Unfurling Greenery (Nate)

[Tinnok]

She watched his face, sensing a mixture of confusion and relief in him at her words, said so hesitantly, hoping he not think her as insane as she felt. She sat crouched, wishing she had the crackle of a fish roasting over a fire to distract her from his penetrating gaze, and then his mouth opened, and words came out of it so slowly, each one piercing into her memory like her spear through the water.

Memories of work worn hands gripping her body, running over her scarred flesh, a mirror of his own, her hair falling messily around her features came back into her mind. She remembered spectres, the fight in the bar, the lust and companionship the two had shared in, and when her voice reached out towards his it was almost akin to a sigh of relief. "Nate..."

And then the relief was replaced with panic, fear, death, and rot, which she could feel from the plants she sat upon, could sense in a turn of the breeze, and could hear shuffling awkwardly through the woods in front of them.

She was on her feet, but her knees shook somewhat as a shiver rent down her spine. She had been so fearful that night, with little Tsuya, up against horrors of which she could never name, who worshipped a God so vile she could barely think of uttering his name. And unbidden, as if she had summoned Uldr's very presence in this dream turned nightmare, she felt a hate well up in the core of her being, pulsating all the stronger for every rotting leaf and burbling creature. It was as if reality had transformed, making the death happen so much faster, so instantaneously, feeding on her fear and memories, twisting them around into something all the more wicked.

Her daggers lay in each hand, not remembering the movements that had summoned them, and she surged forward, even as Nate spoke to her. Elsewise she would have been enraged by the term 'girl' being thrown her way, but too much hate filled her veins for such a slight to do anymore than bounce off of her hearing as she sprinted towards the hoard, twirling with her blades and sending both into a sickly white chest, black brackish blood spilling out and dripping down her arms, drenching her hands and clothes.

She kicked the corpse off of her blades and hacked off its head in careless strokes of her twin blades, tumbling forward to avoid a heavy handed swipe of a two handed axe head that smashed into the black and dying earth just to her left.

She was vaguely aware of Nate readying his weapons behind her, but when she saw a brute with a large mace, another flicker of memories came surging back and she ran with renewed vigor, lunging into the air and pushing off of a tree trunk at an angle with both feet, hurling herself high into the air and landing on back of the large and misshapen horror that held the weapon. Now her chest neck and face were sprayed with the remnants of bodily fluids in the creature as she sawed its head from its shoulders, falling in a heap to the ground only to leap off, sheath a dagger and swing the mace around in one hand, disliking the bulky weapon.

"Catch!" She screamed out as the weapon sailed through the air, a horrible idea if truth be told, but she wasn't telling the giant of a man to catch it, which he would realize when it landed with a heavy thud in the back of his nearest pursuer, sending them crashing to the ground with a seemingly uncaring grunt that smashed their face into a rather large rock.

Something had grabbed the half breed by the ankle and she roared in rage, claws forming upon her toes and stabbing the things eyes out as another came up on her side, swiping at her with a machete.
c

[Nathaniel Ankah]

"Fuck me... now this, I remember..."

For a couple of stunned moments, Nate just stared, slack-jawed as a lovestruck child, as his particular crush carved up demons like they were bewildered children. The first was decapitated in a tick, torso run through first. For the second she... she flew, using a tree as a jumping pad, steel shining along with her outraged eyes-

-landed on its back and Nate almost winced as she sawed - not cut, sawed - its head off, ravenous claws groping futilely as it babbled and burbled in some lack speech until it no longer had lungs attached to its mouth to make them.

"Catch!"

"Eh?!"

THUNK!

"Oh."

The snarling, gibbering abomination that had been lurching towards him tottered instead, claws flailing as the heavy mace smacked into the small of it's back. Nate backed up as it came on, but now confused, uncoordinated-

Fuck it, Ill take whatever.

Tinnok had proved they could bleed, and die. Nate blinked and forced himself to remember that. He'd faced worse odds and survived... and a lifetime in Sunberth had taught him that there was no evil of daemon, jinn, ghoul or abomination that could not be equalled in the lowest pits of humanity.

