tampered | Death to Death [closed]

Death to Death [closed]

When; Saturday | December 6 | Late afternoon, going into sundown.
Rating; PG-13? IDK the movies are like lol no bloooood...but there be blood here, so. Yes.
Characters; Caspian (

treadingdawn), Lucy (

lionesscouchant). Jadis (

queenoftraitors), Peter (

oshutup) Susan (

lionessjant) & SPECTATORS (see below cut for details)
Summary; A challenge made in public name of previous personal trespasses, for the otherwise undisclosed purpose of cutting off winter's stone-tipped chill.
Log;

♚detaiiiiils.♕
Location: stadium, looking vaguely like the ring with broken columns and whatnot you see here....but larger as to be in keeping with stadium size, etc, etc. That's a basic idea though.

Annnnd threads will be made for the following 83

I. Pre-duel
a) [locked: Pevensies + Caspian]
b) [locked: Jadis + Allies]
II. Duel [locked: Jadis VS. Peter]
III. Duel [the public, anyone present and watching in the stadium, and while this obviously includes Caspian, Lucy, and Susan, we are opening it for anyone else who would be there and wants to actually do a semi-real-time reaction log. It doesn't have to be fancy, it's just an opportunity that we thought might be interesting to offer, and fun, perhaps. Reply to the main [blank] thread labeled as such with whatever your character is doing, or similarly, to another character's action if you want to interact, reacting.]
IV. Post-duel [locked: Pevensies + Caspian]

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Edited 2008-12-06 19:07 (UTC)

From one side of the stadium, Jadis approaches the stone columns in the center. Alone, but looking very much as though she doesn't mind having no entourage -- or family -- to stand at her back.

She carries her sword and the wand over which the duel is being fought. She can't use the wand, of course, but it's part of her regalia. And she expects they'd demand to see it anyway, to be sure she hasn't hidden it away from them.

Silently, but with a look of determined challenge, the witch stops at the edge of the stone floor.

Striding from the other is Peter, clad fully in armor, visor of helmet yet raised, Rhindon's particular weight in his right hand, immaculate shield over the opposite arm. The feeling of both is as familiar as it will ever be, and he draws some strength from the fact that, thanks to years not entirely lost and more recent days maintained, turning a blade's edge is as second nature as turning the handle of a door.

He stops at his own edge of the haphazard ring of broken stone, mind briefly brought back to another duel he fought not so long ago. This is different in so many ways, but whatever nerves he does have do not show on his face, nor in the set of his shoulders, and certainly not by the grip on his sword.

All is confidence, because that is how a king should appear in moments like these.

"The wand," he both acknowledges its presence and orders her release of it as the material purpose for which this fight will take place. He does not raise his voice, because the silence is such that even if he whispered, he could probably be heard by those watching. Composure and rank setting his tone, he makes no motion at the witch. Two words are enough and while she is many a vile thing, she is not stupid. That much has been clear for a very, very long time.

Jadis's lips curl in a shape that would be a smile if not for the fact that she's no longer attempting to hide her hatred from Peter, and she strides purposefully to the precise center of the column-decorated arena.

Presenting the wand in a grand gesture, she raises it high above her head and then plunges it deep into the smooth stone at her feet.

"The wand," she replies, drawing out the words in a snide drawl. Look upon it, Peter. It's the closest you'll ever get.

As she places the wand, Peter notes her choice of headdress, lowering his visor, scowling from behind the metal guard.

She would.

Moving further into what is their own personal battlefield, Peter begins to sidestep, measuring his enemy's lack of movement only for breath's span before aiming a first blow, a straight drive of the blade toward her center.

He has always preferred the direct approach.

Of course she would. Does it bother you, little king? She sincerely hopes it does.

"Impatient fool," Jadis taunts, as she catches the blow with her sword and twists in an effort to use the redirected momentum to force Peter back.

