Elayna sat down against one of the rocks on courtyard and let herself breathe.
Her last fight had been a good one. Against a second-year with a hammer and body strengthening magic who had hit hard enough that she still felt it strongly in her arms from the blocks and parries from the fight. She'd won, but not easily, and her legs had made a quiet but firm request to stop doing things for a moment.
She obliged.
Around her the courtyard was still in full motion. Pairs were fighting with the sounds of heavy impacts and magic blasts carrying through the air, the noise of roughly a hundred students fighting and finding out what the year above or under them was made of.
She glanced around the pairs fighting and spotted Zyvara first. Hard to miss, her black-red orbs crackled loudly and snapped viciously as they crossed the courtyard toward a second year who was moving fast and trying to stay ahead of them but not quite managing it. Zyvara stood with her arms held up in front of her, casting the orbs. She was casting with a confident smirk of someone who had already realized how this fight would end.
Evelyn was harder to spot but Elayna found her, locked in a fierce exchange with a tall Elven swordsman, both of them were trading hard strikes and neither of them gave ground. Evelyn's great axe was moving with seriously well-controlled and great power, her body strengthening magic was doing its work visibly. The second year was good. But Evelyn was better, she parried his strike and launched herself into a side-tackle which brought him down. Evelyn swung her axe down after, stopping it before it landed on his face, he admitted his defeat and Evelyn offered a hand which he took to get up.
And Kiri was standing slightly to the side of the main activity, arms folded, half-lidded purple eyes watching the courtyard with that deadpan unbothered attention. She was apparently between fights. And Elayna could never tell from her expression if she'd lost or won her fight.
Elayna watched them all for a moment, privately very interested in her friends fighting abilities, she felt genuinely proud seeing Evelyn and Zyvara win, in a quiet way she hadn't expected to feel.
Then she noticed Cait.
She was standing in an open spot near the center of the courtyard, not waiting to be called but just standing there, longer blade resting easy on her right shoulder, shorter sword spinning in her left hand in that unconscious way. Her beautiful pink hair was loose down her back. Standing completely relaxed with a hip cocked out that did something to Elayna’s own body.
Cait was staring directly at the rock Thra'kara was leaning against.
She knows they’ll fight, Elayna thought, with a strange feeling. She's just waiting for it.
And as if on cue:
"Thra'kara," Karzen said. "and Cait."
Against the rock, Thra'kara's eyes opened. Both of them fully, immediately, draconic irises bright and alert. She looked across the courtyard and found Cait already looking back at her with a small smile.
Something moved through Thra’kara’s expression. Not surprise. Something closer to satisfaction.
She smiled, wide and sharp, and pushed off the rock with her leg.
She walked quickly onto the courtyard, almost impatiently. Cait stood there, waiting patiently, the longer blade still on her shoulder and the shorter one still spinning. Tracking Thra'kara with dark wide pupils as she came to a stop in front of her.
They stopped roughly twenty feet apart.
Thra'kara looked down at her. Cait looked up at her.
Cracking her fingers. "Finally," Thra'kara said, with a full smile.
"Mmm," Cait hummed pleasantly.
The courtyard had noticed the moment both of their names were called out.
People stopped. Turned. Drifted toward the edges of the space as they knew something significant was about to happen. Elayna found herself sitting forward without deciding to, her back left the rock she'd been leaning against, her hands found the fabric of her pants and she scrunched it slightly.
Karzen stepped back and said nothing. He was watching with calm eyes and an expression that said he intended to pay full attention to whatever came next.
Thra’kara and Cait met eyes again and they both smiled. A short pause, they both said nothing. But they were both seemingly of mind. The fight had started. Karzen didn't have to start it for them.
Cait moved first.
She dashed forward and swung the shorter sword which flicked out instantly in their first exchange, a fast and precise cut aimed at Thra'kara's forearm, the kind of cut Cait used in her opening fights against almost everyone she'd faced.
The sound it made was wrong.
Not a cut of flesh. But a scrape, the blade dragging across the scales sounded like something hard and sharp was being dragged across metal. The blade found no purchase, it was easily deflected by the scales, proving they weren't going to get cut without real power or without magic. Cait registered that instantly and pulled back her short-sword.
Thra'kara's answer to the attempted cut came immediately. A straight punch, a jab, a simple extension of her shoulder fast and direct.
Cait had already twisted her head before it arrived. The punch passed through empty air past her.
