[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle was breathing heavily as she picked her way through the thick underbrush, trying and mostly failing to keep from being hung up on the many spindly bushes and hardy mountain shrubs that called the forest floor home. The pungent scent of rotting greenery was in her nose, redolent and spicy-sweet, kicked up whenever she stepped through the forest's dense carpet of fallen leaves. After her exhilarating, even somewhat terrifying, descent from on high, the forest was very peaceful. The dense growth of old trees and the crowded confines of undergrowth did strange things to sound, almost making it appear as if she were alone in the forest. She wasn't, and Aegle knew it. Even if she hadn't watched Nikolas Burzanov get launched in before her, she knew there would be other students with better rankings launched after her. How many minutes had it been since her launch? How many of her classmates were already in the woods, searching for allies and fulfilling their objectives? Aegle did not know, though she suspected most of the first years must have made the leap by now, if not all of them. Not that she held out much hope of finding any of them. Her own launch had shown just how wildly the pads and their various trajectories had been tuned, and there was no reason to believe hers was even the most disparate Nik's or others. Haven forest was a big place, and half the point was for them to be as spread out as possible. That was half the challenge after all.
'Nevermind that anyone payin' attention would do all they could to land as far away from me as possible.' Aegle mused, half grinning, as she pushed her way through a density of scratchy green. It was a dour thought, and would be especially true of anyone who noticed how she'd specifically directed flight towards the First Rose's landing site. Doubtless, those observant trainees, with the wont to even care, would know exactly what Aegle intended. It wasn't exactly cunning, as far as game plans went, after all.

Pausing, Aegle adjusted her yellow ribbon, the thing identifying her as a dandelion. She wore it tied across her brow, intending for it to keep the sweat out of her eyes, a task it had proved only minimally successful at. It was hot in the Haven Forest or, at the very least, it was muggy and unpleasant. She didn't even think she'd traveled all that far, heavy breathing aside, and certainly wasn't exerting herself overtly. Yet, Aegle found herself covered from head to heel in enough sweat to drown a small mammal. It was a far cry from the boreal chill of the atlesian wilderness, that was for sure. Aegle unslung her canteen, one of two she was carrying, and wetted her lips with its contents. She needed to stay hydrated, she knew. Giving the canteen an uncertain shake, she judged about three quarters of its contents remained.
'Might need to use that water dust after all.' She thought. It couldn't have been an hour, and yet she'd already consumed an eighth of her supply. 'Am I drinkin' too much?' She didn't know. Aegle had never been in a survival situation before, and had only how much she was sweating to know how much she ought to be drinking.
'Maybe I can find a stream...' Though where and how, except by random luck, she did not know. All that was a concern for later though. She didn't have the time to stop right now and, in any case, wouldn't be running out of water for a few more hours even if she continued drinking at the rate she had been.
No, what was vastly more important was finding an ally. Namely, finding Nikolas Burzanov, the first of the Roses. First to be launched, at any rate, though perhaps he counted as 'last' because of it, just as Aegle counted as the 'last' among the Dandelions. They were the worst in their respective groups, and no mistake, and if what Nik had done to earn his ranking was anything like what Aegle had done to earn hers, he was gonna need all the help he could get.
Hence why she had spent every heartbeat since her none-too-gentle landing making her way towards where she thought the white haired boy had landed.

Aegle wasn't sure what help she might be able to offer Nik when she found him, but she was sure she didn't want to be alone in Haven Forest for any longer than she had to and, unlike with everyone who launched after her, Nik wouldn't know to steer clear of her. She almost felt bad for wanting to meet up with him. Then she remembered the wall, the beowolf, the ursa... She remembered that similar beasts infested the forest and, thereby, felt a little less contrite for wanting some sort of company as she went about completing her objective. After all, so far as Aegle saw it, she was helping him out as much as he would be helping her. Roses needed to help people to pass and, having seen him launch first, ahead even of the crazy crippled girl, the one with neither a semblance nor a weapon, Aegle suspected most of the other trainees would be giving Nikolas Burzanov a wide berth.

A crackling in the undergrowth made Aegle stop in her tracks. Suddenly, though it had seemed so silent a moment before, the forest was full of sound. The wind washed through the trees, making the leaves whisper and the brush sigh. A quiet chirruping was coming from somewhere overhead, while a dull thrumming babble drifted in from up ahead. Above it all though, there was a crackling sound, and the agitated rustle of branches and boughs. Aegle turned, moving only her head, towards the source of this last sound. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and a sudden coldness swept through her, like she'd been immersed in ice. It was coming from behind her, whatever it was, and moving closer. Moving closer very, very quickly.
Aegle held her breath, as her whole body prickled into gooseflesh. She dared not move. Suddenly, something bounded free of the brush, its lithe form dappled golden brown in the sunlight that filtered from up above. Aegle shrieked and leaped back with a loud mechanical whir, just as the shape flash by, turning at the very last moment to avoid crashing right into her. She saw a flash of wide, black eyes, a white muzzle, and tines of fuzzy antlers before it vanished into the undergrowth to her side.
"A deer." Aegle wheezed, lowering her fists, "S'just a deer."
Her relief was overwhelming. It washed through her, warming what her fright had come close to freezing a few moments prior. She grinned, and even giggled a little.
"S'just a deer." She repeated, scrubbing the sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. Looking at where the deer had vanished, she listened to its passing as it grew quieter and quieter amidst the thick trees. Only then did she think to wonder what had startled the beast to begin with.

Aegle's hackles didn't have time to rise this time, and she didn't have time to scream; She only had time to turn back to where the deer had come from before the black shape fell upon her. Two short but powerful legs caught her clean in the chest and shoulders and kicked her from her feet with the force of a sledge hammer.
Aegle leaped herself back, half carried by the force of the kicks, and just narrowly avoided the monster's mouth full of sharp, white teeth, as it snapped closed a mere hand's breadth from her nose. She punched without thinking, but it was sloppy and off balance, and her back found a tree before she could probably spread out her stance. The beast bounced back from the blow, and whipped around, swinging a tail covered in barbs like a flail made from bone. Aegle ducked, throwing herself to the side, as that tail tore bark from the tree she'd been pressed to.
She screamed again, meaninglessly, and came out of her clumsy tumble at a full sprint. Branches and leaves whipped at her head and neck, and she bowled through them with her arms raised before her face, suddenly insensible from fright. Aegle didn't even feel them.
The lush shrubbery suddenly gave way, and she stumbled into another clearing only slightly larger than the one she'd just fled, but the monster was hot on her heels. It bounded clear of the trees after her, its two legs raised to bring its claws to bear once again. It took Aegle in the back, raking at her pack, and drove her down into a tangle of roots. Frantic and clumsy, Aegle unbuckled her pack and squirmed out from under it. The grimm snarled at her, the first sound she'd heard it make, and thumped its tail hard on the ground before leaping at her again, just as she was regaining her feet.
Again, Aegle parried, hooking the airborne monster as it tried to slash at her face, and knocked it away. It wasn't very big, only about the height of a particularly large dog, but it was sinewy quick. Lashing with its tail, the grimm came down on its two feet and rounded on the terrified girl. Half of its body seemed to be made up of mouth, and the other half of tail, the former full up with tiny white fangs as sharp as razors, the latter a length of pitch black covering in bony barbs.
'A creep.' Aegle thought. It was all she had time to think, before the grimm threw itself towards her once more. This time it tried to bite her instead of slashing with its clawed feet. Aegle ducked back, narrowly avoiding its disproportionately large jaws, and socked it as hard as she could in the side of its bony head. The creep snarled, whipped around, and caught her guard with its tail, sending her staggering back. Then it rounded on her and pounced.
'How is it so fast?!'
Aegle sidestepped the pounce and jabbed it twice in the face and side, neither blow seeming to have much effect.
'So damn weak.' Despairing, Aegle evaded another lash of its tail. The creep hissed, its red eyes seething with malice. Aegle, trying to put some distance between herself and the enraged monster, stumbled over a knot of roots and went down on back. The creep was upon her instantly, raking with its claws, snapping with its too large mouth. Aegle quailed. It was only her second time fighting one of the creatures of Grimm, and already it was going about as poorly as the first time had. Fighting friends and fighting Doc weren't even comparable to the malevolent viciousness of a Grimm.
"Help!" She shrieked, fending the monster off as best she was able, as it tore long gashes in her hoodie and cargo pants, "Someone, Please!" It was a futile gesture, made more from panic and fear than any real hope that someone might be close enough to hear her.

Somehow, she managed to kick the creep off of her, not that the monster seemed at all bothered by it. Of the half dozen hits she'd actually landed, only the hook had seemed to actually hurt the damned thing. Aegle was only up to her haunches by the time the creep threw itself at her again. It was too small to overpower her, to light to take her down, but it was also relentless and wickedly quick. She parried this new onslaught, staggered aside, and immediately had to guard another lash from its bony tail.
"Stop!" she shouted, catching it a blow across the side of its bony face. The creep bounded back with the punch, whipped around, and charged back in, undeterred. Aegle planted her feet, chambered a haymaker, and waited for the pounce. The creep did not disappoint, but threw itself at her, mouth opened wide, claws poised to rip and tear. Her fist slammed into the side of its head with all the weight of her body behind it, and sent fissures of cracks, a hand's breadth deep, through the bony mask around its face. The creep slammed into her, driving her backwards, and the dead weight of it near took her from her feet.
Aegle staggered, dropped to one knee and watched, in stunned disbelief, as the monster fell apart, filling the air with the pungent reek of dead flesh and ash. The smell soon vanished as well, and Aegle was left panting at nothing but a black smudge on the earth.
'One good punch,' she thought numbly, 'All it took was one good punch'
Her whole body was shaking. Bleakly, Aegle took stock of her hurts. Her aura was holding up, somehow, and she guessed about two thirds of it remained. Her arms and chest were covered in scratches though, where the creep's claws and barbed tail had penetrated her atypically thin defensive shield. Aegle winced, touching a cut above her navel, which she could see clearly through the slashes in the front of her hoodie. An equally nasty scrape ran the length of her forearm where, she guessed, one of the tail spines had raked her.
"One creep." She said aloud, aching, "What'm I even doin' here if I can't handle one creep?"