Nate roared like an enraged gorilla and sidestepped, swinging his mace low-

-hearing it clang on the spear the monster carried-

-and he lunged in closer with his kukri, stabbing for the side-

Almost no resistance. Like cutting into rancid meat or milk left out in Syna for months. Solid, but weeping, oozing... degeneration and rot given form and life and-

A fucking spear!

With a curse the human swayed back, monster far from finished with him, shrieking as it tried to open his throat with the tip of the spear, wide lunge leaving it open-

-and Nate capitalized, swinging overarm as the monster's spear missed him-

-crashing blow jarring his arm, sending the gurgling beast down to its knees as its collarbone shattered from the impact, eyes scrunched close in agony-

-then popping open in horrified realization... as it felt the impact... looked down... and saw Nate's kukri buried in its throat to the hilt.

"Shoulda' fucked off, boyo."

Nate twisted the hole bigger and ripped the blade free, letting the daemon's rotten heart and lungs vent themselves through the gushing orifice. He kicked the spear away as an afterthought and swung his bloodied weapons, broad chest heaving, grin on his face and dancing in his eyes despite himself.

Yes. This was like last time... not quite the same cast, but-

There was a salty curse in the air and Nate saw his woman - yours? fucking presumption, boy - pawing and scratching beneath the last two monsters. Gods, had they really done away with three of them? And "scratching" turned out to be the perfect term: Nate's eyes widened anew as he saw claws like a tiger's grow from her feet, hard and sharp and curved, ripping through cornea and diseased eyeball jelly, blinding the creature behind her-

-but the other one was at her side, machete falling with a wild cry of victory, froth and pus flying from its mouth as it gave thanks to whatever madness bore it, arm high-

Then vanishing from sight as something nearly as big plowed into it.

Nate tackled it from behind and ran it straight into a tree, dropping his mace so he could at least get one arm around the deathly thin but insanely strong wrist. He didn't want to get that close and have the fucker still able to use that machete... not that it apparently needed it, twisting around to snap and bite with a set of teeth that would sent a piranha scurrying-

"FUCK OFF!"

Until Nate hammered his forehead into the creature's nose and heard something pop sickly. The beast howled and Nate drove his kukri into its back, over and over, carving through intestines and ligaments and liver and kidney, spilling ropes of them down between them as they were pressed to the tree.

Hands shuddering and blade dulling on vertebrae. Until finally the beast howled again and swung wildly with a backhand-

-and Nate ducked under it, letting the heavy blade carry the monster all the way around, so it could face him, letting go of the wrist, then jerking up-

-burying that kukri under its chin... until he felt it worm and eat into brain matter. The monster blinked, uncomprehending, brain that was ill-formed at best now utterly in unchartered territory. Nate ripped the machete free with both hands and hacked downward, face crushed up in contempt-

-old, rusted but still vicious blade hacking through putrid bone and coming to rest... in the middle of brain, but between two eyes. They crossed... then went blank. Nate pulled his blade free and saw the blind but still raging creature hacking and hammering away at a recovering Tinnok, raised it to throw the wicked little weapon into the creature's chest-

Then he saw what she did... and he lowered it. Nate made that face that all in the multiverse would make when confronted by the simple fact that for all thine skill and effort... their badass is stronger.

Why do I remember her upstaging me like this last time?

[Tinnok]

It seemed her dreams had memories of their own. A fist curled into itself behind a tree, watching as her pawns fell one by one. Barely more than animals most of them, but strong and fast in their own right, getting cut down like plants. A gleaming sword, long and tapering, well cared for as only a Myrian could slid out of its sheath with an eager hiss. She remembered this happening, and would not allow it to fall into the same place it had when they had first met.

She felt a rush of air in place of a machete blade in her side, feeling the faintest brushing of cloth from Nate's shirt as he hurtled into the greenery tangled in his advesary. Her momentary confusion and awe were replaced by a sharp pain in her leg as her blinded, but not dead advesary stabbed a single almost metallic looking finger nail deep into her flesh. She yowled and leapt away, her haste to depart ripping a chunk of flesh out of her leg, her opponent rising up to its full height, at least a head or more taller than she.

Its limbs were long and gangly, nails almost all regular save the one that had stabbed her. Loose rags of clothes hung ripped and stained from its body, and dead, cruelly intelligent eyes gawked at her, sizing her up now that she had been established as a true threat.

