Fighting Phantoms (Vanator)

[Irriari]

Irriari breathed in as she felt the poison moving through her body steadily. Aside from an antidote, there was little that could be done now, and she knew that in a short amount of time, the poison would completely overtake her body. It was a sensation she had grown used to with every ingested vial and plant, and the effects of this poison would hit hard and fast once they effected all the necessary body parts. Now, she would only have to survive long enough to see the poison infect Vanator. While such a task had sounded easy in her head before she attacked the man, Irriari was quickly realizing that the build of the drykas, mixed with his technique and drive to win would make the fight harder than she had thought.

Her thoughts distracted her, and her position was not as safe as she hoped as Vanator closed in, striking her ribs with short, powerful punches. Irriari clenched her teeth and growled as each heavy hit sank deeper into her tender flesh. The hits were thuddy, and she tried rolling away, slightly, to protect her injured abdomen.

Irriari felt the drykas' hand reach for her throat and clutch it firmly as he tackled her into the earth. Her eyes opened wide as she took in the situation fully, and she knew that a lack of reaction on her part would end in her wings snapping. She lifted her knee upwards as he fell on top of her, hoping the maneuver would keep him away for a second longer. She hand went reached forward, palm first in a sloppy, uncoordinated move. Her hand connected with his chest, but it did little more than to provide a weak barrier between his chest and hers. She withdrew it, realizing that if he bared down on it, her wrist could flip backward in an unnatural and bone breaking position.

Irriari tried to move away. Her hips wriggled from side to side and her free leg flopped around uselessly as she tried to get some traction to push away from the warrior. Vanator's body weight was too heavy. Her eyes filled with anger as she remembered being in the same position with Fierce. Irriari struggled with herself for what seemed like forever as she forced herself to remember. He was NOT Fierce. She snarled at him still, refusing to give up, even as her body screamed from the physical exertion that was too much to bear.

“Do you feel it, drykas? Do you feel your blood starting to slow as your strength fades? Your speed will go next, you know. You may pin me here, but can you hold me as your body becomes weaker?”

She snarled at him, hoping he didn't notice the blood that poured from her own wounds on her palms.

[Vanator]

The Drykas had managed to get at least partially on top of the she-zith, his hand closing around her throat. But her knee shot out, catching him inside his thigh, and her dark hand thrust into his sternum. Her blows were not strong enough to injure the human, but they prevented Vanator from drawing closer, where even her hands would not be able to hit him. Vanator steadied himself, seated on Irriari, pinning her down with his weight, though unable to restrain her flailing fists and flopping leg. She writhed beneath him, her long wings fluttering and driving invisible whirlwinds of air around them. The sparring partners did not agree on any rules of engagement, aside from banning the full use of their weapons; his ax and her claws. So the horseman found himself contemplating his next move as he strove to control the struggling zith. How severely should he beat her? Would a hold of submission be required to claim victory, or is it loss of consciousness? He did not relish the thought of losing consciousness in the presence of a zith. Then he wondered, what law prevented him from pulling the hand ax from his belt and cleaving her skull in half right now? His next thought disturbed him, and he quickly cast it aside. Irriari was, physically, not so different from a human woman. Her face was quite human, and her body appeared and felt like a petite human female. Aside from her fine silky coat, the tufts of fur at her elbows and knees, and the nightmarish leathery wings, the she-zith was very similar. A darkness crept into the back of his mind. She was smaller than he, lighter and weaker. How easliy he could dominate her. Then the zith's acid voice hissed at him tauntingly. What did she mean, why would he weaken? Irriari was a handful, violent and persistent and clawed. But she already showed sigh of weariness, why would his strength fade? Then he noted again the tingling in the arm, stretched out to grip her neck. the warm sensation had reach beyond the lacerations and up into his shoulder. Thin trails of blood still oozed from the claw wounds on his forearm. A dreadful revelation dawned upon Vanator. Poison! "What have you done wretched bitch! What have you done to me?" Tightening his grip on her throat, The drykas struck her across the cheek with his open hand, then tried to catch her by the wrist. He tried to lean his weight onto her, but her knee still threatened to drive him off. If she had tricked him, poisoned him, there would be little mercy for the squirming she zith.