"What was it even doin', runnin' around, above ground and all alone?"
Aegle blinked, then thought about what she'd just said.
'All alone? Creeps are pack hunters.'
A cold wave washed through her, and she lurched quickly to her feet, eyes wide, ears keen. Where there was one creep, there was bound to be others.

words - 2,322

[Nikolas Burzanov]

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Aegle Verdant

1362 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

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Nikolas's short time spent in the forest had not been uneventful. He had gone straight to hunting as soon as he had arrived, and within minutes had found a trail. It led him back towards the direction he had been launched from, following the footprints. He wasn't a skilled tracker at all, but even a blundering idiot could follow a Grimm trail if they knew how to see them. Footprints in the soil, scratches on the trees, bushes and shrubbery broken. Grimm weren't exactly stealthy with their trails unless it was an intelligent Grimm, one that Nikolas had yet to meet. But judging from the barest impressions on the ground, and the abundance of scratches on the trees, it was probably a Creep. Or many. It was one that Nikolas had a lot of experience with, both from his time in the wilderness and from the classes, as the first Grimm they researched were Creeps.[break][break]

Creeps generally did not travel overground when stalking or hunting, but any other time, they did venture out onto land. And they left a lot of markers for their trail with how they moved and the sharp edges protruding from their somewhat serpentine bodies. Nikolas did not have to follow the trail far until he heard the noises.[break][break]

Scritch and scratch. Scritch and scratch.[break][break]

"Come and get me, you fucks." Nikolas snarled in a low voice, teeth being bared in a somewhat feral grin as the first of the creeps burst out of the ground, lunging straight for him. Before, Nikolas had problems dealing with Creeps. They would come in swarms, and they'd always give him a lot of trouble. But he had spent months in Haven, training, learning and upgrading his equipment. This time would be different.[break][break]

The first one that lunged at him would find its lunge interrupted with Stahlblesk's blade being stabbed right into his open maw, stabbing deep inside and halting it's lunge far from reach of Nikolas. That wasn't enough to kill the creep right off, but the shot that fired as Nikolas pulled the trigger did. An explosion of shadow and bone fragments as Stahlblesk's barrel fired point black from the inside of the beast's mouth, blowing a sizable hole through it. The creep followed almost soon after, breaking apart like wisps of smoke. But that wasn't it, and Nikolas didn't wait around to get surrounded as he pulled Stahlblesk's bolt back. Instead, he began to run.[break][break]

He ran through the undergrowth, jumping over shrubs and bushes, weaving past trees, as he heard the sounds of pursuit behind him, underneath him. As soon as he heard one of the sounds coming closer and closer to him, he aimed Stahlblesk to his right side, ceasing his running and planting his feet as his feet slid underneath him from his momentum. The sound of the ground bursting open behind him was coupled with the sharp report of Stahlblesk firing once more, Nikolas allowing the recoil to move and twist him to the side, doing an impressive spin on his left foot as he eased off his right, moving him just enough to the left for the creep to miss him with it's lunge as he spun around, bringing Stahlblesk around to slash it across the back as it whipped past him. The force of his heavy weapon acted almost more like a bludgeon than a blade, slamming the creep into the ground and making it bounce off as it struggled to recover, while two other creeps simultaneously burst from the ground, lunging at Nikolas with the reckless abandon of mindless beasts.[break][break]

Nikolas stopped his body from spinning, although he carried the momentum in his weapon, spinning Stahlblesk into a fast, skillful twirl of steel and red before slashing in a wide horizontal arc with the flat of his blade, catching one Creep on the side of it's face and carrying that creep along to slam into the other one, throwing both Creeps off their intended aim and past Nikolas. As those two tangled amongst themselves, the other one had recovered and rushed at Nikolas, this time not lunging but instead whipping its tail around to hit Nikolas.[break][break]

Nikolas deflected the tail whip with his weapon, the sound of bone hitting steel echoing in the confines of the forest, Nikolas being forced to sidestep from the force of the blow. But he retaliated by using that force and turning it into another spin, going into a crouch to dodge the second tail blow as he brought his spear around in a sweep, catching the creep's legs with his crossguard and tripping it onto it's side. He completed his sweep completely, and then transitioned from that into another spin, this time launching up from his crouch into a jump, coming down to stab his spear down into the creep. It exploded into fragments of smoke, like burnt crisps of paper floating in the wind, turning to ash. The other two Creep had untangled themselves by now, as Nikolas raised his eyes tow-[break][break]

One creep was running towards him. It was the one he had hit first, not the one he had struck with this one. As it lunged towards him, Nikolas brought his weapon up in a vicious upwards arc, completely bisecting the beast as the two halves passed Nik on either side, hitting the ground and disintegrating from the force of it. Nikolas looked mostly nonplussed, aside from a slight quickness to his breath from the exertion, but his brows were drawn together in confusion. There was another Creep... Where had it gone?[break][break]

A scream brought him his answer as he turned his head, trying to pinpoint the source of the scream. Someone was screaming for help. Another trainee?[break]
Logic would dictate that Nikolas haul ass to go help that person since his objective was to help two other classmates with their objectives... But if it was someone who couldn't handle a single creep, would they be a good person to help, or just a liability? It made Nikolas hesitate for a moment, gray eyes narrowing, before he just said "Fuck it." and ran for it. Even if it was a liability of a person who couldn't kill a single creep... They were still his classmate. And he would not let them be in danger.[break][break]

He ran through the forest, trying to find the source of the distress, the noise. They seemed to be heading away from him as well. He cursed under his breath as he looked around frantically to find the direction they had gone in, before heading that way, pausing occassionally to see if he was following the sound or trail correctly. Everytime the person screamed, he got a burst of movement to close in on them, as other times he would have to track them through other means.[break][break]

Finally, he happened upon a clearing, just in time to see a tiny person sock a Grimm across the jaw and turn it to smoke. Well... There was the fourth Grimm, accounted for. The person the Grimm had engaged didn't look to be doing too well however. Nikolas considered once more just leaving that person and going back to hunting Grimm. She hadn't noticed him yet, caught up by the paranoia of the Creep Swarm. But it hadn't been a swarm, only a patrol of maybe four creeps, all of which were dead now. If there were more, Nikolas hadn't seen any sign of them. [break][break]

He considered his options, and then sighed silently, before stepping out of the treeline into the clearing. "You alright?" He asked, his voice seeming disinterested as he approached Aegle, cocking his head at her, recognizing her. "There aren't anymore coming for now. I killed the others, but if you want to wait for them here, I'm sure they'll come by soon enough with the dinner bell you've been ringing." Nikolas said, narrowing his eyes disapprovingly at her, although he also had to thank her for doing it. Now, he wouldn't have to hunt the Grimm, they would be hunting this little fellow... And all he had to do was hunt them as they were busy stalking her.

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[Aegle Verdant]

"You alright?"
Aegle yelped and spun around, winding back with her main hand before she even had a chance to register that most grimm didn't speak the common tongue. She caught herself short of actually throwing the punch and a good thing too, seeing as the one who'd spoken was none other than Nikolas Burzanov himself. He stood at the edge of her clearing like a pillar of ivory, his head tipped slightly to one side. That tipped head was, incidentally, the only indication he gave that her well being even interested him, despite having asked after it a mere hearbeat before.
She gawked at him, just as though he were made out of cheese, entirely uncomprehending. Nikolas' eyes narrowed, a solitary movement in mask made from marble mask.
"There aren't anymore coming for now." He told her, in a voice as pale and devoid of emotion as his face, "I killed the others, but if you want to wait for them here, I'm sure they'll come by soon enough with the dinner bell you've been ringing."
Aegle did not need telling twice, Nik's warning serving to break whatever spell his unexpected appearance had cast upon her. With a wince of pain, Aegle hopped unsteadily to where her backpack lay and hunkered down to check the damage.
"Dang..." She cursed. The creep had made a ruin of the backpack, which now bore three long slashes where it had not before. One ration was similarly torn through, its muddy brown insides disgorged across the rest of the pack's contents. Aegle stuffed a couple of the rations into the pockets on her cargo pants instead, and did her best to secure the larger of the gashes shut with the straps of the pack. She might use her suturing kit to mend the worst of the damage, or at least keep her supplies from spilling out as she walked, but that would take time. Time which, by the sounds of it, they didn't have.
"S'bloody well wrecked, innit?" She proclaimed gloomily, before cursing again as her hands, still trembling from her fight with the creep, failed to tie the pack shut. Aegle thumped pack in frustration. It was her own fault for not extending her aura to cover her pack, like how most of the other trainees did with their clothes. She'd done it to conserve energy, but hadn't considered this might be the consequence.
"Yo, y'got some string?" She asked, as she tried, and failed, to tie her straps into a knot that would actually hold. She tried that one more time, then gave it up for a bad job.
"Aaargh, nevermind, forget it," she squawked, as she scooped up the pack in her arms, pressing the gashed back to her gashed front, in an extremely slap-shot effort to cover the holes. With a bit of grunting, she was able to get her arms into the shoulder straps.

"Alright." Aegle chirped, turning to face Nik with her backpack, worn backwards, wearing it on her front. She looked a misfit, and no mistake. Only then did she think to wonder...
"Where to?"
Her objective since setting out had been to find Nik after all. Having found him, she actually wasn't sure what to do next. She supposed she ought to go fight some Grimm. She stole a glance at the black smudge on the other side of the clearing and a shiver ran through her, bone deep. Perhaps finding more Grimm could wait. No need to rush...
"Wait, y'said others?" Aegle trotted up beside Nik, somewhat ungainly from the weight of her pack. She wouldn't be able to fight like this, she realized a bit belatedly. She probably oughtn't be fighting with it on, even if she'd been wearing it properly, but the new arrangement would make throwing punches next to impossible. Not to mention it was rubbing unpleasantly against her cuts, worn on the front in such a way.
"How many others?"

