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One of the first things Ruyi learned at the Frigus Tribe was how to hurt people. She felt bad doing it, but hurting people here wasn't like hurting people there.

Sometimes she thought folk here liked being punched. Everybody here had a favorite scar and a story of how they got it. They'd be more offended if you didn't fight as hard as you could; it meant you didn’t respect them. The first few matches she came out tepid, pitter-pattering her punches. But once she got thwacked hard in the face a few times, once she got her blood running hot and a dumb grin on her face, she learned to let go.

It was much easier getting going with Darius. When fighting someone like Aelia, when Ruyi clawed at her, she was always a little afraid she might do something she’d regret. But the few times she hit Darius he laughed at her. She wasn't even sure he felt pain. Also, he just had a very punchable face —it was also annoyingly hard to hit, which only made it more punchable.

Every time they fought, he beat her. He kept that same dumb smirk from start to finish. It was hard to tell if he didn't respect her or if he was just being Darius. She kept glaring at him; he kept smirking at her.

Sabina cleared her throat. “Begin!”

He demon-formed. His limbs lengthened, grew sleek and furry, his eyes angular, his paws dotted with claws so small they were almost dainty. He was a snow fox, just as annoyingly beautiful here as in his human form. Somehow his smirk was even smugger like this—his eyes were always laughing at her.

She lunged for him, and he slunk out the way so fast he seemed a trick of light.

If he wasn't so annoying, she might’ve found how he fought beautiful too. He moved so sleekly, so smoothly, it was like he was dancing. His art was the Snowflake Waltz. When he lunged for her, he'd trick her, make her swipe at air, poof away in a swirl of snow-motes, and scratch her up the side of the face, or give her a hard thump behind the ear. He was never there to be hit; he puffed away, made little shimmering mirages, threw up clouds of blinding sleet, and slipped away so smoothly it was like he was skating on a frozen lake, not rocky ground.

Usually he kept slapping her, kept bleeding her out until she keeled over. Usually this took a while. She discovered that her best physical trait, more than strength or speed, the thing that made her who she was, was that she was really good at taking a punch. Darius took to complaining that she had such a thick skull; after each bout with her, he left with sore knuckles. But thick skull or not, after a few hundred hits she started seeing white spots. The world started slurring before her eyes. She never felt the hit that put her out. She just found herself waking up to his dumb smirk.

This time, she swore things would be different. This time, she came with a plan. She chased him for a bit, got a few stinging slaps to the nose and to the flank for her trouble, and stopped cold. He stood some thirty, forty strides out, goading her with his smile, but she didn't reach for him. Instead, she started her art. She stepped and felt the ground shiver beneath her feet. Cold start. She stepped once, twice, thrice, like she was hopping lily pads, and each step the ground shivered a little more. Wisps of essence trailed her steps like hot breaths on a cold morning. She hurtled toward the second stage. Drizzle Steps.

She wasn't going to chase him anymore. If he wasn't coming to her, she'd just keep going. She stepped and stepped and stopped, and the essence coursed over her, clinging to her, rushed through her. Faster, faster, faster!

He wasn't smiling so wide anymore. He hid it well, but she could tell—by the little twitching of his eyes—he was getting nervous. Halfway through Drizzle Steps, he flitted over and blasted a wall of hail in her face. Ice lanced at her cheeks; sheets of snow slapped her up the face, shot up her nose. She could feel it in her head. It knocked her tilting, screaming. But she didn’t go blundering after him; she just bit down, flailed her way to balance, and stepped firmly down.

He was frowning now. It brought her an unreasonable amount of joy. He tried again, dashed real close, so close his nose was a stride from hers, as though to spook her, then he whacked her straight up the nose, so hard she felt something crunch, so hard she felt hot blood gush out. She bit down, swallowed, stepped again, and the ground buckled beneath her. He hit her again, harder, clocked right behind the ear, again on the other side so hard she tasted steel and salt, but she didn't stop; she didn't even block; she just swallowed it. She soaked in the shock on his face. I’ll show you who has a thick skull!

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She knew she couldn't hit him. Not like this; she was too slow, too small. But she could feel herself growing, growing, growing, could see it lighting the air, rippling the ground. She was hurtling along the edge of something dangerous. He could see it, too. Third Stage. Rising Storm.

