“Hello, orc.” Alex addressed the massive 'greenskin' next to her. Less the color of leaves and more of a sea-foam green with flecks of gray, really, all orc tribes had a different shade to their hide. Jura was as green as moss or leaves on a tree, but Kul's skin tone was more dull and subdued. Most of his kin, that of the Broken Blade, were gray like him.
“Hello, Oppressor,” He growled back at her, but unlike before there was no threat of violence in his tone. He and his kin had sworn conditional brotherhood to them all, and this was sacred. Everything they did seemed 'sacred' to them, especially their daily ritual of rising early and dousing themselves in oil that they scraped off themselves with blades. Ensuring their whole body was hairless but for the beards and what hair on their heads that they chose to wear. “I am told we are to be witness to a great showing today.”
“I'm not sure how much of a show it could be,” Alex looked skyward, the pair were so high that she couldn't see them anymore in their nest above the clouds. Borne aloft by a glassy, near imperceptible disc of solid air, strange and powerful magic. “By my calculation they are falling from about forty thousand feet. At free fall, giving time to reach terminal velocity, I can't imagine it'd take more than two minutes to reach the ground.” Duels could be fast in some cases, but this wasn't a duel to first blood, it was a duel to incapacitation or, as barbaric as it sounded, which one was able to 'mount' the other in coital context, it was vile. Both parties had risen skyward in nothing but tight fitting suits, unarmored and possessing no enchantments by which to offer any sort of protection. She knew alfen were likely fairly strong, but even so – Tyr had the obvious advantage. He'd come so far, a force of nature that seemed to only lose on a whim, because in those moment he didn't want to win, his pride was what it was but these defeats seemed part of a scheme. Tyr could not be beaten at anything, she'd come to understand that after their own duel – he'd simply given up after a time. Knowing him through the ambiguous thread of the soulbond communicated the depths within, and those were abyssal. “Even so... It is a strange custom.”
“All things must look strange to your people,” Kul commented, but he wasn't accusing her of anything – merely observing. “The powers that be have ensured that you rule all of the lands and the petty nuance between your various kin and societies must strike you with wonder. That is what you are, a species bereft of the concept of wonder, having destroyed so many sources of what was once so common in this world.”
“I suppose so,” Alex didn't disagree, watching the clouds burst apart and two flea sized figures high in the sky come spiraling downward in a rain of sparks and soundless expulsions of energy. But it wasn't quite a free fall, making the name 'skydance' more appropriate in her mind than before. They were spinning wildly through the atmosphere, falling far slower than they should.
Aram seemed to walk through the air gracefully. Whereas Tyr fired off violent gouts of fire to throw him back and up into the sky. Slamming against her with all of his might. Falling straight toward the city of Amistad, borne south again by necessity and order of the primus. Better to not let a man shaped meteor fall somewhere where people lived, they supposed. Or perhaps there was more to it than that, there always seemed to be, in this world where even a woman like her seemed like an ant in comparison to those who wrote the rules.
–
Tyr could say he was afraid of heights, but there were layers to everything and everyone. It was a simple thing to claim that one was or was not fearful of high elevations regardless, and another to stand there on an invisible sheet of glass. Hard air, so dense it felt solid but was completely invisible to the naked eye. Staring down at the ground, so high that even mighty Amistad appeared no larger than an apple in his hand. Forty thousand feet she said, because eight was their sacred number and eighty thousand was obviously problematic. Even at this height, even with his superhuman physiology...
“I can barely breathe up here.” The air was so thin and the pressure so low that he could feel the burning in his eyes as his capillaries popped and his lungs strained far beyond the norm to sustain him. The oxygen so thin that he felt like he was going to pop at any moment. Despite not needing to breathe in so literal a fashion as expanding his lungs, the human part of him pushed that instinct down and held tight.. “Who came up with this, anyways...?”
“The ones we call our betters, the only race with the right to call themselves better than anything. This is how they couple and breed every eight decades. Among the clouds and the sky I have borne witness to their rituals and if you had, you'd surely find our interpretation lacking – but it is symbolic and that is all.” Eve replied, even she looked drained, though surely not as much as Tyr. He could barely think, it wasn't the lack of oxygen necessarily but rather his brain being confused by things that it thought it needed.
He'd tried it before, he could breathe water just fine, and hold his breathe indefinitely without experiencing any pain. But his once human body still had its instinct and acted as if it did, he'd never trained for the pressure differential. Sending his normally stilled heart into wild and panicked palpitations, there was no fixing it in the short term.
“I'd like to fall now.” Tyr coughed, finding blood on his hand when he pulled it away. It was so cold up here that the shards of crimson froze as soon as they'd left his mouth, melting again on his unnaturally warm palm. They were bare of any armor, wearing suits of scaly hide with no apparent purpose other than to serve as clothing. No magic, no spira, no different than a very thin and very worthless one-piece bathing suit. Tough, though, whatever skin it was made out of had an impressive elasticity combined with a bizarrely high tensile strength. Flexible and airy, like a second skin, but he doubted any common arrow could pierce a suit such as this.
Eve examined him critically, smiling but unable to remove the obvious discomfort from her face. “All in due time. First, you must share with me why you wish to be bonded, and by what claim you consider to be a worthy match to me. I will go first. My claim is by right of bloodline, and my drive is also related to a bloodline – yours, obviously. My interest is in your future deeds, to bring me many battles and experiences. To ignite my passions and show me what it is that I want out of this life of mine. Now it is your turn.”
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“To say what...?” Tyr frowned. “I have no interest in you at all, nor do I wish to be married. We've already discussed this.”