---

words - 660

[Nikolas Burzanov]

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Aegle Verdant

1240 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

[attr="class","itsover"]



Nikolas stared down at the midget as she attempted to patch up her utterly wrecked backpack. He remained silent, simply staring at the girl's attempts with flat indifference, not deigning a response to her somewhat rhetorical statement. You'd have to be robbed of your sight and physical senses to be able to mistake that bag for anything other than absolutely fucked. And she was attempting to take inventory now, to salvage what she could and get rid of what she could not... This was going to take a while, wasn't it. He sighed silently through his nostrils as he fished out his pack of cigarettes and Kieran's lighter. [break][break]

"No." Was his only response to her request for string, slightly muffled by the fact that he held a cigarette between his teeth as he answered. Two separate instances of 'chk' sounds before the lighter ignited its wick, Nikolas using that in turn to light the end of his cigarette. An orange glow blossomed at the end of it, wisps of smoke wafting up from it as Nikolas flipped the lighter close with a flick of his wrist, a sharp clicking noise announcing the close.[break][break]

Nikolas didn't react either to her somewhat scraggly and comedic look as she wore the bag in exactly the way you were not supposed to wear one, simply raising an eyebrow at her as he exhaled a puff of smoke. [break]
"Where to?" He repeated her question back at her. Did she expect him to lead her? He wasn't a goddamned nanny and he wasn't going to waste time leading a stray. But then, Nikolas remembered his objectives... He had to help members of the other factions to complete their objectives, and he could not say no to a group request. His face shifted almost infinitesimally to one of distaste and grim resignation, as he debated on whether her question counted as a group request...[break][break]

Finally, he sighed through his nostrils once more, audibly this time and punctuated with smoke visibly coloring the exhale, as he turned away from her and looked around. Finally, it seemed that his earlier words had punctured that thick skull of hers, as she reminded him of a puppy dog cocking its head to the side in confusion. "Yes, sunshine, others." He muttered somewhat sarcastically, his eyes still scanning the area around them. [break]
"You were screaming so bloody loudly, I wouldn't be surprised if you brought the entirety of every single fucking Grimm in this forest upon us. If we're lucky, it's going to be a horde of them so we won't feel much as we're ripped to shreds within the blink of an eye. If we're unlucky, it's going to be a single big bastard who's going to take its time grinding our bones together into a lovely dipping sauce for our limbs." He went on, contempt clearly written on his face as he scanned the clearing, his eyes and ears open for any disturbances. "Maybe you can hope to give them indigestion." He added, glancing at the outlines of her brace poking out from under her clothes. Wasn't hard to not notice them since they whirred with every movement.[break][break]

He then picked a direction and began walking, fully expecting Aegle to either follow or be left behind to deal with whatever was drawn to her manic screams. He walked at a slightly faster than normal pace, easily kept up but slow enough to be careful and silent, focus kept on scanning the surroundings. But due to their height difference, and the difference in their gaits, Aegle would probably have to keep up with him at that annoying precipice where jogging was too fast and fast-walking was too slow. "What's your objective anyway? For this midterm?" He asked her as he walked through a winding game trail in the trees.[break][break]

He would nod once Aegle would tell him the objectives for a dandelion. "Good." He would respond simply to that, because it was good. The objectives for dandelions were in line with his own personal experience. "Most of them will no doubt be drawn to that clearing from your opera performance... Meaning we should be able to find a straggler by itself and take it out. With our weapons, it shouldn't be too dif-" Nikolas's speech stopped. His walking stopped. It looked like someone had suddenly hit a pause button on him, as after a second, he turned around to fix Aegle with a look that could be easily described as completely bemused, with a slight squint, frown and a slip parting of the lips.[break][break]

"Where is your weapon?" He asked in a slightly incredulous tone. "Did you legitimately come into a forest, full of creatures who would gladly turn you tear you limb from limb, without a bloody weapon?!" He asked, his voice actually raising slightly to completely capture the amount of shock and disapproval in his voice. He wouldn't even wait for an answer as it was obvious she didn't have a weapon; he'd have seen it if she did, before turning back around to face the front, muttering obscenities to himself at his luck of being stuck with the a literal unarmed stray. Was this some kind of sick test set up specifically for him by Shadecloak? Some kind of 'Oh I'm gonna send someone without a weapon to Nikolas pretending it's a trainee that he'll have to protect otherwise I'll shoot his femurs out?' kind of bullshit? [break][break]

He sighed again, a grudging sigh, before muttering, "Alright... You killed a creep earlier, so you're not entirely without your strengths. We just have to work on your mindset. You were tearing up a storm earlier, screaming and wailing. Rule one, don't. Rule two, use what you have in your head. Grimm like creeps are stupid. You're not. They will come at you in simple tactics, usually in a straight line. Learn the patterns, learn to counter. A creep is not going to sneeki-breeki around you to flank you all the time. It's going to either rush you, or jump out of the ground at you. It's not going to concoct a master plan to utilize your weaknesses against you." He explained as they walked through the underbrush. He would then stop and turn around to look at Aegle. [break]
"Regardless of your faults, you're a huntress in training. You're not a helpless civilian, you're the one standing between the Grimm and the helpless civilian. They're the ones who're gonna be screaming for help, and you're the help. You're the hunter, not the hunted. Think like one. Act like one. Fight like one." He said, his voice holding some aggression in it, like a soldier trying to steel the resolve of a rookie. "You're not a hero, Aegle. You're never going to be one. Heroes die. Use everything and anything to win, no matter how dirty the tactic. Grimm don't have rules and neither should you. Don't be a hero. Be a huntress."[break][break]

With those words, Nikolas would turn around and continue stalking through the forest, following the game trail as he looked for signs of Grimm. It took him another entire minute of searching, until finally, Nikolas stopped, gesturing with a cock of his head at a tree in front of him. "Claw marks." He muttered, inspecting it. Too high up to be a creep. Too deep to be a beowolf.[break][break]

Looks like they were on the trail of an Ursa.

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[Aegle Verdant]

"Yes, sunshine, others." Nikolas muttered through a mouthful of smoke, not even deigning to look at her, "You were screaming so bloody loudly, I wouldn't be surprised if you brought the entirety of every single fucking Grimm in this forest upon us. If we're lucky, it's going to be a horde of them so we won't feel much as we're ripped to shreds within the blink of an eye. If we're unlucky, it's going to be a single big bastard who's going to take its time grinding our bones together into a lovely dipping sauce for our limbs. Maybe you can hope to give them indigestion."
Aegle was taken aback, but the contemptuous tirade had not caught her entirely off guard; His armband was red after all, and hers was yellow. They both had their shortcomings, and he was merely demonstrating his while commenting upon hers. It didn't make her desire to punch him in the stomach any less pronounced though, no more than it made his spirit of his words, brusque though they had been, any less true. Aegle had not, after all, been discrete during her fight with the creep. A fight which she knew had lasted entirely too long. Her lack of stopping power told...

He was off without another word, striding briskly through the trees on long, straight legs, smooth as a shadow. Aegle, caught off guard, had to hasten to catch up. The Rose gave no sign of caring, and didn't even acknowledge her right away.
"What's your objective anyway? For this midterm?" He asked finally, though he did not slow. Aegle, forced to keep pace, was made scramble through obstacles he could as easily step over, or so it seemed. She was already puffing with the effort of it, able to feel the burn growing in her legs and back.
"I've got to kill five grimm." She answered, short with breath. If he had run or he had walked, it would have been one thing, but Nik's gait instead straddled the line between. It demanded a lot of Aegle, whose efforts to match the pace were similarly straddled between ad uncomfortably quick walk and unnaturally hobbled jog. She couldn't find a comfortable rhythm, and so must need switch constantly between the two. It was an uncomfortable way to move, and she half-suspected that Nik was doing it on purpose. The only reason she wasn't sure he was doing it intentionally was because she didn't think he cared enough to even torment her.
"I can't be in a team larger than two though, for them to count."
Nik, not slowing nor picking up his pace, only nodded, "Good."
He said it without emotion, just as though he were saying the color of the sky, or that water was wet, and giving no real hint as to whether it was killing five grimm which suited him, or the restriction of only being allowed two to a team.
"Most of them will no doubt be drawn to that clearing from your opera performance."
Aegle colored somewhat, hands clenching into fists, but she said nothing.
"Meaning we should be able to find a straggler by itself and take it out. With our weapons, it shouldn't be too dif-..."
It took a moment for the other shoe to drop. A long, uncomfortable, stretched out moment, until Nikolas finally turned to face her. His face was no longer vacant of emotion, but wore the faintest frown instead, tinged in mounting disbelief.
"Where is your weapon?" He demanded.
Aegle did not reply. What was there to say? Nik was happily to fill the silence however.
"Did you legitimately come into a forest, full of creatures who would gladly turn you tear you limb from limb, without a bloody weapon?!"
Swinging around, muttering curses all the while, it took several moments for Nikolas to regain some semblance of his previous stoic composure. It was not the most humiliating, most disheartening thing which had ever been done to her, being used to handicap Colton Deraine still held that spot, but it came close. Aegle flinched with each swear, each uttered invective, her face falling and reddening at once. It lasted a long while.
"Alright..." Nikolas said finally, in what struck Aegle as a bargaining tone, "You killed a creep earlier, so you're not entirely without your strengths. We just have to work on your mindset."
He sounded far from convinced. For that matter, Aegle was far from convinced.
"You were tearing up a storm earlier, screaming and wailing. Rule one, don't. Rule two, use what you have in your head. Grimm like creeps are stupid. You're not. They will come at you in simple tactics, usually in a straight line. Learn the patterns, learn to counter. A creep is not going to sneeki-breeki around you to flank you all the time. It's going to either rush you, or jump out of the ground at you. It's not going to concoct a master plan to utilize your weaknesses against you."
Aegle hadn't the first clue what a sneeki-breeki had to do with grimm, but she didn't think it would be a good idea to interrupt. What he said next was nothing she hadn't heard before thought. How huntsman were the hunters, not the prey, how they needed to stalk, not be stalked. Aegle must have heard the same thing from Shadecloak or Van Sange at some point, though obviously Nikolas said it with a much more scornful, pragmatic, and, it seemed to Aegle, awfully nihilistic tone.

Still, it seemed like he was trying to be helpful, at least. Aegle wondered how long that would last; From what she'd experienced thus far, his red arm band was not unwarranted.
She stayed quiet though, and was just glad when he stopped talking. This was all starting to feel like an exceedingly bad idea. And that was before Nik found the claw marks.
"Claw marks." He observed, unnecessarily. They certainly couldn't have been anything else after all. Four slashes, a hand's breadth deep and a span apart, the only other way they could have been made was with four exceptionally precise ax cuts.
Aegle swallowed as a nervous, flighty feeling crawled under her skin. She remembered the wall, the ursa, and shuddered. There was no turret in the woods, only Nikolas and herself.
Nikolas, contrary to her feelings, seemed strangely energized by the discovery. He did not look or act pleased by it in any way, but moved with a great purpose to his quick strides. There was something almost unsettling and unnatural about it. Aegle, forced to keep pace, had to wonder why Nik was so eager to come to blows with the Grimm. Was it just that he wanted to pass the trial, or was there more to it than that?

