...And Blood Shall Hunt For Blood [Kuro_Bara x Ryees]

RE: ...And Blood Shall Hunt For Blood (Kuro_Bara x Ryees)

Thyra let out a wild scream full of fear and exhilaration at the sensation of plummeting. Her tiny frame clung to his and his wings wrapped tightly about her. Her scream quickly turned to cries of excitement and laughter and small screeches of surprise when he rapidly change direction or speed. She could barely hear him speak over the wind whipping about them but she could sense his emotions and words were really not needed. She kept her arms tightly wrapped around his neck, nestled between his wings as he glided over the land, occasionally pressing her face between his shoulder blades for the simple pleasure of it. Her delighted laughter bubbled up again as they soared toward home. It was the most incredible feeling she had ever experienced.

It seemed like all the terrible things that happened faded away, the wind pulling it away from her heart and mind and leaving only the amazing feelings Daear had created with this small gesture. She had a profound understanding now why Eyriens would rather die than loose their wings. To have this taken away...her heart twisted at the brief mental image of Daear without his wings. She would make sure that never happened to him...or to any of the Eyriens in this valley ever again...She may have not realized it but she was already accepting her fate as a Queen. Already feeling a connection to the land and people here and it made her feel stronger.

Blood for miles around would start to sense a change in the land, would start to sense her and many would probably begin to approach. They would be drawn as Daear was drawn to see the new Queen, some of them may very well be the first part of Thyra's first 12. For now she was content to snuggle between Daear's shoulders, the gentle sway of his body, his scent making her feel safe. It didn't take long before she actually drifted to sleep there.

RE: ...And Blood Shall Hunt For Blood (Kuro_Bara x Ryees)

Daear's thoughts wandered aimlessly as they lazily drifted circles around the spires of the eyrie. He felt Thyra press her face against his back, felt her drift lazily off to sleep, and felt his heart stir anew at the adoration at just how bloody cute the girl was. It astounded him that she could be so endearing, so genuine, and yet so powerful and dangerous at the same time. Never before had he met someone to whom his heart sang like hers, the song of the Blood, the song of a passion and need that went far beyond the moral definition of love. This was a love based around not just feelings, but the pure and powerful force of need, the need for something to hold on to, for light in the darkness. She was his light, the flame to which his mothen wings would gather. Sweet like honey, sultry like a moonlit night, Thyra had filled a void he had never known needed filling.

Their future was strange, he knew. The route their journey would take would be undoubtedly crammed to the brim with hardship and trial, likely attempting to tear them asunder from the get-go. It was inevitable, he knew, that their travels together would cross paths with those who hunted her, who likely now hunted him. Perhaps displaying his Ebon Gray at the institution had been unwise, but there was no erasing what was done, and he had acted on impulse. He idly wondered if he had known before he entered the room of what had lay beyond those doors, if he had some subconscious inkling of who exactly it was that he was saving.

Finally, Daear's wings started to tire. He let gravity start to take hold again, angling their slow, spiraling descent to land just a few feet where they had launched from the mountain. As he landed, he braced Thrya with a delicate shield, doing his best not to jostle her. While it proved impossible to shift her to his front without waking her up, it was a simple enough task to brush her mind with his, urging her back to sleep, once she was in his arms. He took her through the doors to the Eyrie, made the quick flight up to his room, and led her inside.

The wide expanse of his home was a blur to him now, the balcony doors allowing for the fading rays of the sun to light the room well enough to see by without torchlight. He made straight for the bedroom, suddenly exhausted beyond words. The strain of the day, physical, mental, and emotional, had finally crashed home, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep—almost nothing more, anyway, but he quashed that thought again, intent on keeping it down until the time came. Daear carried his queen through the door to his bedroom, laid her down, and wriggled into bed with her, folding his wings tight against his back and pulling her tight against his chest. The lullaby that drifted from his lips was in a language he did not recognize; perhaps an ancient one, locked away in his memory, or perhaps a version of the common distorted by his sleepless mind. But the melody was there, and it echoed through the silence of the eyrie as their consciousness faded alongside the last beams of sunlight.

