[Despite the drama of the moment, the great and terrible import of the creature bearing down on them, there is a faintly helpless shame in Ortus' remark, as though to name this nightmare is to admit to some flaw of his own.
For did he not conjure it up? Did he not invoke her name, as he invoked the name of another hero of the Ninth, and bring forth this wretched echo of her hideous end?
Or perhaps it is because he knows now that this gentle healer died for nothing, at the vanguard of a war of conquest and spite, and all that had come of her fate was a story to inspire children to take up blades like the one he bears to seek to shed blood in the wake of her blood. There is a bleakness to it he had not contemplated in its fullness yet - and he may not have time to contemplate it much further if he does not stop contemplating now.
Vi collides with the bronze bovine abomination like the clapper of a titanic bell, and as a bell, the beast resonates through and through, hollow and reverberating. The blades of her feet shriek against its metallic hide and leave dents in their wake, and Vi will notice at once how the heat softens the thin shell of the bull.
Ortus follows after her, trying to remember seven different critically important things at once, and largely managing none of them. He lashes out with his rapier and its tip slides harmlessly off the creature's waving head, ignored as the bull seeks to trample Vi beneath its stomping feet. With a cry that comes out more as a bleat, Ortus flings himself against it shoulder first, attempting to shift the bull before it can bear down on the young woman.
It's lighter than it looks. The beast skids roughly in the direction of the nightmare steed, bellowing in outrage at being dislodged, and Ortus attempts to scramble back only to overcorrect - and his skid onto the ice is not nearly as controlled as Vi's.]
no subject
[Despite the drama of the moment, the great and terrible import of the creature bearing down on them, there is a faintly helpless shame in Ortus' remark, as though to name this nightmare is to admit to some flaw of his own.
For did he not conjure it up? Did he not invoke her name, as he invoked the name of another hero of the Ninth, and bring forth this wretched echo of her hideous end?
Or perhaps it is because he knows now that this gentle healer died for nothing, at the vanguard of a war of conquest and spite, and all that had come of her fate was a story to inspire children to take up blades like the one he bears to seek to shed blood in the wake of her blood. There is a bleakness to it he had not contemplated in its fullness yet - and he may not have time to contemplate it much further if he does not stop contemplating now.
Vi collides with the bronze bovine abomination like the clapper of a titanic bell, and as a bell, the beast resonates through and through, hollow and reverberating. The blades of her feet shriek against its metallic hide and leave dents in their wake, and Vi will notice at once how the heat softens the thin shell of the bull.
Ortus follows after her, trying to remember seven different critically important things at once, and largely managing none of them. He lashes out with his rapier and its tip slides harmlessly off the creature's waving head, ignored as the bull seeks to trample Vi beneath its stomping feet. With a cry that comes out more as a bleat, Ortus flings himself against it shoulder first, attempting to shift the bull before it can bear down on the young woman.
It's lighter than it looks. The beast skids roughly in the direction of the nightmare steed, bellowing in outrage at being dislodged, and Ortus attempts to scramble back only to overcorrect - and his skid onto the ice is not nearly as controlled as Vi's.]