chance to knick him with the point of her blade. Pricking him and drawing a few droplets of blood before he moved so far away, that she was forced to extract her blade. From there, he managed to knock her with the side of his arms several times, in his upcoming furry. He hit her arms, a few times with the hairy part, but it was nothing she deemed to serious.

[Talya]

Although both of her arms ached all the more now, especially considering how the zith had just met with her left arm, and the pain had radiated up to her wound, she found it all the more important to end the fight than ever before. As she grit her teeth, Talya darted forward. As she did so, she let her right arm fall out to the right side of her body. She extended the arm as far as it would go, and as the zith slashed at her, she performed a feint. She made it look as though she were going to move the blade inward, and slash the outside of his arm, but instead, at the last instant, she glided out of the way and spun around him. Her dress and her hair danced around her as her heart thundered and she moved. Breathing shallowly as she spun, and her dagger came around to the beast's back. Once, she thrust its point into the side of it's back, on the left. She could feel the metal sink into flesh as the beast shrieked, and then she quickly extracted it, causing blood to spurt after her. It wouldn't be long now, she knew, after a wound like that. But she did not allow herself to dwell on it, and get lazy. Instead, she continued her spin around to the other side. The zith must have surmised that this is what was going on, and flapped his wings outward again to stop her progression. Talya didn't see the wing in time- its long black shadow, and wound up barreling into it. Together, the pair spun for about forty degrees, before her arm caught up with the motion, and she cut a little into this wing as well. Again the zith shrieked, as he pushed his newly injured wing back in the opposite direction, dislodging both Talya and her blade. She stumbled several paces back, her arms moving in a wind mill like fashion as she tried to catch herself. But she couldn't and kept spiraling backward for a moment, the zith collecting himself for a second, before his furry body chased after her. She could see it coming, and leaned forward, which caused her to dip a little, before she managed to straighten herself out. By that time, the beast was upon her, snarling and teeth bared. He kicked her in the chest, and knocked the air out of her. She stumbled back and into a tree, hitting it moderately she felt. Her spine ached then as the beast darted forward, ready to finish her. He charged with all of his might. Seeing this, Talya's eyes widened, and at the last second, she managed to spin out of the way so that she was on the left side of the oak, and the zith wound up barreling into the tree. Hitting its head, and stunning itself a little. This was the prime time to finish it off, Tal knew, so she spun away from the tree again, and slammed the point of her blade into the beast's arm. Then, as it howled, she extracted it and more blood, and rather unceremoniously, in an ice-pick sort of fashion, began moving her weapon up and down, up and down. Slashing wildly at the beast. Striking his upper arm, then nicking his chin again. Then cutting into his side, and a bit into his chest. The beast by then had begun to stumble back and away from the tree, and Talya followed it. She cut at its chest over and over again. Stabbing it by its heart, and then in its heart. The zith howled in pain once, and then fell. It was no more. Just a bloody, broken heap upon the forest floor. Talya, not having much energy, wiped her blade on the grass, and then sheathed it, before sitting down beside the beast to collect herself. She gasped for air, and did her best to return to equilibrium, before leaving in fear that another zith may appear, and she would be too tired to fight it off. Tal limped back into the city to find a medic from there. OOCI figured the zith would have high level novice skills. Thanks for looking at this.