It's weapon was a sickle, gripped tightly in hand, it dashed forward with a speed that shocked even the nimble half breed, slicing viciously horizontally and causing her to leap backwards, almost tripping on a root and catching herself barely in enough time to duck beneath another swipe, watching as a lock of her own fair tumbled to the ground.

She ducked diagonlly, beyond and behind her opponent, her body straightening in a single fluid motion that turned her to face the back of the twisted creature. Her daggers flew in an X slicing a blood design in its back, making it let out its own scream. But a missing eye and blood dribbling down its back was not enough to stop it, and this she somehow already knew, because it was like the cruel undead witch, and the strange little girl, a being apart from this realm, that did not belong here.

The Chained One howled in rage only paralleled by the Witch's own, and whirled, droplets of black brown flood spattering the foliage around it, hissing and burning any surface it touched, sending tiny spirals of steam up through the air with each hit. The sickle came flying in vicious arcs so fast they made the same X shape Tinnok had delivered upon her opponent's back. Each stroke made a heavy noise through the air and caused Tinnok to leap, duck and dodge backwards step by step, not even enough time to check on where she was headed, being driven and hearded by her opponent.

She felt the first large root, heralding a large tree, and leapt up, crossing her daggers, and tilting her grasp so the 'V' in her blades caught the blade of the sickle right amidst them. THe rasping of steel on steel suddenly overtook the scene as the two jostled fro control over the situation, but Tinnok was able to push the sickly up and away, taking one dagger and plunging it into the thing's neck, raising her right leg up by the knee, then up over her head, pushing away and holding the arm clinging to the sickle while she drove the second dagger at a perpindicular angle to the first slicing until she knew she had severed the brain from the spine. Then she hooked her raised heel on the creature's shoulder, staring into those dark eyes and holding them for a moment, before pulling out her daggers and forcing the body heavily onto the ground with her foot, the appendage sliding down onto the creature's chest in one sweeping stroke.

Her breathing was heavy, her body coated in the disgusting substances built up in those creatures, and she looked up slowly to find Nate lowering his weapon, a strange look in his eyes.

She wanted to cross the space between them then, she could feel the green returning to the glade even as she stood there with one foot attached to the dead thing, the other drenched in loamy soil, but her memories and a tingling at the nape of her neck told her it wasn't over.

Chunk

The noise of a barbed arrow tip sinking into the flesh of her back, making the almost serene expression on her face turn into anguish, anger, and pain. She stumbled forward towards Nate, but if he moved to catch her a hand would go up, signalling for him to get behind cover.

Three more of the horrors were there with bows, their leader coming up behind Tinnok, who was scurrying on all fours behind cover of her own in the form of a large boulder. Just a moment was all she needed, just a tick to compose herself, to figure out the best way to take down this bitch, and the added bonus? She had help.
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[Nathaniel Ankah]

Growing up in the stinking hive that he did, Nate had little understanding of those who referred to battle as a "dance". Usually after a few too many bevies, in his opinion. He'd seen dances; he'd seen skirmishes, battles, wars made miniature in streets, alleys, basements, taverns, houses, warehouses, piers...

He'd never found a comparison. It was brute force and ruthlessness working in tandem with your muscles, backed up by a healthy dose of speed and the hard-won ability to take a punch and keep fucking going. There was nothing balletic or fancy about how he moved when he fought. Everything was practical, economic, and designed to do serious damage. What other way was there, after all?

The kukri lowered inch by inch as Tinnok showed him.

It was all so... fluid. The way her body moved and contorted, avoiding blows even as she dealt them. It would never have even occurred to a Sunberth brawler to move like that. But Tinnok danced - yep, only word for it - desperately at and around her undead enemy until she found her moment, Nate all but cheering her on-

-and remembering the kukri in his hand as she finished it. Hmm. And he was going to save her?

The jungle stilled. The five interlopers were in various states of "not just dead, but vanquished" and the two of them locked eyes. Ah, nothing to get a man's libido racing like surviving a brawl. In fact... wasn't that what got them so heated-

The last time? There was a last time. Yes... definitely.

"We've been in... this place, before," he said, finally, gesturing as much to the otherworldly plane as the jungle surrounding them, "And now I-"

Then an arrow impaled her back and the moment shattered.