Peter doesn't spare words, pushing back against her as well, one blade against the other in an early standoff of leverage. As they curve out to the side, he turns his own body, shield most effectively held between them, Rhindon sweeping outward enough to curve back in. This clash of blades is only a distraction, however powerful, used to lunge past, as Peter tries to get behind her for another strike.

Now that the duel has begun in earnest, Jadis falls silent as well. Peter's blows have a greater power behind them than when they last met on the field, but she still has size and strength of her people, no matter how insistently she claims human ancestry.

She lets him move past her but turns with the movement and steps away to draw her second sword. When Peter's strike comes, she parries and then brings the other weapon down with a heavy clang upon his shield.

True enough, she is a formidable and when one sword hits down upon the shield he can feel it, a shock that streaks through his arm and into his shoulder. He returns the favor in his own way, bringing Rhindon at an upward angle, trying to set as much space between her swords as possible, following that with another strike, this time at her shoulder, relying on the speed he has been honing all week.

Jadis's fighting style has always been more about power than lightness of foot, relying on her ability to parry the blows rather than avoid being in the right place for them to land. The clash of blades rings across the stadium, as the witch catches each of Peter's strikes with one of her swords, raining blows down on shield and armor.

This is not getting him anywhere so far, and as he continue to fend off the pair of blades, Peter makes sure to get his own hits in, the ring of metal the only sound to accompany the shuffle of feet, loud in his ears. One of her attacks sends him reeling backward to the point of losing his footing, stumbling into one of the crumbling columns of stone that surround them, a curse bitten under his breath.

Ah, the opening Jadis has been hoping for.

The fact that thus far it's been merely a well-matched trading of blow for blow is irritating, and when she sees Peter stumble, she strikes quickly, raising one sword high and bringing it heavily across the upper part of his helm, sending it flying across the arena.

Well don't get used to it.

His head goes back with that strike, and one can't really know if it's helpful that he was just experiencing a similar set of blows or if it's just bothersome because it shouldn't happen again.

Still, he feels like he can almost breathe easier now, falling back even more only to dive back in at her, using his shield to knock hard into her blades, trying to force even one of her grips loose, Rhindon close behind that, engaging one of her blades in an outward push. He doesn't really expect her to drop either of her weapons yet. There wasn't enough momentum in his lunge, but he makes up for that by pushing in closer to her, hilts ringing together without restraint, unafraid despite her stature and ancestral strength.

The attack hits Jadis hard, with a force that she maybe wasn't quite expecting from someone she still thinks of as a child. She holds her position, the two of them locked together in a standoff, blades and shield caught between them as each tries to force the other to surrender the moment.

It goes on for far too long for the witch's liking, and finally she summons that inhuman strength and shoves at Peter. Sending him flying bodily, crashing into one of the stone pillars outlining the edges of the arena.

Before he even lands, she's moving, rushing at him, swords raised high in the air.

How long ago did they begin? Peter isn't sure and it's certainly not the first thing on his mind right now, even with the sun sinking at a pace of its own below a horizon one of them can see. Holding his own, despite knowing her power, he's caught slightly off guard with that sudden extra push. Then he feels himself hurdling backward through the air only to be stopped, as if in mid-sentence or step, by unforgiving stone. It's enough to knock the air out of him when he hits the ground next, tasting blood in his mouth, head reeling.

Somehow, he manages to look up in time to see the witch on a clear path for him. Instead of leaping to his feet to meet her head on as he might, he waits until she's within a sword's reach or a leg's in this case, kicking out to user her own momentum against her and bring her down. Simultaneously, he's using that pull to push himself back to a standing position, turning back toward her, Rhindon coming down in a fast but wide arc, wide enough to be blocked or even attacked through.

The sun is nearly gone.

Jadis will happily battle all night if need be, although there's a quiet fury settling deep inside that it's taking so long to bring about the High King's defeat. Perhaps she has underestimated how much he's grown and learned since the war.

