Collateral Damage

[Skid]

The Dragon-Elf made a show of strolling languidly through the open door of the Inn and down the steps of the ancient porch, but every movement was wracked with tension. Her pointed ears remained tilted toward the large building as her foot moved off the last warped plank. Her right hand still clasped the blood-painted dagger, while her left lifted the hem of her white sheath dress from under her heels.

The left hand crushed the delicate silk as she turned her body to look back on the Inn. Soon someone would be likely to give chase. Pale violet wings flattened against her back tightly, creating a shape that offered less wind resistance for the upcoming race. She paused to kick her legs forward one at a time, throwing the heeled shoes into the dirt several feet away.

A soft murmur was directed at the dagger. Shadows drew upward from the ground and swirled around the stained blade, thicker and thicker until the gleam of the steel near the ornate hilt was no longer visible. She slid the dagger into the dress, tucking it securely within her ample cleavage.

She began to run.

Her pursuer was a creature made to haunt the deepest, darkest places in the world, and feed off its predators and prey alike. When he stepped forth from the flickering bright of the Inn's fire-lit interior, the single pupil in his increasingly golden eye widened massively to take in the darkness and definition denied to those unsuited to it. He gave chase on tightly coiled legs, animalistic speed and agility taking hold as they rounded corners and passed markets, homes, and other Inns and bars.

It seemed for a while that he may have even been toying with the Dragon-Elf. That was, unfortunately, a misconception. When she'd taken one turn too many for any others to have followed, he attacked. It was far from silent, the way in which the snarling half-Daemon dove into Dawn's back with claws extended and rabid rage running through him in rampant, flaming waves.

She screamed, the toes of her bare foot catching in the dirt as she felt the bite of his attack. The bat-like wings snapped out as his claws dug into the dual ridges that served as the frame for the leathery webbing. The pair tumbled forward into the ground and slid forward in the dust several feet her arms shot forward to try and protect her face from the rocks and dust disturbed in their forward rush. Clouds of reddish brown drifted over the once pristine white silk and mottled its now-torn and crumpled surface.

Before they ground to a halt, the tips of her wings swept toward one another even while they remained fully extended and the webbing taut. The claws on the tip of each ridge turned slightly and aimed directly toward the invader between them, simultaneously buffeting and stabbing. Her bruised and scraped arms flailed ineffectively back toward her attacker. “Coward!” she hissed.

His knees found home on her lower back when they collided, and only when her wings flailed back and attacked did the fabric of the mask tear as his jaw yawned wide, and his fingers would snap and crack and lengthen and sharpen, did he make sound. Only the painful burn of the Damned language, in a mash of curses and oaths.

The buffeting blows her clawed wingtips delivered pounded without mercy against the shell of his chest and abdomen, pushing his grip loose enough to slip to the flat of the wings themselves, while his fingers curled tight enough to pierce the membranous skin that made up her wings and allowed her to force him back at the price of her own injury in wings made even more useless than they already were.

In response to her cry, his words bled out in purely unadulterated hatred. They made no sense to the ears of any being unfamiliar with the language, and yet the message seemed to be clear. Her word was being scoffed and turned back upon her.

She screeched again and uncurled the damaged wings away from him, clawed edges digging into the dust and drawing as much surface area as possible away from him. She pushed hard into the ground with both her body and her wing to allow her body to roll over, onto her back. A howl of pure agony followed a sickening crack as the bones in her wing snapped. The membrane served as the only remaining connection between the two halves as the outer edge flopped uselessly. She bucked against him, both from the horror of her destroyed wing and the effort to dislodge him.

[Skid]

When the raw force of her desperation allowed her the strength to roll him over, and to plant herself atop him, he cackled. Her pain brought him nothing but the sheerest of joys, and his long, forked, flat serpentine tongue flickered against the back of her neck before his head snapped sideways and his jaws clamped along the back of it, for the briefest of moments. Just enough to mar her flesh and make her scream again, and to keep the taste of her on register, so to speak.

In the confusion, he got the air knocked out of himself and had to roll to the side and force her away from him. But that did allow for him to rise, and look over his prey with a painfully, frighteningly joyous gaze. Acidic droplets of blood sizzled into the ground from the front of his shirt where she'd stabbed him. Then he took another step forward.

She scrambled to her bleeding and raw feet and backpedaled several steps, to put distance between them. The decimated wing swung freely behind her as she moved, much like a pendulum in the background. She exhaled a hiss of pain and felt behind her to still the movement. Her red-gold gaze slid from one side to the other as she took in her surroundings.

The buildings enveloping the pair were squat but dense, so densely packed even a cockroach would fail to pass through the space between them. The roofs of the dilapidated buildings flaked clay tiles and sagged dangerously. Dawn snarled and narrowed her gaze on the thing before her once more. “Would you like to know why I chose your little friend this evening?” She forced a purr into her voice as she spoke softly toward her adversary. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she fought off the pain momentarily, but she could not allow herself to fall unconscious.

A sound unlike anything a living being should be able to produce rumbled from the half-Daemon's throat. He took another step forwards, and grinned a nightmarish display of shining needle and razorblade teeth that took up the entirety of the jawline running across his face. "Because you wanted an excuse to have me grind you into the ground all over again?"

When his voice passed from his throat, it was stinging and just the slightest bit serpentine. His mirth was only masked by his rage, and another step brought all those ebon talons to grind into the desiccated cobbles and dirt beneath their feet.

“Because I like you, and I wish your undivided attention.” She mustered a soft, silky laugh. She slid her right foot back along the dirt, grimacing as the movement sent her broken wing swinging once more. The narrow alleyway they had tumbled into allowed little chance for escape without directly passing through him. Her left leg edged back as she sought to keep the distance between them. The dialogue was providing a temporary distraction, but she was swiftly running out of options.

She slid the dagger from the dress and waved a hand delicately over the shadows that protected the blade. Gleaming steel and blood became visible once more as the dark wisps receded at her command. She dipped the edge of the weapon under the ragged silk and slid the steel down the sheath dress, slitting it from nape to ankle. The dagger was then pitched to the side and she shed the split dress, sliding it off her shoulders until she stood before him naked.

She seemed to wink and perk her lips for a kiss at him during the display. However, soft puffs of breath passed through her lips as she murmured very so softly key phrases. The dragon-elf’s shadow magic called to the crevices around them, summoning the dark intangible Otherbeings at her command. The echoes of life swirled behind him malevolently, awaiting her will.

A sickening chuckle ground out of his throat as he took another step forwards, and sized up her naked body. "Pity. You should have kept the knife."