[Irriari]

Irriari thoughts centered around one thing. She had to keep the drykas away. The closer he got the less room she had to move, and the more her already small pool of options would diminish. If things got worse, she would simply fail. Losing wasn't an option. Her pride demanded better, regardless of how bone tired her body was. The Elders taunting voices echoed in her mind, urging her to be strong, and the lectured her on the essence of pain. What would they have said if they saw her now? After their initial shock and fury, she presumed they would leave her to die if she could not save herself. To be in such a position was unforgivable, and to be inundated by the pain it caused was even more taboo.

She winced as his rough hands tightened around her throat. Lungs that were already pushed to the edge, worked double time to bring in air that wouldn't come. She swore at him, weakly, and cursed herself for letting it get to this far. Irriari tried squirming away, even as he spoke. Maybe telling him, taunting him had not been the wisest of her ideas. But he would have found out soon enough anyways.

He slapped her hard against her cheek, and she snarled at him loudly as his hand found her wrist. He grabbed it and held it but, she kept pushing him away with her knee. It was the only hope she had.

“I poisoned you. It's my weapon of choice.”

Her own hands were still bleeding freely and the poison was sinking in. Every move she made took more effort than the last and her limbs were slowly turning into useless lead filled appendages. The exhaustion from training mixed with the poison for an instant, and she let her guard down. Her limbs and strength failed her within that time, and her body failed to listen to even the simplest of commands. Was it for a quarter chime or a second? Irriari didn't know, though it was becoming more and more clear that unless something extraordinary happened, the fight was slowly being won by Vanator.

[Vanator]

Profuse sweating had broken out over Vanator's body, even with the cool summer night air being wafted around him by Irriari's flailing wings. The human felt something was amiss, some small alarm at the back of his already occupied mind. Maybe it was the few blows Irriari had managed to land, not the least of which was the one that struck his jaw and left a lingering pain. But the sensation was systemic, an overall feeling that began to erode the fringes of his strength. But other more powerful inclinations drowned out the peculiar manifestation. Overcoming his racial enemy was paramount. Vanator gritted his teeth as he strove to subdue the zith and claim victory in the contest. The sounds of his opponent's straining breaths, her grunts of exertion and pain, the glowering anger in her dark eyes, the buffeting of her limbs against him fed his primal fighting instincts. As an exercise, the drykas did garner some understanding of how a zith fights, a female zith at least. Her weight to size ratio, how her claws were used, the advantages and limitations of her dark wings, all useful knowledge to store away for the future. But as the human felt his hand close around her throat, his other grasping her wrist, the feel of her vain struggling beneath his greater weight, the engagement as an experiment in training slid into a struggle that could prove to challenge the actual survival of the contestants. His goal had been to subdue the creature, prove his superiority by rendering her helpless. But as he looked into the deadly black eyes of his foe, Vanator had a hard time separating the individual in his grasp from the rest of her kind, and in turn, from the murders who ripped his wife from him. They were all alike, killers, slavers, parasites infesting the Sea of Grass. The honor of an Ankal's heir, his own sense of right and wrong were in conflict with his emotions, a raging moral battle within his soul as grueling as the physical struggle in the grass. Vanator had entered this agreement on his honor, believing the zith had as well. She was intelligent, a being of self-awareness, and he knew her name, like a person. Then she hissed her devious secret. It was poison! The she-zith had cheated, lied, violated her word like the wretched, insidious, pariah she was. Something snapped within Vanator's mind. The infected horseman bellowed in rage, face twisted in ferocious fury. As if his soul desired to feed his madness, images of his dead wife, bloodied, her flesh ripped open by zith claws, her cloudy eyes staring at him in death, flashed unbidden in his mind. The hand at Irriari's throat tightened menacingly. He would kill her. Squeeze the life from her until her eyes bulged and her layrnx was crushed in his hand as he beat her mercilessly with his fist, a race to see which violent method would bring the final shroud of death first. Maybe he would seize the hand ax at his belt and brutally hack her to death, carving her up like a prized antelope, reveling in the spray of her black blood in the moonlight. He wished he could do them all. He wanted to kill her over and over, for every drykas soul her kind had taken from them, for Tamar, he would kill a hundred Irriari and still not have killed enough to make up for losing Tamar. Vanator felt the poison's effect now, it was sapping his strength. If he was going to finish the zith, he would have to do it soon before her cursed toxins rendered him unable to reap his vengeance. Irriari struggled beneath him, slight even by human female terms. So easy to kill...but then it would be over. Whether poison, pain, fury, or some deep, hidden malevolence buried unseen for years, there was no telling for sure what birthed the dark thought. But it sparked and fed his primal rage. He would take his revenge, the same way the zith subdued their human slaves. Vanator the Ankal's son, Vanator the loving husband and father, Vanator the civil man, vanished. beneath every man is the capacity to be a monster, most never know it, others do and strive to bury it far out of sight and mind. But its there, and Vanator's burst forth. What remained now was a being consumed by passionate hate, suddenly capable of the most heinous acts. Releasing the zith's throat, Van reached for Irriari's free hand, aiming to pin it to the ground with her other. His leg and hips shifted suddenly and with power, attempting to force her knee down and to his outside so he could place himself between her legs. It was then he saw the beast's bloodied palms. A grim grin crossed his dour features. The poisoned claws had penetrated her skin as well. But did her venom affect her like it did him? It would be ironic. The mad drykas worked quickly to gain his position, opening his enemy's vulnerability.