Thyra's eyes lazily drifted open to the murky darkness of midnight. The soft sound of breathing beside her would normally be a cause for alarm but the comfort and warmth she felt entirely cancelled out any fear she may have had. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she could see Daear, hair tousled by sleep and his arms stretched towards her where she had presumably been when they went to bed in the first place. She smiled softly at the Eyrien and stretched gently, wincing when her muscles gave a small protest at the movement.

Evidently her adventures from the day before were taking their toll. She could feel bruises all over her body and as she slowly became more alert, a deep ache began to settle in. Carefully sliding out of the bed, she placed her feet on the stone floor and bit back a yelp. The air was cool, the floor was frigid. Shivering as the cold seeped up her legs, the young queen wandered from the room and out into the hall. Her stomach gave a soft rumble, reminding her she had not eaten in some time either. Sighing irritably she eventually managed to find the kitchen. Moonlight streamed in the tiny glass windows and pulled on the floor like spots of ice.

With a jaw cracking yawn, she paused in the doorway. Letting her eyes readjust to partial light. As she stepped forward, the barest flicker of shadow to her left was the only warning she had before an arm swung towards her. The exhaustion and achy muscles did little to aid in dodging but somehow she managed to drop to the floor and roll away. Thyra scrambled to her feet and pressed her back to the wall, trying to call a ball of light with her craft to expose the attacker. She let out a growl of frustration, she couldn't even manage that simple task as panic welled up in her chest.

The panic grew to icy fear as a second and third shadow joined the first. None of them spoke, they simply advanced on the frightened girl like she was a cornered animal and much like a cornered animal she lashed out with all the fear and hatred that had been pent up for the last 24 hours. A burst of energy exploded outward from her knocking the three men back and shaking the Eyrie to its foundation with a resounding boom. Darting past them she dashed down the hall trying desperately to remember where the bedroom was and all the while never thinking to simply call for Daear on the psychic thread.

The men would give no quarter, advancing on him like wild animals on the hunt. Flashing swords danced dangerously close to his skin as the pair of swordsmen pressed, barely held at bay by his whirling spear. It was all he could do to hold them off, for their strange style of fighting was so foreign to him that he could barely read their movements until they had already happened. Predictions out the window, Daear was forced into purely reactive combat. His body and mind were growing inexplicably weary. His blocks began to soften. Strikes came closer and closer to his skin with each passing second. And when the world suddenly rumbled around him...

Daearmuid sat bolt upright in bed, a thin sheen of sweat covering his face and sticking his tunic to his body. Events from the last day and a half flooded back to him in a wave of recognition, and emotions hit him all at once as panic, relief, hate, adoration, and contentment whisked through his mind in rapid-fire succession. He settled into contentment as he cast his gaze to the bed next to him, laying on hand on Thyra's...

The present came to him now, registering that the shaking hadn't been in his dream, and that there were a number of presences below him that he didn't recognize. And with them was Thyra. A panicked Thyra.

He barely had the presence of mind to open the door as he rocketed through the doorway and into the open space in the center of the eyrie, scouring the familiar halls with his mind for only a moment before finding them in the halls outside the kitchen. He fell freely for the bare three seconds it took to reach that floor, then spread his wings and leveled off; the halls were a blur as he launched down them, quickly coming into view of the men who had infiltrated the eyrie. And Thyra, beyond them, running.

Daear was determined to first put himself between them, and the most direct path to that end was through them. His wings folded tight to his back to decrease the drag of the Red burst that propelled him through the hallway, rolling along his axis and releasing a cloud of energy as he came upon them. The psychic spiral shoved them aside into the walls, and he flared his wings, coming to a sudden stop and spinning to face them with a feral snarl. Thyra was behind him, now, and they were in front where he could see them. Daear's spear was held laterally, barring the hallway to all who would oppose him, and all who would harm Thyra.

