when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
So it would seem that she hadn’t lost that spark after all. Still as eager as ever to outwit him, outreach him - anything to test her abilities against Wyrm’s and try for the upperhand. Epithet’s nature (much like his own) was to mimic and meld; they were sculptors who, fiercely encouraged by each other’s magnificence, sought without rest a way to achieve something the other could not.
The last time the two had played this game the rules had been fair and simple. The grey mare had unveiled no other secrets than her twin ability, a feat he’d been able to match blow for blow, shift for shift. Wyrm also had nothing better to bargain with, the chips had been stacked evenly between them, and the result had been something of a stalemate. Two kings left alone on an empty board, neither one toppling the other.
For most, that would’ve been enough.
For Wyrm, it was only reason to improve himself. Driven by the thought of their previous encounter he’d debased himself and sported his abilities before all of Nerine in the gladiator competition. It was against his personal code, to be so overtly flashy and excessively dangerous without cause, but at the last moment he’d changed his mind - he would need practice, a chance to stretch his own limits, and willing victims. The fact that most of the other fighters had magical abilities only made it better.
It was in that fight he’d unlocked something else, something that could tip the scales at a moment like this when Epithet was dragging her claws over his dark skull and shooting ahead just an inch. He smirks, (god they are so much alike) pumps his wings upwards and down in a powerful thrust, and phases directly through her body. Ahead of her he materializes again, popping into existence before shifting into a horsefly to whiz at breakneck speed over the black landscape and out across the rounded dunes of the beach - victory fresh in his mind as he collapses into the sand as the great black-and-ruby tiger.
Epithet could’ve expected anything from him, but he doubts she expected that.
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