Gods, these things were boiling up from the very ground! At once Nate's borderline-amorous expression lurched into sickening shock, but as they stumbled - her in pain, he in urgency - her saw her flashing hands and dropped-

Thumk-thunk!

-just as two more smacked into the tree behind him, at about the height of where his chest would have been. Now his heart was pounding again, but not in his cock, and Nate rolled, rolled-

-until he was out of the clearing, behind a mess of shrubs and branches, but with enough space for him to see-

Tinnok, trapped behind a rock.

The monster with a fresh arrow notched, black tongue oozing around sore-covered lips in delicious anticipation, looming over the rock, pointing down-

Now or never.

Nate drew back his arm and straightened up in the same tick, heedless of the danger in exposing himself. He... had to. Gods, that was the only stupid, pointless, simple answer he could give himself. If he didn't, she could die, and that wasn't acceptable. He judged the distance, took a breath, cursed himself for not having a better blade for this-

-and hurled the kukri across twenty feet, curved blade spinning, waltzing through the shadowy air, slicing through steam and the stink of blood-

-before squelching awfully into the Chained One's chest,just below its sternum. Sadistic victory was replaced in a tick by stunned pain, lips twitching anew as they bled and leaked pus, arrow twanging out onto the ground as its arms dropped... and it followed a second later.

"Fuck!"

No time to enjoy the moment. Nate dropped as another pair of arrows were loosed his way, crawling through the shrubbery and fallen trunks like an elephant trying to sneak through a porcelain factory. Bushes shook and vines snapped and he was pretty sure a log rolled away but damned if he was thinking of it because-

THWACK-THWACK!

-another two arrows, barely a foot behind his frantically shuffling feet. They couldn't see him, but the two remaining archers could see where he was, and it was only a matter of time before they-

Enough! Just keep moving! Trust her!

"Great!" He grunted in a harsh whisper, angrily shaking the waterfall of sweat from his face. "Just have to stay the bait for long enough to-"

That's when they hit him.

[Tinnok]

She heaved for breath, knowing there wasn't even enough time to break the arrow in her back before she had to face whatever was looming above her.

But even as her life flashed before her eyes, as it had too many times to count a strangely curved blade sunk into the flesh of the pale horror looming above her, the arrow loosing but going quite wide, its bow tumbling down the rock face and clattering at Tinnok's side. She turned her head to watch a form fleeing in the loudest of manners through the jungle foliage, two scrawny elongated forms charging afterward.

Tinnok could sense the other presence, the leader, somewhere. They were waiting for the perfect time to strike, but for now the half breed was more focused on the safety of the male that had saved her life, who was fleeing for his very own. She grunted in pain at the arrow lodged in her flesh, but rose and began sprinting after the small grouping careening through the wilderness. The balls of her feet bounced upon the ground, daggers in hand. One flew out into the back of one of the creatures, loding in its flesh, and causing it to slow enough that she could leap on its form and stab at its neck until it ceased flailing. This action seemed quick, but in that time she lost the third horror and Nate in the foliage, the dripping of water from the canopy and the screeches of agitated wildlife the only noises she could pin point.

The breaks int he foliage, however, helped pinpoint where Nate had gone, and her feet carried on, that prickling uneasiness at the nape of her neck only growing, as if the hunter of her was drawing in closer even as she fled to save the wayward male.

She heard a cry of pain and felt a defensive growl escape her throat. No one would touch her male, the one she had found, the one she would care for. Some latent part of her mind rebelled at this, laughed at her within, but she was too focused, rushing into a small clearing only to realize that the green eyed man had taken care of his opponent despite his injuries. She stepped forward quickly, noticing a deep wound on his arm first, then a gash along his forehead. He turned quickly towards her, clearly fearing the worst, but when her golden eyes met his there was an audible relief that needed no words.

"It isn't done." She said simply. She wanted to grab him, to clean his wounds and to kiss him, in what order she wasn't sure, to feel those calloused hands once more, to run her own worn hands over his. These desires had to be held at bay, however.

The jungle was suddenly quiet, utterly and entirely. No leaf stirred, no bug so much as twitched its wings. One would think they would hear the crackling of leaves to mark the thing's presence, see some glimmer of other colors, some hue out of place. Tinnok turned slowly eyes gazing along the foliage, knowing what came, and dreading it as she had that night in the stone temple filled with rot and death. That is what this Uldr brought, and that is what she would give Dira to feast upon. If these things even had their souls still she would give them up to the Death Goddess gladly.