[Irriari]

Irriari thrashed, but the movements that were once strong and filled with the strength of her race had become the weak attempts of a child in mere minutes. Her knee pushed against Vanator's chest as it bared down and the drykas continued to try to subdue her, heedless of her attempts and the pain in her ebony eyes. Irriari was starting to believe that he didn't care about her well being at all. Maybe the fight had turned into a more serious brawl. The rage reflected in Vanators eyes answered her silent question in an instant, and was further clarified as his hand wrapped around her throat, and tightened down with every second that passed.

Her knee slumped slightly under his weight as thoughts raced through her head. The concession was comforting, as her knee wasn't throbbing in pain anymore due to his weight. Surely, he would bare down soon again and the agony would return. It was becoming harder to focus and juggle the pain that was resonating from the muscles and tendons that ran up her tormented arms, calves and legs.

The second the realization that she had poisoned him hit Vanator, she knew. His face was filled with rage, and he snarled angrily down at her while Irriari continued to try to pull her arm from his grip. With his weight pressing down on her delicate wrist, the only thing the drykas had to do was apply pressure. The weight of his body alone would entrap her there. If she would have known that he would react like this, one hand at her throat and another at her wrist she would have used a more potent poison. She wouldn't have poisoned herself. There were many things she would have changed, but such thoughts were beyond pointless now. Could she convince him that her claws were naturally poisonous, that she hadn't broken their deal? She doubted it, and Vanator's face was filled with blood lust, his veins bulging out of his arms. He wanted to hurt her.

Irriari threw every bit of strength she had into flailing, and when his hand left her neck and air mercifully returned to her lungs, she thought it was finally going to be over. Maybe the drykas, after seeing how weak she had become, had realized she was beaten. When his hand shifted from her throat he pinned her other wrist down. Without any way to move the rest of her body, the task was relatively easy. Irriari screamed at him, cursing him in Zithanese.

“You won, drykas. Get off of me!”

The position reminded her of what Fierce had done years ago, and it chilled her to the bone.

OOCSorry this was short- no time to proof read it. I wanted to get this up before I hit the beach!

[Vanator]