“But not here.” She replied. “Not here amidst the sky and clouds. There must be one thing about me that interests you. My people are well aware of the enchanting effect we have on males. In fact, you are the only man I've ever made close contact with that didn't go mad in the process and try to pounce on me, or kill himself. The lust is too much for them, another reason why we do not commune with your kind so commonly.”
“...Lust?” Tyr raised an eyebrow again, one of his few characteristic facial expressions. “I'll admit that you've got a nice body especially at the ass, but why would you madden me with lust? You look... Again, very attractive, but within the realm of possibility for a human.”
“Interesting.” She laughed, coughing as well, though her blood was a blue-black. They were connected now and the bond grew by the second, this dialogue was only necessary due to custom. Alfen bodies were far more efficient in the way they distributed resources and her body was sucking all of the oxygen out of the hemoglobin in the veins. Chemically similar to a member of mankind, and highly basic – compared to Tyr who had apparently possessed acidic blood enough to give Tiber an ulcer. Human bodies, of which he still had a close approximate, could labor but were far from perfect despite their various processes, alfen bodies were just better. Incredibly versatile and well adapted to changes in environment. They were, in essence, born to be incredible in all things, and that had ultimately become their weakness – they rarely struggled and thus they progressed far slower than any other race Tyr was familiar with. “We alfen are not so separated from the origin of your kind, we might even be divergent species, long ago. Our race is one of the wilds, and getting away from this lineage is not so easy. We are lust, we make most living humanoids wild with all manner of sin with but a word, a touch, a smell. Your resistance to this is very interesting, but it makes sense. I thank you for your compliment, though it is vain. More vain than I'd thought someone like you to be, the more I look the more I see your lusts despite your claim of having none.”
“Vanity is necessary. Handsome people make for better leaders, people will always follow a beautiful person before they will an ugly one. Beauty and grace inspire confidence, devotion, and faith like nothing else. My father told me this once, and I have seen this repeat itself time and time again. I am a murderer, a butcher and a monster, but so often I have looked into the eyes of a man and been forgiven for nothing more than how I look. Vain? Absolutely. All primus' are beautiful in their own way, and this is a part of their power.”
Vain towards a purpose, Jartor had said. Beauty alone could conquer cities and end dynasties, that's how the minds of men worked. Whether they be male of female or otherwise, they wanted things and that was a significant part of biological compulsion. To breed beautiful heirs, to see perfection on the face of a general or great warrior. The only success Tyr had ever been, in his fathers eyes, was being beautiful from his first day. Scars and blemishes aside, he knew exactly how 'enchanting' he was capable of being – enough to shake the hearts of others and turn hate and fear into love and loyalty. Sometimes.
“It makes sense.” Eve must've considered this some sort of divine revelation, nodding wistfully off into the sky in consideration of the claim. Beauty was so incredibly important, even in the more basic aspects of nature. Flowers and other plants evolved to be beautiful in consideration of sapient beings so that they might be cultivated by more hands than just those in the wind and the earth. “Do you think that--”
Unfortunately she wouldn't get to finish. Alfen weren't just good at processing oxygen in their body, but practically all other things too. The pane of glass they'd stood on vanished, and her smiling visage became a warped mask of psychotic violence. She was on him like a lion on a wounded gazelle. Blurring through the air and viciously beating his face with alternating strikes of her fists, power beyond what her slender arms would suggest. The first thing Tyr noticed was how fast she was, the strikes were much stronger than a humans, but the speed was far more notable. Five seconds passed and she'd struck him with sixteen full wind-ups of her arms. No mana, no spira, just natural physical ability born of great cultivation of the latter.
Then again, he wasn't defenseless. While surprising, that twist in her demeanor, he had his pride and his respect for the opposite sex. Some might balk at the brutality, but it took him no time at all to propel himself through the sky, coiling his arms around her torso and slamming his head into the bridge of her nose. Once, twice, thrice, her blood spraying in all directions as she snarled and grunted back at him like some kind of beast. There were no more words, none of that sweet and pleasant voice, simple snarls of wild emotion. Eyes that looked ready to kill and teeth that tore out his throat while he attempted to constrict her with his superior wingspan. Eve's arms were like steel, her ligaments coiled springs made for the rip and tear. It was with great surprise that he realized how much stronger than him she actually was.
Even him, near the peak of humanity and a match for a hero, was made a fool by this alfen woman. And to exacerbate his aggravation, she spoke.
“Give me more!” Screeched, howled, straight into his face, tearing at him with her nails and flaying him of skin. Top to bottom, she crawled about like a spider and slashed at him from all directions. Clinging to his body and ensuring that every moment of their contact was nothing but pain, hot breath on the back of the neck she was tearing through again. But strength had never been Tyr's greatest talent. Neither was it speed, flexibility, or anything physical, it was his regeneration first, and his magic second – only much later had he realized this. Even if he dug deep and used all of his mana, it wouldn't kill him – allowing him to go far beyond a normal human mage, limits stretched if not broken as long as he could bear the stinging pains. Not to mention his obvious interest in whether her eye would work on his shaper magic or not.
Trying to tear her off physically was an exercise in futility, she was too limber and flexible. But he didn't need to. Instead, he ignited every inch of his body, awed that the leather suit about his frame could keep up with the heat he was generating. Eve was blown away, cartwheeling through the sky in a rag doll as their velocity hit terminal and they careened toward the hard and unyielding ground. Something he was no longer afraid of, all he wanted to do now was return in kind what had been done unto him.
Wrath. He could taste the wrath and wanted to feel it yet more intimately.