A flash of a gleaming sword cut across Tinnok's cheek. The half breed whirled, but this was a dream, and nothing was as it seemed. She felt the sharp but minute pain, one finger brushing away at the wound and coming up with the crimson speckle, slits wildly darting around, but all she remembered was the glint and nothing more.

Then came the subtle laughter, that seemed to encircle the two of them, and Tinnok glowered, knees bent, ready for whatever came next.
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[Nathaniel Ankah]

There was close, too close, then there was flat-out "why the petch aren't you dead?". Nate felt the impact in his arm, that kinetic shock like he'd been thumped, followed by that blinding pain, and then-

Another. Higher. Sharper. A flash of an arrowhead passing so close it seemed vast as a bolt of lightning, and he could see his own tiny reflection in it, like his life was flashing and it was ending right there.

It hit him. He felt it. But... wherever he was, it certainly wasn't the afterlife, and since it looked markedly like where he'd just been...

Nate blinked through the miasma of blood, sweat and endless humidity... and realized what the first one was as it trickled into his mouth. Well, fuck it, better that than a clean shot straight through his brain. And the sight of Tinnok scuttling towards him, relief stark and intoxicating in her strange eyes... that was a good enough balm for him.

"Nearly had me, I think," he said with a grunt, trying and failing to brush off the agony in his arm, and the fact he still had a three-foot-arrow in there. He even managed a wink, albeit one that looked like an involuntary spasm thanks to the mess his face was, "But I'm not so easy to-"

"It isn't done."

Didn't that just kill the mood?

The big brawler searched her face, eyes suddenly shadowed and worried, but he could find nothing except hard, weary caution tightening her face. Their enemies were dead, slain, some of them ripped apart, but Tinnok had not relaxed an iota. Nate watched her carefully as he lurched upright, grateful to have his legs unmarked, at least. He retrieved his weapons and finally started looking, until-

Ah. There it was. Not his eyes: his ears were what told him the truth of the matter.

No birds. No lizards. No insects or monkeys or deer or... any life at all. The festering abominations were dead, true, but whatever had willed them into this place that should have been theirs alone? That was not.

And it was a league apart.

"Tinnok?!"

Gods, he was getting so tired of shouting that: it just showed how ignorant and helpless he was in that place. But the sight of her wounded, even the slightest cut on her cheek, was enough to crack his facade of bravado-

-which was quickly replaced by a fear he did not even try to hide. For only a tick, the figure had become real. A mass of fast-moving smoke or shadow, that solidified as if the winds had just happened to blow in such a way... but it was tipped with a sword and a slash of grinning fangs-

-before fading away again, disappearing like a cloud lost in a tornado.

Then it laughed. Slow and rolling and pleasurable, oozing into their ears and drinking in every tick of their discomfort. Without thinking, Nate moved closer to Tinnok until they were back to back. At least that angle was covered, or so he hoped. His wide eyes scanned the canopy, but all it saw was a tangle of green and brown and blinding white that he had no hope of discerning.

"Come out, coward," he snarled between his teeth, breaking off the arrow in his arm and then gripping the mace two-handed, holding it cocked and ready to crush the skull of whatever darted from the jungle, "Ran out of peons, have we?"

"Oh... now he is a hard one, isn't he...?"

That accent... much like Tinnok's, but blended through gods-knew what planes and deaths and nightmares. Every word buzzed and cut at the ears. The sheer unnaturalness of it was suffocating, and Nate grit his teeth against the urge to just run, to flee, grab her and take their chances outrunning-

What, exactly? A fog? A cloud? A ghost? Stand your ground.

"Sad you brought him into this place..." Gods, he couldn't pin it down, either. The voice swirled around them like black water, everywhere and nowhere, toying them surely as the rest of the nightmare was. "But we have... unfinished business. Well... I do. You surely thought yours was done, snake-shit... but it is not. And now, I come here... where I can do... so... so much more..."