They passed more signs not long after. Shrugs carelessly trampled, branches snapped off at the trunk and, once a track in soft mud and half rotted leaves, describing a paw as long as Aegle's torso and half again as wide.
"S'big." She observed, and without hiding her apprehension. It had taken all four of them, not to mention a mounted gun and a hundred or so rounds, to put down the two Ursai at the walls. "D'ya think it might be a major? Wouldn't it be better t'go after somethin' else? Shadecloak said we shouldn't pick fights we're not sure we could win..."
Aegle didn't have a good idea of how strong Nikolas was, but he had been launched first and that spoke volumes. Neither one of them were suited to take down an ursa major, even if only one. And Ursai, as she'd learned at the wall, tended to move in pairs.

---

Words - 1,289

[Nikolas Burzanov]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","oneword1"]

[attr="class","fromyou1"]



Aegle Verdant

1064 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

[attr="class","itsover"]


"Da, it is big." He answered, his voice remaining mostly neutral but it couldn't completely block out the backtone, which held approval. He was approving of the fact that the Grimm was most likely large. His grey eyes seemed to brighten with excitement, almost a feral light to them. Like he was looking forward to facing the beast in combat. But it wasn't just excitement, no. There was anger. The light in his eyes was borne of hatred, not thrill seeking. [break][break]

"Did you miss what I just said earlier?" He snapped somewhat coldly at her, although his face was mostly still neutral as he turned it towards her, raising an eyebrow almost inquisitively at her. "You're a huntress in training. Not a civilian. Not a coward. Unless you challenge yourself, you will not grow." He said, before turning his face back to the front and continuing to stalk the trail. This time, however, he was moving slower, sneakier. An easier pace for Aegle to keep pace with, although his main intent was simply to travel quieter.[break][break]

"Yes, it's most likely an Ursa Major. However I doubt it's two or more of them. If I'm right, one of the majors probably took all the minors off towards the clearing we were at, going a straight path that we avoided. Meanwhile, the other would be left to hold the fort, so as to speak... Meaning we've got ourselves a straggler." He said, with a small smile on his face.[break][break]

He stopped then, turning around to look at Aegle. "You have no weapon, and I saw you crack that creep across the face. A fighting style involving punching? Ursa Majors are big, and if one gets a whack on you, you're fucked. Its reach is greater than yours, so watch yourself. They're big and strong, but they're slow. Hope you're quick on your feet, because you're gonna need to dance with death." He said, the last words colored with some amusement, as well as a wry smile on Nikolas' face, although it was more of a smirk given only one corner of his lips curled up. [break][break]

He tapped Stahlblesk's read end on the ground to draw attention to it. "I'm gonna keep it distracted. It's going to keep its focus on me as long as you don't do anything stupid, and as long as you remember rule 1. Don't panic, don't scream. You're a huntress. Learn how it fights, adapt to the pattern, get hits in. Don't over-commit to an attack, play it safe. Don't half-ass an attack either. Hesitation will kill you. Solid resolve, solid hits." He instructed, before turning back around to the front and continuing to stalk ahead. He broke off from the game-path, following the trail of scratches and displaced foliage and debris instead.[break][break]

He paused again after a minute, turning to look at Aegle. He brought his free left hand up, fingers closed with only a thumb raised, and drew it sharply over his lips, phantom-miming a signal for vocal silence now. He then used the same thumb to gesture ahead of them, before using that hand to pull up the red scarf around his neck, using it to cover the lower part of his face like a mask, leaving only his eyes visible underneath his windswept white hair.[break][break]

Turning back around, they stalked for another half minute before sounds were audible from in front of them. The Ursa Major was now in sight of them, several paces ahead in dense forestry, slowly lumbering through the trees, occasionally pausing to scratch trees with its vicious looking claws. Perhaps marking territory, perhaps sharpening its claws. No one knew, and that was unnecessary information. They were in a dense part of the forest, which would be useful for them as the larger Grimm would have more difficulty navigating through the obstacles that both trainees could simply move between. Nikolas paused, his entire body seeming to relax for a moment, everything about him seeming to go so still it was impossible to tell if he was breathing or not. Like the silence that preceded a storm.[break][break]

And then he bolted forward, lunging into motion like a pouncing predator, his silence being replaced with the sounds of foliage and twigs breaking under his feet. He allowed his hatred and his anger for this unholy creature pour forth as he charged, a snarl escaping him as the Ursa Major turned around to face the rapidly incoming trainee, already bringing a great arm up to slash at the threat. Nikolas didn't go straight for the Ursa Major, however. Instead, he spun his spear, shooting off a round to his left and using the recoil to suddenly shift his motion to the right, sliding into a spinning slash as he passed the Ursa on his right, the beast's left, slashing the side of its thigh as he passed it. A good hit, black smoke wafting out of the wound as the Ursa roared, missing the great swipe it had began due to Nikolas' sudden shift in momentum and direction, turning around to follow Nikolas, who also turned around to face the creature a good few paces away, cocking the bolt on Stahlblesk in an almost taunting fashion as he stared down the Ursa. With the amount of negativity pouring off of Nikolas, all his hatred and anger, the large Grimm didn't even notice the still-hidden Aegle who was now behind it. [break][break]

Nikolas then engaged in combat with the large Grimm, using his superior agility and martial arts skill in combination to keep himself safe from the deadly but slow swipes of the Major's claws, using the ends of Stahblesk to deflect or redirect the swipes away from himself while keeping himself at range. His weapon allowed him to keep the beast out of reach, although given the creature's great size, it wasn't much of a range advantage. A lot of the beast's blows smacked into trees, slashing bark and wood off as Nikolas weaved and dodged, maintaining a steady pace backwards and away from the Grimm while simultaneously spinning and twirling his spear around himself to defend and attack, almost like a dance. He was on a mostly defensive approach to keep the beast's focus on himself, occasionally striking back with lightning fast, but weak thrusts and slashes that left glancing blows on the Grimm. Nothing substantial, yet it did serve the purpose to enrage the Ursa more. The stage was set for Aegle to come in and get a good hit-and-run off. Hopefully she wouldn't completely puss out and leave Nikolas to fend for himself. While he was confident in being able to take this beast down, he'd definitely risk a bad hit in the process, and he wouldn't be anywhere near completely his midterms then.[break][break]

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[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle still thought it was a horrifically bad idea, no matter what Nikolas said. She remembered the ursai outside of the city walls too clearly to take them lightly as a threat, and she had neither the weapon nor the semblance for taking on something that was ninety percent armor. Not that saying so would have availed her much, she could tell just from looking at the pale trainee that nothing she said or did would dissuade him. That strange intensity she'd seen before had come to resemble a hunger in him, a need he could not live but for satisfying. It was growing increasingly clear to her how Nikolas could have ranked so low, if he was so dead set on fighting the Grimm that he would start hunting down an Ursa Major, with no more than his spear and a crippled girl for back up. She still didn't see how he could have ranked worse than she had, but it was growing more and more believable with every instant that passed. Competent though he may be, if this hunger in Nikolas was so strong that he'd do something as reckless as fight an Ursa Major on his own, he was a danger to be around. Perhaps even as much of a danger as she was.

Hesitating, Aegle allowed the white haired trainee to get some distance on her. It might have been better to leave him outright. Aegle had no interest in fighting an ursa major with just the two of them. She might have done it too, except for the gloomy certainty that Nikolas would try to fight the monster ever without her help. Perhaps he thought he could beat it, but Aegle had some serious doubts on that score; She knew exactly how weak and ineffectual she was, and the whole Haven faculty had deemed him worse. If she would be slaughtered outright by an ursa major, she had to imagine the same was true of Nikolas, whatever he thought of his own capabilities. She should leave him to get himself killed, if he was so eager for it, and not throw her own livelihood away trying to keep him safe.

Aegle watched, as Nikolas grew indistinct through the leaves and the branches, and the abundance of green which wreathed him, as a specter among the trees. He'd be a real ghost soon enough, she thought. A man so blind to reason, in a profession that killed lives, one reckoned the weakest huntsman in his class? He'd be dead soon, and she was under no obligation to stop him. Was Nikolas Burzanov really worth what little time she had left, when he was already on a collision course with an early death?
'Why do I do this? Why am I here? What's the point of it all?'
Aegle drew a deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth.
'This is such a terrible idea.' she thought, but she didn't bother saying so. She just lowered her head and tried to keep up.

They found the ursa without much trouble, needing only to follow the slashed trunks and tipped over trees; A hurricane would have been tougher to track. Nikolas had made some weird hand gestures at her some time before, which Aegle took to mean they were getting close, not that she understood much more than that. She might as well not have been there for all the attention he paid her afterward though. When they had gotten near enough to actually hear the monster, Aegle didn't think anything less than a nevermore perching on his shoulder could have gotten Nikolas' attention.
'It's like he enjoys this.' She thought, and what a baffling thought that was. How could anyone enjoy what they did? She certainly wasn't training to be a huntress because she enjoyed it. Then again, one might argue that her actual reasons were quite a bit stranger. She thought back to her fight with Carmin, and that brief moment of enjoyment she'd felt, right before her last punch. A flicker of joy, buried in a distasteful task. Could it be that Nikolas had unearthed more than a flicker? Perhaps he had his lack of fear to thank for his enjoyment. It must have been much easier to enjoy something that didn't abjectly terrify you. Not for the first time, Aegle wondered why Nikolas was the way he was, what reason lay behind, what was becoming apparent as, this obsession of his?

The stopped not a half-dozen strides from the ursa major, a great big beast of a grimm which seemed much too big to be one thing. She thought Nik might try to hash out some sort of strategy, or that he would at least throw some more of those arcane hand gestures her way. She thought he would, at the very least, give some warning before he charged the monster. He did none of those things, least of all give her any warning before he sprang into action. Watching him take off, it was all Aegle could do to keep herself from calling out after him. She watched, horror stricken, as he exchanged blows with the monster, drawing it around and commanding its attention. He got only the one good hit in, a slash along the ursine monster's leg, before it hunkered down on all fours like a tank made from bone and pitch, rendering all Nikolas' subsequent efforts basically ineffectual. Aegle could have guessed that would happen. If she'd learned on thing from the fight at the walls, it was that ursai were basically indestructible on the backs and heads, and the only way to get a good hit on them was to hit their underbelly. Nik, plinking away at the monster's hard outer shell, was proving that point admirably.