He could feel it, the toxin she had infected him with slowly stealing his strength. His body was weakening, but the revelation of the poisoning only strengthened his resolve to make the she-zith pay for her treachery. Irriari still resisted, though Vanator noted her squirming had weakened, her once violently flapping wings now barely lifting from the ground. The human ignored the zith's command. No, he would no longer acknowledge her with a reply, would not allow himself to see anything human, anything redeeming in her. If he did, he would lose his nerve. Roughly, the horseman nestled himself between her struggling legs. Vanator seethed as he hovered over her, his hair and thin braids dangling around his face. He saw her face, framed in platinum hair, but it was soon replaced again by the form of a hulking zith male, the one he had fought at Din. The creature had been enraged and intent on ripping him apart. Surely the zith that killed Tamar was as horrid and nightmarish. Again he felt the satisfaction of feeling his ax cleave the thing's flesh and lying its torso open, black blood flooding out of him. But now, now, he could exact a more insidious vengeance upon the race that killed his beloved Tamar. Vanator would assault this zith, steal her any honor or dignity the thing may possess, and make her feel the same helplessness, hopelessness. pain and humiliation her kind had wrought on his people for generations. Time was slipping away, and sapping his strength, Vanator could not hesitate any longer. Gritting his teeth, willing his muscles to obey and shutting out his conscious, the drykas slipped one large hand over both of Irriari's wrists, bearing down on her. With his free hand Van yanked the hand ax from his belt and tossed it aside. Tugging at his belt, he struggled to contain the cursing, writhing zith beneath him. Sweat poured form his face, his muscles beginning to ache. Freeing himself, Vanator leaned his weight on the zith, roughly positioning himself to perpetrate his heinous violation.

[Irriari]

OOCNot much I can do here- sorry. I tried!

Irriari flapped her wings, and felt the muscles straining in her back. Three days straight of training had never felt this bad, and she had never felt this helpless. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she shifted her weight towards her good shoulder and tried escaping again, but nothing seemed to change. The weight of the drykas was distributed so perfectly atop her own frame that moving anything other than her toes was not only pointless, but painful as well. She refused to give up, and tried throwing all her weight against his, but felt only his chest and the sweat that coated them both.

At first, she wondered how he could move her heavy, lead filled arms. Didn't he feel the weight like she did? Irriari swore loudly again in zithanese. There was nothing in the poison that was meant to addle her mind, but it seemed that she was losing control of the situation and herself, faster than she could comprehend. The leather of his belt hit her stomach as he wrestled with the buckle. Then, it hit her why the situation had felt so eerily similar. He meant to rape her. Irriari screamed in earnest, forgetting that such gestures would only wear her down more. Now, in the clutches of fear, logic had left her, and she moved over and over again, in the smallest ways she could, draining her strength even more. Cold sweat poured down her face and stung her eyes as she cursed and begged. He wanted to hurt her. He could hurt her. Why had she trusted a drykas? She had shamed her clan, and herself by thinking that this man, Vanator, could be trusted. Now, he could rip away one of the few things she had left as her own. Tears fell down her face, and splashed onto the grass below. Above her, blood flowed from the wounds on her hands, and for the first time in years, she wondered if the colony had been right. Maybe poison was no weapon for a zith.

[Vanator]

Vanator had plummeted into darkness, searing his conscious and deafening himself to Irriari's cries. She was a zith, a killer, murder, slaver, one of those who had destroyed his love and wrecked his life for years. He had convinced himself of it, that he was exacting justice, avenging all the drykas who have suffered by these parasites of the grasslands. He would not look at her face, for it too closely resembled a human woman. As his strength waned, he laid on top of her, forcing his way to position. Her fight too had begun to fade, the dark wings flapping weakly. The Drykas forced himself upon her, blind with rage, dealing roughly with the she-zith as he wrought his revenge. There was not an awareness of how similar or dissimilar the copulation was to that with a human woman, no consideration for how Irriari felt physically or emotionally. It was an attack, he was just using a different weapon. But his body knew no different, and it responded in the primal manner to which it was designed. Unaware of how many chimes passed as he violated the zith, Vanator did not cease, though he grew weak, until he had reached his culmination. Spending himself on Irriari, Van's violent motions slowed and stopped. The man collapsed upon the she-zith's chest, her movement all but slight squimring now beneath him. Vanator rolled off of Irriari to his hands and knees. Taking hold of the hand ax he had laid aside, he crawled towards his horse, his pants still undone. Exhaustion had set it, the blinders of hate falling away, and the realization of the past few chimes began to sink into his brain. Like a black flood, the truth of his actions came to his awareness. He raped her. Vanator's stomach instantly tightened, nausea rising like a flooded stream. The understanding made him sick, horrified and distraught. The man stopped moving, having to wretch and vomit in the grass. Van was wracked with dry heaves, and he wasn't sure if it was the poison or the repulsion at his own deeds that made him violently ill. "Oh Gods!" Vanator moaned in despair. He was no better than them. A monster. He dared to look over at Irrirari, her weak form in the grass still visible in the moonlight. Suddenly she was not a zith monster, she was a wretched creature that had been attacked and violated in the most heinous way, and he had become the nightmare. Van spat the residue of vomit from his mouth. Too weak to stand, he crawled towards Kalinda until he could lean against her back leg. He clawed at the animal, grasped the strap of the yvas but did not have the strength to pull himself up. Again he looked over at the zith and called out weakly. "Why, why did you do it?" His question was a pained cross between a plea and an accusation. "Poison?" Vanator inhaled, coming undone, "Bitch!" He yelled madly, spittle flecking his lips. The anger directed at Irriari was meant for himself. His soul groaned, appalled at what he had become. With a grimace Vanator growled, pounding the grassy ground with little strength.