Whatever it was, it proved it a second later. A black shape burst into life at Nate's right and exploded towards him. He swung at it with a yell and-

-the mace passed through it like it would through any cloud of colored air, splitting it down the middle from crown to crotch-

-but it just reformed as it whirled past and over and through him-

"F-Fuck-"

-then lashed out with arms like oak branches before he could even turn, taking the merest split-tick to go from insubstantial smoke to rock-hard substance-

-and sending Nate flying across the clearing, crashing into a shrub, rolling through the undergrowth-

"Shyke!"

-until his arm stopped him... his bad one. More curses followed, pain sharp and agonizing enough to choke off the fact there was a curious horde of ants exploring the strange new continent his body represented. Nate hauled himself up... and saw the cloud circling Tinnok. Taunting her. Reminding her. Taking its time...

"Ah... shyke..." He mumbled, spitting blood to the side and taking up his mace. "So fucking tired... of this... shining knight bollocks..."

He waited. He watched. As smoke, he couldn't hurt it, but it couldn't hurt him. It had to be solid for that, so... the reverse seemed to make sense to him. When it wanted to hit and stab and rend, it had to be solid, just like them. Well, that suited Nate just fine.

He was a Sunberth boy, after all, and had no problem twatting some eldritch mutant fucking fog round the back of the dome if he got the chance...

[Tinnok]

She felt somehow satisfied, an inkling safer, when Nate's back, damp with sweat pressed up against hers. A small sigh escaped her throat, as if his presence would somehow make this all right, which she knew in fact was only a fantasy, but wasn't that what this all was? A fantasy of a man who probably did not exist, she had simply conjured him from some strange corner of her mind that decided what barbarian males must be like? That of course would suggest some expansive imagination which to Tinnok's mind, she did not actually possess, and all of this...was quite besides the point.

"Be careful." She said, feeling all the more a fool for it. As if he didn't know this strange smokelike entity was something you needed to be careful around. In the waking hours Tinnok would realize that this nightmarish figure was a mixture of the Myrian warrior and the strange smoking child that had taunted her and Tsuya on the back of the great silver bird, for now, however, it was simply the only foe that stood in her way.

She gasped as she felt something cold and the opposite of living pass through her, twirling as gracefully as a cat to send Nate flying across the ground, skidding through the dirt and leaves.

"Tell me again, child, how you killed my peons but helped that undead witch gain a body from one of your very own. Tell me of how you helped her murder your kind wantonly, and then watched as she took another body, sucking the very soul out of it and replacing it with her own. Are you a servant of Caiyha, or one of Uldr?" It took a lot to get Tinnok riled. After a lifetime of insults and anguish it very well should, but no one called her devotion to Caiyha into question, not even a twisted nightmare.

First she screamed, not like the tiger roar Nate had once heard, this was something of rage, or hate, pure and unbridled as her daggers swung into the smoke, as if it mattered. The laughter started up again and Tinnok snarled, whole body moving, blood droplets flying, dirt scattering every which way.

"COWARD!" She screamed, this time in Myrian, the thickness of her accent put fully behind the word. The laughter only grew. She was giving in, giving into all of it. Evalin deserved to die, this creature too, they were abominations, she was an abomination, the world...the world was filled with them.

Another swipe, this time on her hip, she screamed again, but this time another form came, the hulking muscled body of the green eyed beauty Tinnok had come to know as Nate. She watched his bulk charge, timing it just right, his weapon swiping at the moment the creature needed to amterialize, and there was a cry of pain...and it was not hers.

That stopped the laughter, and also brought the half breed back to the present. Hate. Hate was where the servants of Uldr began, and it was how they would end their miserable unlifes drowning in it. She knew Evalin would never want her sympathy, but that was the emotion she most readily drew when she saw the woman. For who would choose to live a life in hate?

A breath, a deep one and Tinnok was back...somewhat closer to where she should have been. Fingers ran over Nate's shoulder, squeezing once, then she placed herself against his back again, this time ready for that petching undead bastard's return.
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[Nathaniel Ankah]

He'd like to say he was just that good, but even Nate knew he'd just been that lucky.

He moved fast and low from cover, dead behind his target, loping forward in long strides. He knew he'd make a noise, and knew he couldn't help it. He'd only get one chance at this anyway. The smoke monster was still taunting and hissing at Tinnok and for the first time, he saw the words dig deeper than blades could.

