[open] you're the means and the end

[asphyxea]

asphyxea

i've been around this world and now everything's a bore
i don't know that much, but i know about keeping score

When the lightning strikes, Asphyxea launches backward against the push of the water. Her heart races with a force she doesn't understand: fear, excitement, and anger all mingling to create a tsunami of blood in her chest and a ringing tornado in her ears. The ocean tugs and beckons around her, calling her into the tide, a force almost distracting enough to pull her gaze from the singed earth where the lightning struck.

But Phyx is transfixed, amazed, enraptured. Was she simply lucky or was this the kindness of a watching magician? It doesn't strike her that the one manipulating the skies is a Nerinian, and a mischievous one at that.

"Oops?" the little dragon calls back, teal eyes hopping from shadow to shadow to find the voice she barely caught above the waves. "Don't tell me that was an accident," she adds with an eager, if taunting, smile. The water splashes around her legs as she rushes toward the sand, finally catching Popinjay in an intense stare.

"What're you hiding behind that smile?" Phyx asks as she presses closers, settling a few feet away from Poppy. Her talons dig restlessly into the malleable sand. "More lightning?" she murmurs, deciding she likes the woman's grin and her presumed snark. Her eyes float from Poppy's face to her wings then to her legs, finally meandering confidently back to the mare's eyes.

She's not particularly intimidating, but Phyx hopes she's surprised.

and if there's one thing i know for sure,
it'd be a long cold day in hell when i take you back

@[Popinjay]