[Irriari]

The pain radiated from her thighs, legs, and stomach as Vanator- the drykas beast, the man without morals, took her body by force and used it for his own pleasure. Her vision swam with every motion until her stomach rolled. Finally, after an unknown amount of time, his weight sank on top of her body and he rolled off of her.

Stunned, shocked and utterly in pain, Irriari couldn't raise a hand to stop him as he feebly made his way back to his horse. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks as she tried to move to her knees and fell. She snarled as tears fell down her face, and tried again- and she fell once more. Finally, she settled on rolling onto her stomach. Her hands found the dirt underneath the grasses, and she clutched clumps of it. She needed to feel something real because the grasslands had turned into a never ending nightmare. Why had she trusted the drykas?

Finally, as Vanator raved, she managed to get to her knees, where the retching began. She ignored him. His words burned her ears like molten flames. There was nothing left to say.

The poison would dissipate in a few more bells, and her speed and strength would return, as it would with the drykas. The pain that had started eating at her heart would take many seasons to heal. Bitterly, she began wiping the dirt that had found a way into the fur at her ankles and arms. Gingerly, she opened her wings and winced at the throbbing pain that emanated from her back with every flap. Dirt fell from her wings as well, as she prepared to move as far away as she could from the drykas. One day, she would kill him. She promised herself that as she clutched her bow weakly, and gathered her scattered belongings. It would not be today, but one day, if she lived to see it, her revenge would be had on the drykas man who had stolen so much from her.

-Exit-

[Vanator]

Slumped against Kalinda's leg, Vanator watched Irriari struggle to her knees, seeing she too was brought to vomiting by the experience. The she-zith opened her bat-like wings gingerly, extending them broadly. In another circumstance, she would have appeared like night demon, threatening and dangerous. But now, as she wiped the puke from her mouth and brushed the dirt from her fur, she appeared defeated and pathetic. And to his own surprise, Vanator pitied her. Van groaned in despair, thoroughly appalled at his monstrosity. He looked at himself, sprawled out in the grass, half naked, scratched and bleeding, the scent of the zith still lingering in his nostrils as an accusing reminder of his crime. He struggled to pull up his pants, making no effort to clean himself first. He had to leave. If Irriari's kindred discovered him, he would certainly be given no quarter, guaranteed a slow, painful death and most likely subjected to the same horrid torment he had afforded the zith female. The horseman turned again to grasp the strap of the yvas that wound around his mount's barrel, managing to pull himself to his knees, the poison now having reached its peak of effectiveness. His weakened arms straining, he managed to get his wobbly legs beneath him. After a moment, Vanator took a deep breath and tried to hoist himself onto Kalinda. The attempt failed, and he fell backwards into the grass, laying on his back and staring at the starlit sky. Turning his head, Van could see Irriari gathering her things. Once again Vanator strove to mount the horse, and with great effort he managed to dump himself across the yvas, hanging like a dead body across Kalinda's back. A weak smack on her rump sent the Paintedmount into a slow walk. Vanator, too weak and distraught to care, let the horse take him where she may. The conflict was over, the human having claimed a hollow victory, and both contestants would crawl away with deep wounds in their psyche that may never heal.