They separated. A beat of silence. Both of them having learned something in the span of about one second fighting each other.
The shorter sword couldn't scratch the scales. Thra'kara's quick jabs weren't going to catch Cait.
Thra'kara smiled. Just slightly.
"Alright, bitch. Let’s see what you’re made of," she said, and advanced forward properly.
They met again and clashed in the middle and the sound of it crossed the whole courtyard.
Cait's longer sword came fast up as she swung for the Dragon-kins neck and Thra’kara threw up her forearm close to her body to block it. The ring of it was loud and immediate, two extremely hard materials colliding with a noise that made several people nearby flinch. Not the dull thud of sword on flesh. Something more intense. A harsh sound that implied neither Cait’s sword nor Thra’kara’s scales would break easily.
Cait drove forward with a pivot off the forearm block, longer sword already sweeping wide again for the other side of Thra'kara's neck where the scales ended, Thra’kara’s left forearm came up, but the force behind the strike this time was heavy enough to bite through the scales. Not deeply, but a visible cut that drew blood.
Thra'kara countered with her right hand and hit Cait while her left arm was still held up protecting her neck.
A right-handed hook this time rather than a jab, coming from the side fast enough that Cait only half-caught it on her raised shorter sword, the impact drove her arm back into her own shoulder. She went sideways three steps and then took a step back to reset.
They came together again.
Thra'kara's punches came in combinations and sequences now, each punch following the last before Cait had fully dealt with the previous.
Cait moved and twisted through them, she deflected and redirected punches with her shorter sword while the longer one swung for openings and caused Thra’kara to block and redirect herself. Cait's long sword found the side, a gap between two scale formations just below Thra'kara's ribs. A deep hit, the sound of the impact rang out again on contact before sliding into the flesh beneath.
Thra'kara bled from her side.
She hit Cait in the side of the stomach with a hook from her left fist.
The force of it sent Cait back. Not stumbling, but properly back several steps, the hit reminded everyone how much was behind Thra'kara's punches.
Cait quickly reset herself. Her breathing was slightly harder now. She adjusted her grip on the shorter sword and let the longer sword roll through her fingers, not dropping it just releasing the grip enough to let the weight carry it, the handle passing across the back of her hand before her fingers caught it again on the other side.
She lowered her body and dashed forward.
They went for each other at the same time.
The longer sword came up from below and went across Thra'kara's forearm, ringing out loud with a scraping sound and immediately swept up towards her shoulder, cutting it. Thra'kara's fist came in on the other side simultaneously, catching Cait's own shoulder, and they pushed through each other, ending up standing on opposite sides, separating again with both of them having taken damage from the exchange.
Cait had blood running down her left shoulder and arm.
Thra'kara had three cuts from the longer sword, on her left forearm and shoulder with the third on the side of her upper chest. Still, no cut was slowing her.
They reset again. Both breathing slightly harder. Both watching the other carefully.
Cait took a lower stance again and quickly dashed forward.
Wind-magic came for her the moment she got close to Thra’kara.
Immediately, full and aggressive, a sharp lateral force that hit both of Cait's feet simultaneously and swept them hard to the left. Both feet left the ground—
Cait's left foot came down instantly and she crouched, low and fast, her whole body rotating around that planted foot, the longer sword swinging behind her in the same motion—
It caught Thra'kara across the stomach.
A proper deep cut, a slash, the blade found a gap below the scale coverage, the ring of steel against the scale edges was heard as it passed through. Thra'kara's breath caught.
Cait stood up, instantly got into a stance, dashed in with her sword swinging, but she wasn't ready for it.
Thra’kara used her wind-magic again, and it came from both sides.
Two simultaneous forces converging, pushing Cait’s feet together, and her stance collapsed inward.
And Thra'kara's punch landed clean. The Dragon-kin had raised her right hand slightly behind her shoulder the moment she cast the wind magic, then threw it down right after.
A punch with her full force. And it caught Cait square in the chest. The sound of it was the loudest thing that had happened in the courtyard today.
Cait went far.
She hit the ground rolling, not stumbling but roughly rolling away on the ground for several feet. Cait quickly caught herself and rolled with the momentum, she converted it and came up at the end of the roll in a low stance with both swords still in hand and eyes on Thra'kara immediately.
She was breathing harder now.
There was a short moment of complete stillness, neither of them going for the other.