He saw his woman - well, that had become comfortable quickly - scream in rage and hatred, daggers arcing and flashing in endless streams of silver, and doing about as much good as pure light. The night mare just laughed harder and lashed out, body hardening to gouge a fresh divot in Tinnok's side-

Now! Damnit, now!

Nate was swinging before the thought was even completed. The nightmare spat something about "recompense" and "balance" one more time, now as solid as onyx stone, raising its sword high with a chuckle-

-that turned into an outraged gargle as a five-pound studded mace head crashed round the side of its head, denting it, sending it toppling-

-and Nate's backhand did the same again, from the other side, just before it finally burst into shadow and smoke and vanished into the foliage as if struck by a hurricane breeze... leaving them to regroup.

Gods, how much more of this can we take?

Limping and bruised and covered in more mud and twigs and leaves than clothing, it seemed, Nate found his wounds... diminished, when he clutched the hand at his shoulder. Those narrow yellow eyes were predator's, reptiles, he knew that much from the exotic animals he'd seen on the Docks for years. But never had he seen them so alive with intelligence, warmth, passion... concern.

No questions, though. No time. She was at his back again and both of them were circling, waiting, keeping the pressure of their shoulder blades and spines against each other, though.

Whatever that monster was, it would be back. It was waiting for some new strategem to occur to it, some original atrocity. Nate quashed the fear that sent his heart racing; it wouldn't aid him. Had to stay pragmatic... which didn't really help his mood either.

He knew he should force her to run. He was worse for wear than she; he didn't know the jungle as well, and couldn't escape if he tried. She was fresher, fitter, faster... she had the chance he didn't.

Cold, brutal logic. Nate opened his mouth to voice the idea, resolved to run anyway and draw it off if she didn't listen-

Then he smiled. He remembered that brawl. That tavern. The fierce joy she'd shown, the two of them taking the place apart and that monstrous fucking gorilla who just didn't want to go down. She'd been... so beautiful.

"You know," he said, breath finally under control, a suggestion of a swagger in his voice, "We petched like the world would end come Syna's rise, the last time we met. I intend to repeat that."

He felt her stiffen. And he heard... well...

Many learned men will tell you that it is, in fact, impossible to hear somebody blush. They're lying bastards. Nate grinned and tossed the mace from hand to hand. So strange how his wounds bothered him less now, but... that was this place, wasn't it? Neither real and waking nor dead and intangible. The in-between-scape.

Something hissed and growled in the foliage and Nate gripped his weapon tight.

"To your left, my right. Ready yourself..."

[Tinnok]

She took in a slow breath, trying to steady her breathing. Despite the heat of the jungle, there was something utterly satisfying about the way her back fit against his, a shared heat passing between them. She held a dagger in each hand, legs slightly bent, eyes poring through the foliage when his voice cut through the moment, sending an entirely different shiver down her body. How on Caiyha's planet could the male sound that confident even in the face of all this? She felt a heat in her cheeks and far below them, deciding not to reply or sound like a love sick school girl.

That was when it exploded precisely where Nate said it would, swirling black fog towards the both of them. It screamed and laughed and howled all in one action. Tinnok's eyes narrowed, turning so that her and Nate's shoulder still made contact to better face her foe, yet it simply passed striaght through them, only to turn and lash out at her back when it had passed, deep raking red marks tearing the little clothing she wore. If Nate said a petching word she'd kill him before this beastie was put down.

It tried this manuever again, fainting through them only to re-materialize at their backs, but this time Tinnok was ready. The dagger twirled like lightning in her hand and darted out spinning, slicing not into smoke, but something real, brackish blood spilling forth onto the ground, the gash not fatal, but deep.

The monstrosity disappeared again, and when it returned it held the wickedly long and serrated blade Tinnok remembered...or thought she rememberd. It was physical this time, taller and stronger than the real entity, and swung the sword like a bat. Tinnok ducked, seeing Nate fall to the ground a bit less gracefully, but at least unhurt as she rolled into rang and swiped both of her daggers along the thing's thighs, only for it to explode into the cloud again with another cry of pain. Her daggers were not enough, she could weaken it, but another weapon needed to be utilized, perhaps like the heavy death blow of a mace...