She watched for several moments, heart pounding in her ears, not at all sure what she was supposed to do to help. She had needed every ounce of strength just to kill a creep, how was she supposed to hurt an ursa major?
'Does he expect me to just run up and punch it?' Aegle despaired. It was not too late to run. The ursa had not seen her yet and, besides, Nik had it quite thoroughly distracted. She could get away and, even if it did see her, it would be too busy dealing with the white haired trainee to give her very much trouble.
'This was such a terrible idea. What, did I think I could actually help?'
She watched as another of Nikolas' thrust was turned aside on the Ursa Major's thick armor plating, and her shoulders hunched in frustration. If his bladed weapon couldn't penetrate that hide, what was a punch from her going to do?
'He needs to hit in the belly.' She thought. Worse still, the ursa seemed keenly aware of that fact and, after Nikolas' first swipe, seemed most disinclined to give him a clear shot at its underside. If only there was a way to make it rear up on its hind legs. Then her eyes went wide. So far, this had all been a pretty bad idea, but she'd just come up with an idea that was much, much worse. Suddenly grinning, and with some effort, she started pulling off her hoodie.

As the ursa loped towards Nik, keeping low to the ground and swiping ineffectually at his flashing spear, Aegle burst from the undergrowth, straight at the monster's back. So focused was the ursa on finally squashing the annoying, white haired insect before it, it never even noticed the smaller, whirring insect that ran up behind. Not until she literally ran up its back. The ursa jerked suddenly, seeming as surprised as it was possible for such a beast to seem, and Aegle half staggered to keep her footing, only to fall flat across it's broad slab of a back. The ursa roared shook its great shoulders, like a dog fresh from the lake, only this dog was covered in bony spurs as thick as tree roots and sharp as daggers. Aegle, letting out a squeal, threw her hoodie over the monsters head, its billowing sleeves tied to the cuffs about her wrists.

The ursa was having none of it. It completely forgot about Nikolas and began thrashing about, thudding ponderously about on all fours and roaring all the while.
"Nik!" Aegle squawked, "Make it angry!"
It was all she had time to say before the ursa bucked forward, slamming her down on the back of its bony skull hard enough to make stars pop before her eyes. It bellowed and howled, shook and clawed the earth, furiously trying to dislodge whatever had had such temerity as to climb up onto its back. It was doing a good job of making Aegle regret it too. Scrapes and cuts already covered her arms, now bare save for the steel arms of her brace, and she was pretty sure her nose was bleeding too. The only bright spot in this terrible plan was that the ursa, for all its fury, seemed unable to dislodge her...

---

words - 1,529
total - 5,800

[Nikolas Burzanov]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","oneword1"]

[attr="class","fromyou1"]



Aegle Verdant

925 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

[attr="class","itsover"]


Nikolas was not strong enough to take the beast on head on. The Ursa Major was massive with the mass, power and weight behind each of its movements. It was staying low on all fours, going for swipes at Nikolas who was staying out of reach. The Ursa Major wasn't completely as stupid as most other Grimms, having some basic intelligence. It knew it was slower than Nikolas and could not catch him easily. It wasn't committing to any reckless attacks that would give Nikolas an opening, protecting its weak underbelly while taking experimental swipes at Nikolas, letting the white haired trainee slowly tire himself out. The Grimm could go on forever with its slow, heavy approach. Nikolas, however, with his fast paced, high mobility fighting style, would tire quickly. [break][break]

Nikolas clashed the blade of Stahlblesk against another claw swipe, deflecting it away as he did a spinning backstep, narrowing his eyes and uttering a small 'tch' sound. Where was Aegle? She was supposed to come in and help him take this beast down. He was doing this for her sake as much as he was doing it for his own sake after all. Sure, she didn't have a weapon, but her fists were just as good from what he had seen of the creep. And she wouldn't even have to technically kill it. She'd just have to be a part of the killing.[break][break]

And then, it happened out of the blue. He heard the undergrowth thrashing, then the whirring and then saw Aegle leap scamper onto the back of the Ursa Major like she was a hunter mounting a monster in some kind of video game. For the first time in a long time, Nikolas was rendered speechless and shocked, so much so that he actually froze up in absolute befuddlement, eyes staring with wide incredulity at the scene before him. He barely reacted in time to bring his spear up as the Ursa thrashed around blindly, the back of one of its massive arms slamming into the shaft of his spear. Stahlblesk was strong enough to take such a blow without damage, but Nikolas was still blown back from the force of it, the impact going through his weapon and into his bones, his aura absorbing it. That broke him out of his shock as he spun his spear, digging the blade into the ground to cease his backwards-momentum, before shotting off a round behind him to give himself a burst of acceleration forward as he rushed back to the beast again, who was turning and thrashing about in an attempt to rid itself of the gnat that was stuck on its back.[break][break]

Nikolas let out an angry roar of his own, bringing his spear around in a twirl and using the momentum of an upwards spin to lunge himself up into the air, before coming down with a vicious stab, on the other side of Aegle on the Ursa's back.. The Ursa's hide was armored and thick, but Stahlblesk was a weapon designed to pierce through exactly that, and given the recent upgrades to Stahlblesk, and the momentum behind Nikolas' dropping stab, the Spear went deep into the back, penetrating through its hide and sticking as the Ursa roared in anger or pain. Nikolas wasn't sure if the roar was a reaction to his attack, because the Ursa had been in a state of constantly making such noises while Aegle was riding it. Now Nikolas was on its back too, feet planted on the Ursa's bone plates as he held onto his spear with both hands for dear life, to not get thrown or bucked off. "HOLD ON!" He called out to Aegle who was on the otherside of the Major's back.[break][break]

He cocked the bolt on Stahlblesk back, clicking the ejector as the empty magazine shot off, Nikolas almost hugging Stahlblesk's pole so he could use one hand to get a fresh, full magazine from his belt, teeth gritted and bared with effort. He clapped the magazine into Stahlblesk's, cocked the bolt forward to chamber a round, and pulled the trigger.[break][break]

There was a blast, a loud crack like thunder as Stahlblesk shot off a round point blank into the Ursa Major. This time the beast definitely did roar with pain as Nikolas cocked the bolt back once more, the cartridge exitting. He was just pushing the bolt back forward to fire another round, but then the Ursa suddenly twisted around, a branch of a nearby tree suddenly coming into view. Nikolas only had the barest second to widen his eyes before the branch smacked him in the face, knocking him off the Ursa, Stahlblesk still left stuck into the beast's back, along with Aegle. The disadvantage of being so tall, it seemed, as the branch had completely missed the top of Aegle's head by a few inches.[break][break]

Nikolas got back up into a crouch, dazed slightly, trying to find an opening to mount the Ursa Major again. It was thrashing and spinning about in a blind rage, so it was going to be very difficult for him to mount it and get his weapon back in this state. So instead, Nikolas shouted out, "Pull the trigger on Stahlblesk, Aegle! Shoot it, pull the bolt back, push it back forward and shoot the fucker again!"
There was 4 more rounds left in that fresh magazine, 4 rounds that would fire straight into the body of the Grimm. If Aegle could just fire Stahlblesk once or twice more, the Ursa would die.[break][break]

ulla

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[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle had time to reflect that maybe she should have been a bit more specific, while she was trying desperately not to get shaken off by the rampaging monster that she'd decided to mount. Not that she could have given Nik any more of a hint what she had in mind, not while the Ursa was doing everything within its power to get her off of its back. She'd never imagined she could make anything so angry as she'd made the Grimm, but then she was always surprising herself in the worst ways imaginable. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as quite so great a surprise that she had a talent for upsetting things capable of killing her as soon as look at her.

She never saw where Nik came from. One moment, he had been dancing in front of the Ursa, his white hair flowing as he evaded its clumsy attacks, the next he had been stood almost right beside her, upon the Ursa's back. Stood, where she was sprawled out, anchored by his huge spear driven into the big monsters bony back. Aegle's eyes went wide; That blade was frighteningly sharp. Braced with his arms around his weapon's haft, Nik proved that she hadn't made the ursa near as angry as she'd thought she had, and that it certainly had not been at the extend of its monstrous fury. The massive back undulated beneath the two of them as the ursa thumped the ground beneath its massive paws, bucking this way and that in in its vain efforts to throw off the two huntsman riding upon it. It bellowed and roared, shook and thrashed. It got down on one shoulder and tried, in vain, to reach back with one huge paw to scrape the pair of them off. When that failed, it sprang up again, howling, and charged about in a short circle, seemingly blind with fury. Whatever intelligence the beast had shown before when straight out the window when Nik sank his weapon into its back, to be replaced by the sort of ferocity one would expect from a rabid dog confronted with flowing water.

Nik cycled his intricate weapon, and fired something into the Ursa's back, and that only made things worse. The bellowing, thundering, deafening roar rose to an ear splitting pitch, and the monstrous grimm lurched back onto its hind legs for a moment, in a vain effort to buck Nik off. Then, in a frenzy of pain and rage, the ursa charged into and through a tangle of branches and bowers. Aegle, practically prone upon its back, was not even touched by thick limbs as they passed. Nik, standing upright upon its back, was not so lucky. One branch, as thick as his leg, smashed the white haired trainee in the face as the ursa thundered beneath it, and Aegle was once again alone on the ursa's back. It did not stop there however. A massive tree loomed up before them, its trunk close to nine arm-spans across, and the grimm made right for it. With a bellowing snarl, it threw its great shoulder against the looming tower of timber, and Aegle was jerked forward and to the side. Her arms wrapped around the ursa's huge neck, and her face slid down before one red eye, livid with hatred. The ursa threw it's head back, and Aegle was thrown down it's bony back again, arms pulled taut once more by the orange fabric tight to her wrist cuffs, as her hoodie was once again pulled tight around the ursa's neck. Had it not been for her brace, Aegle had no doubt the motion would have torn her shoulders right out of their sockets, the Ursa was that strong. Instead, she was smashed face first down upon the boniest part of its back, the wind thoroughly knocked out of it.