Thra'kara rolled her shoulders, smirking. Cait planted herself firmly on the ground, and smirked back at the Dragon-kin.
Cait then took one deep breath. Then went lower. Her back foot slid slightly behind her, pushing against the courtyard dirt, weight shifting forward. The stance of someone about to launch themself into a sprint.
A faint shimmer appeared.
It was barely visible, a reddish shimmer to the air immediately around her body, like heat rising from hot stone, lasting only a moment before it was gone. But it was there.
And Thra'kara saw it.
Her eyes narrowed. Her stance dropped. She visibly readied and braced herself. Her burning red eyes sharpened, her scales caught the light as she shifted her weight. Something in her posture acknowledged that whatever that shimmer meant, it required her full, undivided attention.
Cait came in.
With speed that was different. She wasn't just fast, and it wasn’t a sprint, more like she launched herself, it looked like she’d been shot out of a cannon, it was the kind of fast that made the previous exchanges look like she'd been careful and measured in her approach.
She was across the distance before anyone in the crowd had even realized she’d moved, her swords already coming down, Thra'kara caught the longer sword on her raised forearm, the ring of it louder than before, and blocked the shorter sword on the back of her other hand. She pushed the longer sword off her forearm immediately and threw a counter with her bleeding arm which Cait ducked under with a speed that drew a sharp breath from somewhere in the watching crowd. As Cait ducked she swung the longer sword low. Thra’kara drew in her stomach and took a quick step back, and the tip of Cait's blade just barely managed to scratch the scales.
Cait then kept swinging while Thra’kara took more steps back. Thra'kara kept casting her wind magic to disrupt Cait, but Cait always just regained her balance somehow or reset too fast for it to work against her.
Thra'kara was keeping up. Barely.
Her reactions were fast enough to block, dodge or redirect most of what was coming, and her physical power was still present, threatening Cait, but she was reacting now rather than acting, defending and countering rather than attacking and taking any initiative.
She was also bleeding from four places, her left forearm which always had to block the longer sword coming for her neck was bleeding profusely.
Cait took a punch to the shoulder that rocked her and answered with the longer sword across Thra'kara's left forearm, and the ring of it was barely there anymore, the Dragon-kin had been cut and slashed so many times across that forearm most of the scales appeared to have been split or broken.
Thra’kara made a quick decision to abandon defense and took an unexpected stance and went in low, throwing quick but powerful jabs aimed at Cait’s arms and body.
Cait answered by twisting her body and shoulders and managed to completely dodge the jabs or just get grazed by them. And as she twisted her body she struck with her longer sword across Thra’kara’s ribs, and another at her legs.
Thra'kara visibly made another decision.
She jumped back a step and her chest expanded. Her chest started glowing red for a second before—
Dragonfire spewed out from her mouth. She breathed it out wide and it spread fast, she used her wind-magic, amplifying it immediately into a wall of deep red dragonfire that swept outward in a large cone in front of her. It forced Cait to jump back, the intense heat of it reaching across the courtyard immediately. Dragonfire could easily reach temperatures over twice as high as regular fire, and often times even far higher.
The smell of it hit Elayna from where she was standing.
Standing.
She didn't remember standing up.
Cait jumped back from the fire wall, the edge of it catching her uniform and singeing the fabric, Cait landed already preparing for what would come next—
The fire immediately pulled together before she had landed.
Thra'kara compressed and focused the fire. The wind drew it inward from the wall into a narrow stream, intensely concentrated and Thra'kara breathed it forward pushing it with her wind-magic.
The dragonfire laser crossed the courtyard.
A line of deep red fire about two feet wide at its diameter, perfectly straight. It moved fast and where it passed the ground beneath it scorched instantly, a black line burned into the dirt and grass that trailed beneath it like a scar.
"—!!!"
The sound came out of Elayna before she'd processed making it. Small and scared and completely involuntary.
Cait dashed to the side in response.
The laser followed her, Thra'kara swung and aimed it toward where Cait was going but Cait ran fast and got ahead of it, fast enough to stay just clear of the edge, the heat of it catching her side—
Thra'kara adjusted again. Swung the stream further forward, leading in front of Cait.
Cait jumped backwards.
She arched. Her whole body curving back as she left the ground with the laser passing directly beneath her, close enough that it lit the underside of her uniform, then she landed already in motion, already driving toward Thra'kara before she'd fully touched down on the ground.