Tinnok licked chapped lips and stood up, realtively unguarded, daggers at her sides. The thing came floating...charging...surging towards her. She knew its game this time, but when it slashed out at her she gave a dramatic cry and tumbled to the earth, a few scrapes on her arms, lying there wounded. She grabbed Nate's gaze intently, then began weakly scrabbling backwards, muttering prayers and curses and whimpers quite unbefitting her as the horrific floating cloud approached her, ready to deal the final blow.
c

[Nathaniel Ankah]

Strength and skill were useless against the intangible, but what else could Nate so but swing and hope? He lashed out with a bark as the monster surged towards them, eyes all but glowing, mouth impossibly wide, just begging for a hunk of metal right to the-

Cloud. Which was what it became as it passed right through them, raking down Tinnok's back on the way, distracting him... or he did it himself. Sentimental twat.

"Tinnok's?! Are youFUCK!"

He went down to one knee as something with cleavers for claws slashed at the back of his leg, knocking him down to his knees as the thing drew itself together again. It stained and then eclipsed leaf and trunk as it finally became real, sword as long as he was tall swinging towards them-

Nate dropped, fast and hard, ignoring the steady gush from his leg, more focused on keeping hold of his weapon and-

Tinnok's dropping down hard, crying out but...

He frowned. He knew what pain sounded like from her, and that wasn't quite it. As she scrambled away and the monster took its time, floating to her at a sauntering pace, he caught the flash in her eyes... and looked to his mace.

Balls of steel, girl...

Nate bit down hard on his lip until he felt blood soak his tongue, quelling the urge to help or grunt as he hailed himself upright. All the while the thing taunted and mocked and chuckled like some deviant at a child, relishing the moment. Nate always appreciated those sorts: they always have you plenty of chances to kill them.

Case in point:

Nate swallowed hard then loped, running, mace gripped in both hands, leaping when he as six feet away, aiming a blow squarely at the back-

It moved faster than he could register. In the space of a blink it turned, one arm sinewy and shivering and ungodly strong catching him around the throat in mid-air, the other slashing deep into his forearms and twisting-

Nate screamed as he dropped the mace, drowned out ticks later by a booming, sadistic laugh that sent the troop of hooting Bonobos fleeing instead.

The nightmare grinned wide, tongue like a snake's oozing out between fangs to lick Nate's face... before turning to Tinnok... and seeing such delicious possibilities writ large on her face.

"Ah... I sssssee... You care for thisssss one, hmm? Then your death... heheheh... I sssshall make that a releassssse, inssssstead. Firssssst, you will watch... asssss I ssssstrip his flesssssh and forccce it down your throat..."

Mumbles. Mutters. Gargling gurgles from a crushed throat. The nightmare turned back to it's suspended prize with a smirk. One hand was fee long hanging onto the willowy bicep that held it. The other was limp by its side... deathly.

"What wassss that?" It sneered, drawing Nate closer with a mocking turn of its head, as if trying to hear better. "Ssssspeak up, barbarian. Don't exxxxpire before the fun, hmm? Sssssspeak!"

"Yu... Tk... Tu... Muk..."

Fingers fiddles at his belt. Questing desperately. Buying precious seconds with his lips and ruined throat, Nate searched, knowing it was there-

There!

"I what?"

Nate's eyes managed to slide open a fraction, gleaming with... something that made the nightmare pause.

"You... Talk... Too-"

His arm swing up, a vicious uppercut that would probably have stunned the beast, but not killed it-

"Much!"

Unless it was holding a punching dagger. Which it was.

The nightmare screamed and then choked in utter, outraged surprise as four inches of triangular steel buried itself in is throat. Eyes wide and raging now, lips curled back in sadistic vengeance, Nate twisted, fighting back the black waves crowding his eyes, praying to Any And All for just a few more ticks, just a handful, so he could finish this-

That vast maw opened and he saw thy tongue writhing, steel glinting under it. He smirked. There were worse ways to die.

The nightmare's eyes snapped open as it felt shaky hands with a strong grip grasp it's tongue. He saw the fucking monkey smirk at it, and for a brief moment its rage burned. Nate spat.

"Grow THIS back!"

Then he yanked. Just as the nightmare squeezed harder, half out of reflex, and the world became a world of painful red followed by crushing black.