He came up close and swiped at her, and swiped again, and a third time, but when she slapped at him he stayed there, let her claws rake across his ribs, and answered with a slap up her nose she hardly felt. She was shocked she landed; she didn't believe it at first—not until she saw the red dots bubbling up his pelt. He threw himself at her, ripping wild slashes, but this wasn't him. He was fighting jagged and muscular, like her. It didn’t look good on him. She dug in a part of the side, slapped him with another, took a chunk out of him with her fangs, and he limped away, yelling, bleeding, bruising, panting.

He knew he couldn’t let her finish; she'd gotten him desperate. She had him; she knew she had him, and it thrilled her.

He pursed his lips. It was rather hard to look cool while limping, soaked through, but he still nearly managed it.

“Alright,” his wry smile seemed to say. “So you got me. That hurt. But what does it matter? You can't win if you can't hit me." She’d only gone to Rising Storm once before, and there she was just barely fast enough to keep up with him. She could rake a claw across his back as he fled, maybe graze the side of his head if she got lucky. She'd get in her licks, and she'd burn out, and she'd burst. All he had to do was survive, and they both knew it. But this time she knew something he didn’t.

She held so much cold essence she was burning up with it. Her blood was hot inside, and outside her skin was past freezing. They poured one over another so fast she was dragged to motion. She didn't lunge toward him so much as fall toward him—the way a meteor falls, seething with cold essence, trailing streams of ghostly frost. He dodged and she swerved, and he dodged and she swerved again, crashing, turning, each turn a little closer until she could nearly reach out and seize him. She swiped, swiped again, went spinning over herself, spitting snow, lunged again, caught him mid-air and sent him flopping head-over-heels. He threw up a mirage, she hurdled through it, he tried putting a wall of snow between them but she hardly felt it as she burst through. Whatever he put between them, she tore open.

But she was falling too fast. She was not the avalanche; the avalanche grew bigger than her, took on its own wild life. It was a force of the heavens; it couldn’t be tamed. This was where things always ended. Where she tried desperately to hold on, where it dragged her under. She felt herself tilting.

Everyone kept telling her she had to learn self-control. They told her this so much she believed them. She tried and she tried and she tried, but some things were never meant to be controlled. Some things could only become what they were meant to be when they were set free.

So she let go. 4th stage. Winter's Wrath!

She shot out like floodwaters through a broken dam. So fast her eyes blurred with tears, so fast her heart stuttered. He tried to turn, but she was on him. She didn't even have time to slash. Her body slammed into his and she lost sight of him. She whirled, skidding, sending waves of snow skyward, and found him mid-air, flailing. She was upon him again, and this time she brought up one blindingly fast paw and slapped him out of the sky. Then she was skidding away, a boiling, seething mass of essence, and there was no telling how fast she went. She couldn't stop, she didn’t want to stop, she skidded one wide loop, howling joyfully. She was rumbling so loudly she couldn’t even hear it. She was shaking so bad inside and out she could hardly see.

It was so simple. She was going to fall no matter what. But she could fall on top of him, and that made all the difference.

He'd hardly staggered up when she descended on him, and this time she got her fangs on his pelt, and her claws sank into him, and he jerked as she sent her power into him.

Not all of it. She sensed he was nearly done; she was scared of hurting him too bad. She let some of it burst inside her. They would take it together.

Together they detonated. Her world was one great splotch of soundless, perfect white. She felt him go still.

When the ringing faded and her vision colored in, she stumbled to her feet, hacking badly. Her belly burned white-hot all the way up her throat, like she’d swallowed hot coals. She hardly even heard Fausta yell, "Yield!”

Take enough damage and you were forced back to humanform. Darius sat there on his ass, aura flickering so weakly he hardly felt stronger than larval. Two burned out puncture wounds marred his neck, and his skin was nearly as pale as the snow he sat on. But it was the look on his face that scared her. He stared blankly, blinking. “Well,” he sighed, coughing blood. He licked blue lips. "That sucked."

"Are you okay?" she cried.

"Not really," he sighed. "Physically, I’ll live. But I’m afraid my pride has been horribly wounded. I may never recover."

He got to his feet and smirked. “Lula, you little rascal. I ought to be protecting the monsters from you!" She flushed as he hugged her.