The distance between them collapsed, Cait was in a full dash that immediately turned into an insanely fast sprint.
A faint red shimmer enveloped Cait's left hand for a second before it drew back and then snapped violently forward as she released the shorter sword.
It left her fingers at an insane speed, spinning end over end straight at Thra'kara's face aimed for the eye, fast and precise and impossible to ignore—
Thra'kara's head snapped quickly to avoid it.
After she’d dodged the thrown sword and whipped her vision back she saw Cait had already closed in considerably, a fraction of a second from being within her reach.
Thra’kara reacted instantly and did a full rotation of her body and swung her tail.
Fast. Extremely fast, not a casual sweep while standing like she’d done against Zett, but a full committed swipe as she turned her whole body and weight with it. The spiked length sweeping wide with all of the Dragon-kin's strength behind it, the kind of hit that would have ended the fight immediately if it landed. The kind of attack that would bisect normal people.
Cait left the ground.
She dove over it side-ways, the tail passing beneath her, and in the air with nothing under her feet and the longer sword in her right hand, Caitlynn spun mid-air.
Elayna felt the world slow down as she watched everything.
The momentum carried her around and Cait raised her right hand close to her body, then extended her arm forward while she was still spinning, still in the air. Then a second mid-air rotation carried the blade further, the point of the sword coming forward with everything the spin had generated behind it and thrust—
She landed.
Or she had almost landed. The thrust came just before her feet touched the ground. The longer sword drove forward in the last moment of the spin, while Cait was still in the air, and it found the gap.
Between the scales. Below the left collarbone. Directly piercing through.
The heart, Cait's sword was just next to Thra'kara's heart.
The sound of the pierce was different from everything before it. Not a ring. Not a scrape. Just straight through the flesh. Clean and deep and final.
Thra'kara went very still.
She looked down at the blade. Then at Cait who was looking down at the grass, she on the ground in almost a crouch with both feet planted, sword arm extended far with her body and shoulder stretching with it.
Thra’kara’s hand came up slowly and closed around the blade.
She smiled. And pulled.
One inch. The sword moved one inch.
"If you pull another inch," Cait said, voice completely calm. She looked up at Thra'kara from her crouch with a wide smile that was anything but calm, "I'll show you my offensive magic." A pause. "Only. You won't get to see it before your heart gets blown up." She added, with a full-blown smile of sharp canines and teeth accompanied by black-holed eyes.
Thra'kara looked at her.
Her red, draconic irises were wide bright, reading Cait's face with the direct and honest judgement of someone deciding if a statement was true.
She found what she was looking for.
She coughed.
Blood, and not a little. A lot. Violently forced up from somewhere deep within her body. The sound of a body dealing with some serious interior damage. She looked at the blood with the mild interest of someone seeing something a bit unexpected.
Then she laughed, loudly.
“HAAH!!!— AHHAHA! Well SHIT! Looks like I got completely fucked!”
She gave Cait another wide smile that for some reason looked to be very satisfied.
"You win." She added with another slight cough of blood.
She released the sword.
Cait pulled it free.
The healing enchantment activated immediately. Thra'kara's hand went up to her chest as the wound began to close.
Thra'kara looked up at Cait.
"Hah! You’re one strong bitch! We’ll fight each other a lot in the future!" she said with a wide smile and an extremely pleased expression.
Cait shrugged both her shoulder. "Works for me," she agreed, with a small smile.
Thra'kara walked back to her rock. Sat down roughly. Closed her eyes. Chuckled to herself and seemed to be at peace with the world within four seconds.
The courtyard was very loud for a moment.
Elayna stood where she was standing. She still hadn't processed when she'd stood up with her hands balled at her sides. Her heart was doing something complicated, pounding hard and her face very warm from several things simultaneously.
She looked at Cait across the courtyard.
Cait was standing with the longer sword at her side, the shorter one back in her hand and already spinning. Her uniform was singed at the shoulder and the side. She had cuts on her arm and her lip. She looked completely unbothered by all of it, going by the care-free smile on her face.
She turned around and found Elayna's eyes.
The smirk arrived.
Elayna looked at the ground. Felt her face get warmer. Felt her hands unball.
She's so strong, she thought, with complicated feelings... She's extremely strong...
She sat back down against the rock and tried to look like she'd been sitting there the whole time. Not hearing the other students excited whispers of awe and shock at the fight, her own thoughts too loud.