There's a moment of satisfaction, when she sees Peter crumpled against the pillar, and it's that satisfaction which clouds her attention so that she doesn't see his sudden movement as she makes to strike him down. She falls heavily, the metal of her armor ringing against the stone. A flash of light strikes his sword's blade as it arcs toward her, lighting it against the dark sky, and she throws her arms upward, crossing her swords to catch his. When a hard push she shoves his sword aside and strikes out toward his shield arm, using the blow to force him away so that she can regain her feet.

The angle she drives her blade in at is just right for her and just wrong for Peter, with that inhuman force behind it for good measure, pushing through the chainmail, wresting a cross between a gasp and a yell from him. As she gets to her feet, her arm pulls back enough for him to dislodge the tip digging into his arm, and he can't help but think: better this one than the other. He is not as ambidextrous with the sword as the Just.

Jaw clenched, he moves back, orienting himself, and he has a moment to notice torches lighting the surrounding area, a false light for a fight that could yet go on for some time. So thinking, he attacks again, not even waiting for her to completely right herself, a heavy downward and angled swing of his own, no mystery to its purpose: a blow to the head if she doesn't rise fast enough, or maybe slicing at the neck if she does.

That is of course supposing she doesn't block, which he is getting tired of her doing, equally as tired as she is of him, but at least it's a mutual feeling.

Hate can be like that.

It feels good, her sword taking purchase in that chainmail. Jadis can feel the resistance telegraphed from weapon to hand, and the pleasure shows plainly her face. It's only a momentary pleasure, however, replaced quickly by bared teeth as that damnable sword comes sweeping at her once again, and the witch in poor position to avoid the blow.

Better to give it a less fatal place to land. Jadis surges toward Peter, under the blade, lashing out with a swipe of her own sword toward his leg. There's no room for a real attack, she'll have to rely on the sharpness of the blade and the strength of her arm if she expects to deal any damage, but it might be enough to throw off his own attack.

Not enough for her to avoid feeling Rhindon's edge completely, however. The sword catches the heavy mat of fur protecting her shoulder, sliding downward across and leaving a bloody gash in the flesh of her arm.

An eye for an eye, as they say, or rather, an arm wound for an arm wound, whichever. Blood on pale skin isn't an alien sight to him but seldom is it so welcome as it is to him now. Even as he feels some minor gratification in it, the witch's blade hits his leg, and while the mail is enough certainly to protect against a sword's more obtuse edge, the sheer strength behind her blow sends him backward anyway, throwing off his attack. One fallen column behind him, almost makes him trip again, but instead, rolls himself back over it, on his good side, mind, shield arm throbbing as it is.

He needs to orient before his next strike, needs to think, even a little. Another blow to her neck? Not likely to be effective unless he can get her on the ground again, is it? Gritting his teeth, swallowing the lingering coppery taste in his mouth, Peter leaps onto the column in front of him, using it to launch into an attack from above, blade meaning to less than politely separate her head from her shoulders, shield held in front of him as best he can manage, which, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired.

Letting out something very much like a snarl, Jadis brings herself fully to her feet and settles her grip on her swords. This is becoming unbearable, why will he not just give in to exhaustion and fall already? The nerve of anyone standing up to her for this long, in single combat, is infuriating.

She barely has time to find her center again when Peter is leaping at her, that heavy blade glinting, and again the witch finds herself on the defensive. This time, however, she doesn't block the blow. Instead, she throws herself forward to meet him, bodies colliding as Peter's sword slices the air above her head and Jadis bears him to the ground, letting one of her swords clatter against the stone as she grabs onto his injured arm for leverage, and they roll in a bruising tangle of limbs and swords and shield.

It would be too much to ask for, to not let out a low yell when she digs into his shield arm, but he doesn't hesitate to use the acceleration of their movement to roll them into yet another broken piece of stone. Not a column, this, far more jagged and the base of it rectangular, perhaps a platform at one point, wherever the stadium dragged it from, it provides the stopping point for the two of them.