She was too weak to get her footing, and Nik had made the ursa so angry with his spear and his dust that there was no hope of it settling back down for her. She had asked him to do it, of course, but that hardly served as much consolation for her, given the frankly terrible position it had left her in. It was only a matter of time before the beast's thrashing pummeled her to a pulp, assuming her hoodie didn't tear first.
This had been a truly terrible idea.
"Pull the trigger on Stahlblesk, Aegle!" Nik shouted from the ground, his voice seeming to come from several directions at once. Lifting her head, Aegle found that was because the ursa was spinning in circles in its struggling, turning the air about it into a blur of bony spines that shredded any wood unlucky enough to get close. It would not be letting Nik mount it a second time.
"Shoot it, pull the bolt back, push it back forward and shoot the fucker again!"
Aegle's eyes slid to Nik's weapon. It was still there, standing obscenely upright in the ursa's back. Grunting, Aegle got a knee up under her, only to be smashed back flat when the ursa pounded the ground again. She grit her teeth, head full with flashing lights, the taste of blood on her tongue, and tried again. This time, she was able to get a hand around the haft. Then the ursa, throwing its head forward in mindless pique, pulled Aegle back down in a sprawl. It was too strong, and she could not untie her wrists to free up her hands.

"I can't!" She shouted, voice hitched with panic, "It's too strong!" She fumbled for the weapon again, this time barely reached the trigger. Fired. Then everything went terribly wrong.

The ursa, wild with pain, threw itself back with an earth shaking, stone shattering, sky tearing, terrible and thunderous roar. It flung its huge arms out wide, balanced upon its hindlegs, and boomed its rage to the heavens. Even from behind it, Aegle's ears rung and her eyes seemed to vibrate in their sockets. Then the ursa threw itself backwards, and that huge tree came slamming down atop her. The horrible, suffocating, crushing weight of the gigantic monster pressed her from one side, as unyielding wood squashed her from the other. The ursa moved its great bulk back and forth, grinding her into the great tree's trunk with such vehement force that whole branches fell from its bowers overhead. It was awful. It was painful. Perhaps the single most painful thing Aegle had ever experienced, except maybe being used as a chew toy by the first Ursa she'd fought. She couldn't even cry out; All the air had been crushed out of her long before she could have made a sound.

In the end, it was Stahlblesk which saved her. Dislodged by the ursa's grinding press, the spear fell from the great beast's back to land, point down, in the turf some three strides away. With that pain in its back dislodged, the ursa tumped heavily back down to all fours, well satisfied, before it was able to crush all the life out of the small, crippled girl upon its back.
Aegle sucked in a sobbing breath, but she was just about out of strength to fight with. She couldn't have had more than a half of her aura remaining after all that, and that was only because she'd let most of it actually hurt her, having protected only what was most vital throughout the grueling experience.

The ursa, free of one tormentor, turned its baleful red eyes upon Nik, then stepped between him and his weapon. Cruel intelligence flashed in its huge red eyes, as slaver poured from its gaping jaws, black and oily. It snarled at the unarmed huntsman, who no longer had his spear to keep its huge swiping paws at bay, nor to threaten its soft underbelly. Aegle, head cleared by the few shuddering breaths she'd been afforded, felt the Ursa take it's first ponderous step towards Nikolas, felt its muscles tense beneath her prostrate form, felt it bristling, readying to charge.

She wasn't sure what made her do it. It was a terrible idea, and she knew right away that it was likely to kill her. A terribly desperate, stupid idea. She did it anyway. Bracing upon the ursa major's back, Aegle wound back as far as the cloth tied around her wrist would permit, then brought her fist down with all of her strength. Right into the gash that Stahlbesk had left. The effect was immediate. The ursa, booming its surprise, threw its head back as Aegle's fist sank in up to the wrist, fingers crushed by writhing muscle and shifting bone. She cried out, twisting, pushing, sinking her fist deeper into the big beast's flesh. The ursa lurched back, howling in pain, then flung itself back onto its hind legs. What had worked once for the spear, it had doubtless reasoned, would work again for the huntress' fist.
"Nik," Aegle squealed, as the tree came looming up again, "The spear!"
Then the air was driven out of her again, as the irresistible force that was the ursa smashed her flat against the immovable object that was its scratching tree.

---

words - 1,537
total - 7,337

[Nikolas Burzanov]

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Aegle Verdant

1004 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

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Nikolas watched, his feet spread wide as the Ursa raged blindly, Aegle barely managing to hold on. She attempted to get to his spear, but was thrown flat onto its back again. And then the ursa reared and slammed its back onto a tree, with Aegle inbetween. [break][break]

Shit. Fuck. This was not going great. Nikolas's mind was going a thousand miles per hour to figure out what to do to save Aegle out of this. His first instinct was to rush into the Ursa with nothing but his bare fists, to use himself as a distraction so Aegle would have a chance to get away. He had dragged them into this after all, and if she died, it was on him. He would not let another person die on his account. Not again. Never again.[break][break]

Before Nikolas completely lost his mind and decided on the final gambit, however, he saw a flashing, his eyes drawn to it, only to see Stahlblesk landing onto the ground on the other side of the Ursa, dislodged from its vicious back-rubbing. And now... The Grimm calmed down, focusing solely on him.[break][break]

Not ideal.[break][break]

He maintained a wide stance, ready to dodge if need be, as both he and the Ursa stared each other down. This was a contest, a stare down. Ursas sometimes acted similar to their natural animal counterparts, staring its opponents down until one of them lost... And since Grimm didn't need to blink, it was only a matter of time until Nikolas would be forced to blink. He had no weapon, and the Ursa understood that, but he had definitely given it a lot of trouble, and the Grimm's primitive mind definitely still erred on the side of caution, since it wasn't outright charging Nikolas yet.[break][break]

However, that soon was starting to change, as the Ursa took a single step forward, slowly losing its wariness of the unarmed hunter, while Nikolas' eyes stung from not blinking, maintaining eye contact as best as he could. He only needed one opening, to get past the Ursa and get his spear. The Ursa Major was definitely very banged up, from all the damage he had wreaked on its insides with Stahlblesk's firing and the stabbing. He was about to blink, when he saw Aegle's rise up, before stabbing her hand down.[break][break]

Nikolas, once more, was flabbergasted by the amount of balls on this kid. The reaction was instantaneous as the Ursa once more roared and began to buck and thrash about, rearing up to smash Aegle against the tree once more. Nikolas's instincts controlled his movements more than his conscious thoughts as he lunged forward, diving past the distracted Ursa Major and grabbing onto Stahlblesk. He spun around and, with a loud cry of effort, brought Stahlblesk's blade around in a vicious diagonal slash, right at the exposed Ursa Major's belly. It cut deep and straight, leaving a giant gash across the entirety of the Major's underside, causing the beast to roar in pain once more.[break][break]

But Nikolas was not done yet as he spun the spear around using the momentum from his previous slash to twirl himself around for a finishing blow, just as the Ursa, with its last vestiges of strength, swatted at Nikolas with one of it's massive paws. Nikolas finished his spin, planting his feet and letting out a vicious snarl as he stabbed upwards with Stahlblesk. Stahlblesk's blade went through the neck of the Ursa Major, cutting clean through just as the Ursa's weakened swipe slammed into Nikolas' left shoulder. There was a sound like thunder crackling as Nikolas' aura shattered, like fragments of glass turning into sizzling sparkles of electricity fading off of him, even as Nikolas held his ground using his planted feet and Stahlblesk as a stabilizer, his right hand pressing down on the trigger.[break][break]

Stahlblesk's barrel fired from inside the Grimm's throat, blasting a hole clean through the back of its neck, smoke and dark matter splattering outwards as the Ursa let out a weak, raspy noise before beginning to dissipate. Moments later, the Ursa had vanished completely, turned to black ash on the wind, freeing Aegle from the press between it and the tree.[break][break]

Nikolas planted Stahlblesk into the ground, his teeth clenched into a silent snarl of pain as he inspected his left arm, which hung limp at his side. The Ursa Major's swipe hadn't possessed its full strength behind the blow, and Nikolas had had enough aura to absorb most of the impact, but it had still shattered through his aura hard enough to dislocate his shoulder, and maybe leave a fracture on his humerus. Since his arm wasn't hanging at a strange angle down the its length, he guessed it was just a minor fracture and the bone itself was still holding, rather than a full on break or shatter. The dislocation, however, he could fix.[break][break]

He trudged over to Aegle, looking down at her before offering her his right hand. "You got balls, kid." He said approvingly, his lips turned up into the ghost of a smile despite being strained with pain. Aegle had definitely outshone his expectations. She had no weapons, no semblance he could see, and almost no experience, yet she had guts. More guts than most people in the academy, and that was something that definitely earned Nikolas' respect. "Good work. That was definitely impressive." He would say once he helped Aegle back up to her feet, or if she declined his hand.[break][break]

"Now we just need to do that three more times." He said, somewhat sarcastically as he fished out a cigarette one-handed and put it to his lips, before managing to flip open his light and light his cigarette with the same hand. Given how his voice was usually so monotone, it was hard to tell if he was serious or sarcastic, if not for the dry smirk of humor now visible on his face as he let out a exhale that was equal parts a sigh and smoke.[break][break]

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[Aegle Verdant]

Her world was once again squashed down to little more than the tree and the great big grimm's great big back. Bony spines gouged the wood around her arms and legs as easily as hot knives through soft cheese, raining splinters and shredded bark down upon her bare head, neck and shoulders. That, of course, was not nearly so bad as the relentless, suffocating press of the Ursa's back against her, which pinned her against the scarred wood and ground her mercilessly back and forth. Aegle would have screamed, if she'd still had the air in her lungs to do so, but that had all been squeezed out of her in the first crushing instant, and a good thing too, for her lungs would surely have burst in her chest otherwise.

Her compressed surroundings groaned around her, the tortured tree and the growling grimm laid over the desperate staccato pounding in her ears. She had sufficient time, in that crushing extremity, to thoroughly regret her boldness, her bravery, to wish she hadn't done what she'd done, that she hadn't tried to save Nik from the ursa's ire. She had time enough to wish it would end, and time enough to fear it would not. All the while, she fought her own instincts, her own desperate want to raise her defenses, to shield herself against the relentless press, lest her aura should shatter entirely like a crystal glass under foot.