When the courtyard had silenced down, Karzen nodded his head twice with a satisfied expression. Then quickly continued and moved through the remaining pairings with the same casual efficiency as before.
"Ael'aendir," he said, " and Nyx."
Ael’aendir, who was apparently the Sun-Elf, was already walking.
He crossed the courtyard completely calm, with no change in expression and no visible preparation for the fight. Katana at his hip and those completely yellow eyes pointed forward. He found the open space in front of Nyx and stopped.
His back foot swept back against the courtyard grass. In a slow and clean movement, settling his weight into a stance with his body low and leaning forward while he gripped one hand on the handle of the katana. Then he was completely still.
That was all the preparation he gave.
Nyx stood across from him. Her black eyes gave nothing away. But her fingers were moving slightly at her sides, hinting at her nervousness from standing in front of someone so tall and intimidating.
Elayna felt her own back go straight and stiff from the way the previously calm and unbothered Sun-Elf immediately went into an extremely intense combat stance. He barely moved, but Elayna thought his calm stillness to be oddly terrifying .
Karzen watched between Ael’aendir and Nyx for a moment.
"Begin." He then said.
Ael'aendir's katana immediately came out.
One, instant motion. The blade sweeping forward in a single clean diagonal arc. Fire came with it that was nothing like Thra'kara's. Not wide or spreading, not a concentrated stream. But a tunnel, a wide and perfectly contained cylinder of bright, deep orange fire moving with intensity. It filled the path between them completely, and quickly, moving towards Nyx like a coiling serpent.
Nyx blur-stepped.
She was gone one moment, and then she stood three feet to the left of the fire-tunnel, already clear, the fire passing through empty space where she'd been. Her movement magic was as fast and effective as always. Always managing to completely dodge whatever was aimed at her—
Ael'aendir was already there.
Not moving or dashing toward her. Already there. The katana, just like the Eun-Elf, also already there. The tip of it at Nyx’s throat.
Nyx went very still.
She looked at the blade. Then at the face behind it, saw those completely still yellow eyes, flat and unreadable looking back at her with the same composed intensity they'd had since he walked in. Like this had always been the only conclusion the fight could ever come to and he had now simply demonstrated it, showed it to her.
Nyx went completely still, the blade at her throat was still there. And she felt a bead sweat running down her face, not from the heat of the fire.
"I-I yield," she said.
He still said nothing. He only lowered the blade and hilted it in its sheathe. Then he simply stepped back and straightened himself. He turned around and returned to the edge of the courtyard with complete silence.
The courtyard reacted.
Not all at once but in waves, the way a crowd processed something that had happened too fast to fully comprehend. Voices started low at first, then louder, the noise of people instantly turning to whoever was beside them with the same expression and said:
“When did he—”
“How did he know where—”
Kiri appeared beside Elayna.
Her pale eyes were watching Ael'aendir at the edge of the courtyard with calm, but very focused attention.
"He knew. He was already there, where Nyx would be," Elayna said. Not quite a question.
"Yes," Kiri said with a small nod.
Elayna frowned, "... But how?"
Kiri was quiet for a moment.
"I’m not sure. I’ve watched Nyx do that move several times, but I can never read where she will be." Kiri said with a calm and unexpressive tone, but which was, from Kiri, an extremely long answer.
Elayna looked at Ael'aendir standing at the edge of the courtyard. At the completely yellow eyes that weren't looking at anything specific. At the composed intensity that hadn't shifted or cracked since he'd arrived. Not before the fight, not during it and not after it. Like the outcome of the fight had simply been an expected thing that had now, just simply happened and obviously required no reaction from him.
This was nothing like the nervous excitement of watching Cait fight. Not the awe of watching Thra'kara dismantle Zett. Not the surprise from watching the completely average-looking Eiric be one of the top three. This was something quiet and more unsettling than those feelings. Elayna thought this was the feeling of watching someone that had already thought much further — no, was much further ahead than everyone else around him.
She felt something she could only describe as a feeling of genuine and true, deep awe that bordered intimidation.
He's extremely powerful, she thought simply. And also extremely frightening.
"...Kiri," she said, still staring at the Sun-Elf.
"Hm?"
"Is he... Is he the strongest one? Of the three, I mean?"
Kiri considered this for a moment.
"Not sure... Probably," she said.
Elayna looked at him for a long moment.
"I need to train harder," she said out loud.
"Hm," Kiri said, with the small forward tilt.