As they collide with it, Peter kicks out hard with both of his legs in an effort to both kick the witch off of him and wind her in the same blow, uninjured arm bringing Rhindon over in a terribly awkward angle, another piercing strike aimed at her shoulder, the one opposite her already injured arm. His ragged breathing is just another reason he doesn't bother to say anything, in addition to actions speaking more loudly. It creates a strange sheltering kind of effect around him, as if there is cotton in his ears and yet everything is amplified, pain, warmth of blood, cold of metal and the absence of the sun.

The unfortunate effect of being in this position is that there's nowhere to go when a blow comes. Jadis is already somewhat battered by the combination of stone and heavy armor, the occasional hit from that shield, and there's a trickle of blood running down her face from where a broken piece of stone struck her head.

But none of that compares to the shock of pain that comes when the point of Peter's sword pierces the witch's arm. With a howl, she brings the pommel of her sword up and strikes Peter hard in the chest.

That hit causes him to fall back slightly, though not so much as to put a lot of room between them at first, just reeling as one tends to do when one is hit in the chest with a heavy blunt object with the force of a giantess behind it. These things don't typically happen but neither do boys step through wardrobes everyday and become knights, then kings, either. He has the awareness to step back quickly, not from force of the blow so much as trying to give himself that space in which to size-up the current state of things and then go in for another strike, all in the space of a few seconds, but those seconds might very well cost him like this. His shield loosed in the roll and the subsequent drive of a blade, he is completely reliant on Rhindon now.

This is not as bad as it could be, but it certainly could be better. The dark plays tricks even with the sharpest of eyes, and the torches, equidistant from them, throw light in strange ways that make the witch more horrible seeming than usual, and that, in Peter's not so humble opinion, is saying something.

Jadis has had enough of this foolishness. The duel was meant to be simply until one or the other was forced to surrender, she's certain Peter's siblings would never allow him to step knowingly into a fight to the death. But at some point it's crossed that line, and she wonders if the young king sees it as well.

Not that it matters, because now he's presented her with the perfect opportunity to put an end to it all.

Before Peter can collect himself enough to make his next strike, Jadis reaches out for her second sword, the one she abandoned and which now lies nearby, easily within her grasp. With a swift and deadly stroke, she thrusts it upward, mimicking her attack a moment earlier, but now with the point of the blade sinking through chain links and into her enemy's flesh.

The first thing he thinks of when he feels metal crush through him, is Edmund. The second thing he thinks is that he was too sloppy, that it shouldn't have happened at all. The third thing he thinks doesn't make it to the surface but there are traces of apology, but not for the fight itself, because he stands by his decision that this is the way to do things, if nothing else.

He doesn't have to look because the blood is as quick to spread and wet and warm his tunic as it is to coat the blade causing it to shed in the first place. That, is not what he's focused on however. Jadis seems to think he will fall, and he can read it in her expression, her posture, those eyes that sneer of winter and betrayal, of slaughter and something else he can't quite put a word to, even if he knows without question that he despises that too. His chest is tight and but he's coherent enough to feel a little confident in spite of things as he bites away his own breath, leaning on the sword in a way that makes him think: this isn't good.

But it lets him get at just the right angle to send Rhindon driving into her, right at the throat, twisting into it. He's gasping with the witch's blade yet piercing through skin and blood and aught else, vision softening in focus, but he's not going to die. Peter is sure of it.

Lucy's waiting. Susan is hoping. Caspian is watching, never turning away.

He's not going to die, not today, at least. He promised, three times, and a silent fourth for the brother still absent from them.

But you, you are, he thinks, some inarticulate sound escaping him from pain as he pushes his own blade forward just that much further, the course as true as ever, withdrawing it only to send it forward again, this time to where he imagines her heart must be, anatomically anyway.

Even if the end is not by the mouth of a great lion, the sword will do in his absence, by his will and on the High King's honor, his word.

The sword will do.

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queenoftraitors.livejournal.com - 2008-12-07 06:14 (UTC) - Expand

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oshutup.livejournal.com - 2008-12-07 06:32 (UTC) - Expand

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Death to Death [closed]

♕DUEL [locked: Jadis + Peter] setting: stadium [arena]

DUEL [locked: Jadis + Peter]

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