Then, abruptly, it all stopped. With a lurch of motion, the ursa stopped its grinding, writhing, crushing and sagged heavily forward. Not so far for Aegle to think it had given up in its efforts to squash the life out of her, but far enough for her to fear it would suddenly swing back and add bludgeoning to the litany of things she had suffered in the last few minutes. It did not though. In fact, for a drawn out moment, the ursa didn't move at all. Belatedly, Aegle realized it had fallen silent. Then, just as suddenly as it had stopped, the great beast sagged even further beneath her. It crumbled, in fact, falling to dust all around her.

Aegle, surprised and having forgotten how to stand, fell through a cloud of black dust to collapse across the tangle of roots that shrouded the ground along the great tree's base. She didn't sprawl out, not entirely, but caught herself upon hands and knees, gasping in ragged breaths through a throat gone raw and dry. She was shaking uncontrollably, not just exhausted or pained but patently terrified. There had not been any epiphany, any flashing of seminal moments in her life before her eyes, only the desperate certainty that the ursa would never stop, and that she would give out first. She wanted to throw up, but her whole body was so tensed up with terror and pain that she doubted she could even have opened her mouth.

Heavy footsteps approaching, the toes of Nik's boots entered her shrunken field of vision, thus heralding the realization and understanding for what must have happened. He had killed the ursa. Of course he had. Hadn't that been what she'd wanted him to do?
"You got balls, kid." The white haired trainee said, and the sound of his voice served to kick her bleary mind into staggering motion. Suddenly, the impressions she had over the last terrifying minute became coherent thoughts. She had just done something only barely this side of suicidal.
"Good work. That was definitely impressive."
Her eyes closed, her head bowed, and she made a conscious effort to swallow the oily nauseousness that swamped her as thickly as the sweat on her bald head and bare shoulders. Reluctantly, because everything hurt so much too move, Aegle sat back on her heels and, head still bowed, tried to bring her trembling under control as well. Eventually, she found the will to begin fumbling at the knots that tied her put upon hoodie to the cuffs of her brace.
"Now we just need to do that three more times."
"Can't wait." Aegle grunted, meaning it to sound confident, and instead sounding extremely worn out and tired. With more effort than it should have taken, she covered her twisted, metal clad body up once again, taking refuge in the stretched fibers of her well worn orange hoodie.

At last, Aegle raised her head and looked up at the white haired trainee. Something looked off about him, but she did not see what, at least not immediately. Then, all at once, she noticed the weird, unnatural joint between shoulder and collarbone. Aegle sprang up at once, eyes gone wide, so suddenly in fact that it made her head spin.
"Y'arm!" She blurted. Her concern must have seemed especially incongruous, given how her whole head was red wet with blood, flowing from a myriad of scrapes and cuts across her face and bare scalp.

Taking a step closer, Aegle inspected the limp limb. It didn't seem broken, but it was definitely dislocated, and horribly so. It wasn't just the dislocation which disconcerted her though, but what it implied. Even she, with her reckless misuse of aura, safeguarded against such debilitating injuries, as would any huntress with a lick of sense. That Nikolas' arm was dislocated, therefore, could only mean his aura was exhausted.
"I... Is there somethin' I can do?"

---

words - 894
total - 8,231

[Nikolas Burzanov]

[nospaces]

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Aegle Verdant

531 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

[attr="class","itsover"]


Nikolas would definitely let out a soft laugh at Aegle's sudden exclamation about his arm. "Ah, yes, thank you for pointing that out Aegle. I would never have noticed it without you." He said sarcastically, using his teeth to hold onto the cigarette, although his face still had a mostly amused expression on it, past the now-steady expression of pain. "If you know anything about setting an arm, that would be helpful." He added, blowing out another cloud of smoke off to the side, half of the cigarette that had turned to ash finally losing to gravity and falling away on its own. [break][break]

But apparently, it seemed life wanted to shit on Nikolas' day again as a steady rustling sound became evident in the distance, slowly getting louder. It wasn't grass or foliage rustling, however. It was somehow more... Earthy.[break][break]

"Up and at it, Sobachka, we got some party crashers!" Nikolas called out loudly, spitting out his cigarette, grabbing Stahlblesk with one hand and turning around to face the oncoming threat. His fighting style would have to adjust a bit with only one hand usable, but he was still a very capable combatant. Holding Stahlblesk with one hand above him, resting it on his shoulders with his left arm hanging limp, Nikolas prepared himself in a low stance as the rustling grew closer, somehow below them.[break][break]

Unlike the other time where they blindly came at them one by one, this time, Four Creeps burst forth from the ground simultaneously, all of them blindly lunging at Aegle and Nikolas' general location. Nikolas spun, sweeping his blade outwardswhile sliding backwards, one foot planted to aid in the motion, firing off with Stahlblesk blankly once more so the recoil would add more force and momentum to his sweep. Stahlblesk came around, catching the right-most creep with the flat of its blade, as the sweep carried onwards, making the creep crash into its buddy to the right. This continued as the blade swept across all four creeps, knocking them aside from their charge and making them tumble and crash to Nikolas and Aegle's left. The first creep who had gotten struck with the full force of the blow was already disintegrating.[break][break]

"Watch my back!" He called out as he clumsily cocked Stahlblesk's bolt with one hand, chambering another round, while the creeps untangled themselves from their fallen positions. He charged forwards, attempting to take on all three remaining creeps at the same time. Normally he could've killed them all with ease, but with his aura depleted, one arm unusable and his stamina still quite low, Nikolas was struggling somewhat. Still safe enough to not be in any danger, as he was holding off the creeps, but it was requiring his full concentration and focus.[break][break]

More rustling behind them. Another creep was coming in, from Aegle's side and Nikolas' blindside. In another moment or two, it would burst out of the ground and leap at Nikolas, drawn to him by his aggression, leaving it open for Aegle to intercept it. Nikolas was counting on her to do so, and sincerely hoped she wouldn't let a creep jump his back. That would be very unpleasant for him. [break][break]

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[Aegle Verdant]

Nik laughed at her concern, as though genuinely amused by her question. Sarcastic as his rejoinder might have been, there was a certain softness to it which she might not have suspected from a man with one arm hanging limp at his side. In fact, the white huntsman's whole bearing towards her had undergone a fairly fundamental shift. His face, with its soft lines of mirth, had lost its harsh edges, just as his eyes no longer looked at her with sullen and begrudging tolerance.
"Ah, yes," Speaking with quiet irony, Nik paid a meaningful glance to the useless appendage, "Thank you for pointing that out Aegle. I would never have noticed it without you."
Sarcastic as his words were, they were neither openly hostile nor irritated, as surely a dislocated shoulder would have entailed. Breathing out a lungful of smoke, Nikolas eyed her with as much impassivity as she could ever have expected from the severe trainee.
"If you know anything about setting an arm, that would be helpful."
Aegle blinked at the mildness of his response, but was forced to shake her head. What little she knew of triage had come from observing Doc, as the older woman patched up the very same injuries she'd inflicted. Those injuries usually consisted of cuts and scrapes and, on one memorable occasion, a cracked rib, but never anything like the injury currently afflicting Nik. Indeed, despite the general weakness of her body, Aegle had steel bands and electric motors to reinforce her joints.

Even this shortcoming was born by Nik with a sort of mild indifference, nowhere near the caustic disappointment Aegle had come to expect from others when they learned of one of her many deficiencies. Almost as though her not knowing how to set a shoulder weren't some failing on her part.

Nikolas was the first to notice. Either hearing or perhaps feeling the ground as it shifted beneath their feet, the white haired trainee plucked his half blown cigarette from his mouth and flicked it to the damp earth.
"Up and at it, Sobachka," He said, "we got some party crashers!"
Like a switch being thrown, the intensity she'd noted before had returned. It thrummed through Nikolas as the vibrations beneath their feet, seeming to resonate as he scooped up his weapon and readied himself to fight. No hesitation, not even a moment's consideration for how he was scarcely in any condition to engage in another pitched battle.
'But then, what choice does he have?' Aegle wondered, then, 'What choices do either of us have?'
The two of them could have retreated, could have run, but where to? There was forest for kilometers in every direction, and the grimm were everywhere; They could be evaded but for how long? Suddenly, with frightful clarity, Aegle understood that retreat, for Nik, was no longer an option. Not that Nikolas gave any sign he'd even considered it to begin with. Injured and shattered though he was, his response had been immediate. His answer was, and would always be, to stand and fight. He was the hunter, not the hunted.

Then the ground exploded; Blurred shapes burst free of a cloud of soil, preceded by a hail of earth, black bodies and white armor glossy in the dappling sunlight. Stahlbesk caught all four in midflight and flung them back as easily as swatting flies, Nik's one good arm flashing white in the spear's wake.
"Watch my back!"
Aegle's flesh prickled, hackles rising and hairs standing up, and she finally understood. Not consciously, but on some visceral, animal level, she could feel how their relationship had changed. As clear as she could feel the linen on her fingers or the brace on her back, she felt the fundamental, inexplicable product of the last few frightening minutes, and how it was changed, through some incongruous alchemy, from what had come before.
'Watch my back', three simple words, but saying so much. Implying so much. How had this white haired man come to rely on someone like her?
'Because he has no choice?' Aegle thought, but knew at once that was not the whole reason but one woefully incomplete. While true, while Nik didn't have any choice but to rely on her, he also seemed to think he could. He seemed to think she could be relied upon.

The ground exploded again, blurred black and flashing white behind a spray of up-flung dirt. Aegle didn't even think. She didn't need to think. Her body knew what to do and, cut up and bruised though it was, it performed with admirable immediacy. Without hesitation, just as Nik had been without hesitation, her fist found the pouncing creep's upraised head, and slammed it down to the dirt with a resounding thud.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward and laid about the surprised grimm with three more punches to its bony head, the last of which put a sudden end to its stunned screeching. Just like that, Aegle had killed it.
A smile was on her face, as another creep sprang free of the shrubs to their left, coming at Nik from where the sweep of his spear had sent it flying. Aegle faded in, caught the monster a jarring blow across the side of its head and, before its altered trajectory could carry it out of her reach, landed a haymaker across the opposite side of its bony mask. A fissure ran through the chalky plate, and the monster landed in a heap some three strides distant, not dead, but massively disorientated.
'Watch my back' Aegle heard in her head, and her smile twitched wider still, then 'I am the huntress.'

