Ruban gripped his sifblade and swung it at his attacker, but Tauheen dodged easily. Leaning back slightly to avoid the blade by mere inches, she threw the Hunter against the nearest wall with enough force to knock the wind out of his lungs. Ruban tried to keep his feet but his knees buckled, unable to hold up his weight. The sifblade fell out of his hand, clattering to the floor with a sound that rung like a death-knell in his ears.
Tauheen fell to her knees beside him, reaching out to touch the side of his face almost gently. “You really are something, aren’t you my boy?” she whispered sweetly in his ear, leaning forward so that her breath brushed his skin. For a moment, his heart stopped at the sight of her eyes – dark with flecks of iridescent silver. He had never seen anything like them.
If Ruban hadn’t been fighting to stay conscious – his head throbbing painfully from where it had hit the wall – he might have laughed at how surreal the situation was.
“You’ve certainly given me more trouble than your life is worth, these last few years. But no hard feelings,” she smiled, wrapping her fingers around his throat, this time hard enough to make him arch up into the air, trying to breathe. She just pressed harder, the serene smile never leaving her lips, relentlessly squeezing the air out of his lungs.
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He almost wished she would get it over with already. He had no doubt that she could kill him with a single flick of her wrist. But she seemed to enjoy drawing it out; almost as though she were making a point.
“I intend to repay all my debts in kind.”
In Ruban’s (admittedly limited) experience, eloquent victory speeches should always be reserved for after your enemy is safely dead. Because while long-winded pre-murder tirades might sound cool on principle, they were never quite worth the sheer awkwardness of having your victim escape at the end of it, thus rendering the whole exercise pointless.
Not that he wasn’t glad Tauheen hadn’t gotten the memo on that one, as Dr. Visht’s large mahogany desk came flying out of nowhere to slam against the Aeriel’s side.
For less than a moment, his assailant lost her balance, her hold on Ruban slipping as she tried to steady herself on her knees. That was all the time Ruban needed. He leapt out from under her, seizing his blade as he rose to his feet and jumping back as far as he could manage without falling out of the gaping hole in the wall. He cursed under his breath, trying not to trip over any of the toppled furniture. To say that he did not like having to fight the bloody Aeriel Queen in a space as confined as this one would be to make the understatement of the century.