---

words - 958
total - 9,189

[Nikolas Burzanov]

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Aegle Verdant

1145 words | TWC 7271 words

all these scars and yet i am fearless

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As Nikolas batted away Creeps trying to have his face for breakfast, he heard the ground erupting behind him. He slammed another creep with the flat of his blade, sending it flying away as he turned his head to the side to try to react to the attack from behind, but he wouldn't have to, it seemed. He only got a glimpse of the creep getting intercepted by a vicious punch midflight, as Aegle laid into it like an MMA fighter battering a drunken bloke after one too many shots. The creep never even stood a chance. Nikolas couldn't help but grin in a feral, approving way as he spun around, catching a Creep across its face with a sweep of Stahlblesk's blade edge, the red ribbon on the other end flashing around in a crimson streak, his left arm flopping around from the momentum uselessly. [break][break]

The slash cut the Creep completely in half down its lateral length, dissipating it into black smoky debris that fell over Nikolas like a shower of gore, as Nikolas dodged another Creeps attempt to lash at him with it's tail by jumping up, before smacking it upside the head with the rear end of Stahlblesk, cracking it's lower jaw clean off before it too disintegrated. Three of the four creeps were dead, with the fourth one now getting caught by Aegle with a vicious haymaker, the fifth that had jumped his back already gone to the wind. The fourth creep landed in a heap, rolling over and twitching, cracks running down it's bony mask. Nikolas walked over to its prone, struggling form, the feral excitement still present on his face, lit up in his eyes, a kind of vindictive pleasure painting him in a new light. He took his time walking over, cocking Stahlblesk, before sticking Stahlblesk to the back of it's neck, slowly shoving the tip of his blade in with deliberate intent, sinking it in a few inches deep before pulling the trigger. The shot blasted the entire Creep in half at the neck, the recoil bucking Stahlblesk back out and up, Nikolas spinning it around in a slow circle before planting its butt down onto the ground, turning his face around to look for any more incoming threats.[break][break]

No more Grimm burst out of the ground. No sound reached them that indicated anything approaching. They were safe, for the moment.[break][break]

Nikolas let out a low, long exhale, a low shudder seeming to go through him. The feral wildness about him, the air of quiet lethality, the Storm King's presence, leaked away from him like rain ceasing to fall, turning him back to the quiet, reserved and somewhat snarky man that he usually was. He turned to look at Aegle, his eyes back to its usual grey flatness, a stark contrast from the electric, dark storminess that colored it during combat.[break][break]

"That's six." He said simply, inspecting Aegle for a few seconds before he began to walk over to her, turning Stahlblesk over before planting it into the ground blade-down, so it stuck up by itself. And then, he relinquished his hold on the weapon, now standing next to Aegle, before using that hand to reach over to Aegle.[break][break]

He poked her on the forehead with a single finger, a half-smile on his face, parts approval and parts amused. [break]
"Now there's the huntress. Don't let go of her." He said with a voice that was surprisingly warm, something that was rarely, if ever, heard from Nikolas of all people. He walked over to the copse of trees they had been stalking the Ursa at, grabbing that small bag he had dropped, before walking back over to Aegle and Stahlblesk.[break][break]

He fished out a bottle of water, taking a drink from it before pouring some over his heated face, shaking it off and sighing in relief. He would offer the bottle of water to Aegle in case she didn't have any, her bag was a mess after all, before shoving it back into his pack, looking around until he found a notebook. All the while, his left arm was still hanging limply, but Nikolas seemed to not even react to it, as if an injury like that was a normal event... Or as if he was so used to pain that he was simply able to deaden the constant screaming of nerves. At least for now, since adrenaline was still fresh in his veins. He crouched down, putting the notebook down on the ground so he could use his usable hand to utilize the pen, writing down in sharp, crisp letters a brief recounting of what had happened.[break][break]

He had completed half of his objective. One dandelion down, one more to go.[break][break]

He then closed the notebook, putting the pen back into its holder on the book, before shoving it back into his pack and standing back up, slinging it over his right shoulder. His hand, now free, began to fish out a cigarette before proceeding to turn around to Aegle. [break][break]

"Well, you're done. You've passed the midterms, you just gotta survive the next 24 hours." He said, before putting the cigarette to his lips and lighting it with a lighter. Using a single hand was annoying, as a small frown came onto his brows as it took him two tries to light it properly. Pocketing the lighter again, he took hold of Stahlblesk.[break][break]

"This is where we part ways, Sobachka. I am obligated to find more yellows to help, more Grimm to kill, and you have to try your best not to trip over a rock and fall off a cliff or something." He said, amusement still glittering in his eyes at his sarcastic statement. He was about to say something but he hesitated. Goodbyes. Nikolas never liked goodbyes. He hated them. Aegle was an odd one, but through their shared experience of murdering halpless beasts, he found himself liking her more than he liked most others in the roster. She wasn't over-the-top on anything, be it disgustingly sweet or stupidly egoistic. She was just herself. But goodbyes... That stung an old wound of Nikolas, the wound of never having been able to say goodbye to his own friends for the last time.[break][break]

Instead, he leaned Stahlblesk on his body so it wouldn't fall over, before using his now-free right hand to offer it to her in a... Fist bump.[break]
"Don't die Aegle. I'd have to start over if you do." He said with another ghost-of-a-smile, smoke curling from the cigarette at his lips, his own way of uttering a farewell without actually saying it, his fist still hovering in front of her, waiting for her to reciprocate.[break][break]

Whether she did or not, Nikolas would then grab hold of his weapon once more, before trudging off into the wood at a slow pace, soon disappearing from sight.

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[Aegle Verdant]

Standing motionless in the heart of the clearing, Aegle watched the last motes of black smoke into nothing, the last drops of pitch boil away. The forest was strangely silent, all of a sudden, the woods strangely still. Everything, for the barest instant, seemed tinged with expectation, sharpened to a murderous edge, so fine as to cut without being felt. Aegle balanced on that edge for several long seconds, listening intently, waiting intently, eagerness near to brimming over. There was nothing more however; Just like that, the fight was done.

Nik seemed to sense it too; With a low breath, the white huntsman lowered his guard, such as it was, and turned about to face her. That savage glee was gone from his face, along with the frightening intensity which had been welded in place since she'd first laid eyes upon him. He looked somehow less than he had been a mere moment before, like some part of him was suddenly missing, snatched away. Some ephemeral yet essential piece of him had boiled away, just as the last Creep's blood had seemed to do, leaving behind only a ghost of what once had been. In the creep's case, the stain was black and gritty upon the leafy ground. In Nik's, the absence was seen in his eyes, in what Aegle might have taken for disappointment, if she hadn't had the taller man's previous expressions to compare it to. Having seen how intense and vital he was in the heat of battle, if in an especially dead-eyed way, this new look almost seemed sad to her.

She realized once more that she did not wholly understand Nikolas Burzanov, who he was or what he wanted, but she had a better sense on both counts than she had before the fighting started. Part of him, a not inconsiderable part, was the huntsman inside of him. His words about not being the prey, about acting instead of reacting, made much more sense in that context, and bespoke some greater depth to who he was than Aegle might initially have thought. She wondered, yet again, why he was hear, why he was doing this, what his purpose was. Far from knowing, she at least had some idea of what it was that Nik wanted, and she knew it started with fighting the Grimm.

"That's six," He told her. Then, reaching up, he tapped her in the center of the forehead, his face lowered down so that it was almost level with her own, "Now there's the huntress." He smiled at her, "Don't let go of her."
He had a strange smile, strangely handsome despite the blood on his face, strangely warm for how hard and cold he appeared. Aegle was left to watch as he straightened back up and wandered away, leaving his weapon behind.

It occurred to Aegle then that the fight was well and truly over, and a strangely wistful feeling washed through her, wholly unexpected and unlooked for. By the time Nikolas returned, and offered her his water bottle, she was mired deeply in her own confusion. No longer in danger of dying, no longer fighting for her life, with only the pain of her scrapes and bruises to remember the fight by, Aegle found herself feeling... It was not quite disappointment, though near enough as to be mistaken for it, but some other emotion she was not sure she'd ever felt before. Aegle drank a few mouthfuls from Nik's water bottle and, all the while, tried to decipher this unexpected feeling. She could not. Handing the canteen back, she tried to put the feeling and its portentous meaning out of her mind.
"This is where we part ways, Sobachka." Nik told her, lighting up a cigarette, "I am obligated to find more yellows to help, more Grimm to kill, and you have to try your best not to trip over a rock and fall off a cliff or something."
Aegle was tempted to go with him, but she knew that would never do. Dandelions could not travel in groups larger than two, after all, and she'd done all she could to help Nikolas pass in any case. Her eyes moved to his dislocated arm, and her concern for him was less than mollified. Nik seemed to harbor his own doubts, hesitating as he reached for his weapon. Instead, he pulled a fist and held it out towards her. Aegle regarded the gesture blankly for a moment, then realized what he wanted. W

With a slight smile tugging itself into place on her split lip, Aegle bumped her own bloody knuckles on those of Nik's offered fist. Then she pulled her hand back, fingers spreading apart, and she made a little explosion noise with her mouth. Nik gave her the faintest of smiles, then lowered his hand to the haft of his spear.
"Don't die Aegle. I'd have to start over if you do."
"Don't you die either." Aegle called after him, her voice carrying with it a shrill sincerity she was unsurprised, but none the less embarrassed, to hear. She couldn't think of anything witty to append onto the statement, to somehow make it seem like anything other than what it was, that being an honestly expressed concern for Nikolas' well being. She realized, with crushing significance, that there was the possibility that he might die without someone to watch his back, just as there had been the possibility of them both dying in the fight with the ursa. That their's was a path where death hung over every choice they made.

As Nikolas slipped into the woods, a white ghost in a sea of green, Aegle opened her mouth to say something else, or else to express some small measure of what she was feeling to him. She hesitated however, feeling foolish. Too soon, the huntsman was gone, and Aegle was left along with her hesitation and her doubt.
"Don't die." She said finally, when it no longer mattered, as her fingers closed into fists at her sides "and thanks. Thanks for fightin' with me."

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