In a voice like liquid thunder, he quietly, calmly murmured a short phrase that shook the eyrie to its core once more.

Any normal person with common sense would have shuddered with dread at the sense of fury thundering through the halls as Daear streaked towards Thyra. The men that were chasing her while concerned did not seem overly threatened by his appearance or surprised though they all gave loud grunts of pain when shoved into the stone walls of the eyrie. Thyra was immediately overcome by a sense of calm as he arrived, as well as...embrassement? Yes...embrassement that she hadn't thought to call for help instantly. It was really going to take some getting used to...knowing there would always be someone there to protect and shelter her. The thought left a warm knot in her chest and made it much easier to reign in her rampant panic. With Daear around she did not have to fear hunters or attackers like these.

She stood behind her knight, and stared icily at the men as they recovered from his burst of energy through the hall. They faced him warily and made no move to remove themselves from the eyrie. Her eyes narrowed as she watched them. It was clear they had been expecting him, or at the very least a strong warlord prince. This group was exceedingly well informed and that did not bode well for Thyra or Daearmuid. She reached out and touched his back, letting him know without words that she was unharmed. He would know that she wasn't okay in the emotional sense, she was shaken but she was not hurt.

Thyra stepped closer, standing behind his raised spear where she could fix her emerald eyes on the three men. She carefully searched each face before turning her eyes up to Daear. "We only need one of them." She stated with a cold, blank expression and just loud enough for them all to hear. The hallway was becoming subtly colder, she could see the would be kidnappers starting to shiver and small yet terrifying smile spread across her lips. Somehow this look from her affected them more than the Warlord Princes' dominating presence. One man actually stepped back and her stare riveted to him. "That one." She murmured, indicating to leave him alive so they could question him. Thyra had no doubt that Daear could inflict a great deal of pain and still leave him alive and coherent enough to answer his questions.

The icy chill spreading through the hallway set Daear's teeth on edge; the only other time he had felt a cold like this descend upon him was during a run in with the Sadist in Chaillot, and though Thyra didn't hold the same reverent fear within her body that Daemon Sadi did, the fact that she descended into such a similar state of cold fury was enough to raise goosebumps on his skin—though in that exact moment, he could not have properly answered whether they were from fear, anticipation, or arousal.

Finally, he was told exactly what his Queen's wishes were. Only one. And that one. Daear marked the psychic scent in his mind, for he was rapidly becoming uncertain that his bodily senses would stand up to the heated focus burning in his mind.

For all relativity's sake, time might have stood still in the moment Daear moved, a massive burst of Red energy heaving him forward in a blur. At that speed and with his spear outstretched, the center of the three assailants stood no chance; Daearmuid's spear pounded through his chest cavity, crushing ribs and organs with uncaring imprecision as Daear followed through, crashing his shoulder into the man and tossing him backwards off the spear to flop into a curdling puddle on the ground. The spear had impaled his heart, shredded the organ like paper.

It took them by surprise, but the other two men wasted no time in turning in on their attacker, swords flashing in the dim light of the hallway. Daear had turned them around again, and their advancing attack pushed him farther and farther away from Thyra with every iteration, just as Daear had intended.

His plans enacted, though, he was left to fight the pair of them alone. In the narrowness of the hallway, their nimble swords were easily advantaged over his spear in mobility, but they were unable to control the terms of engagement lest they take the spear's point to the chest. And so did their little dance begin, darting in and out around the flashing point of the spear as they advanced and retreated in cycle to attempt to create an opening to advance past the dangerous part of the weapon. Daear grit his teeth, feeling the darkness of the men's Jewels and knowing that the charade wouldn't continue for long, understanding by their footwork, swordplay, and mental fortitude that these two, while lesser than he, were trained, and likely deadly.

And finally, they found the opening they had been waiting for as a short thrust of Daear's spear was caught with the tip of a sword and pitched aside into the wall, clattering off the stone and bouncing out of their way by one man as the other darted forward, blade flashing. A spike of Red from Daear's Jewels slammed him aside, but his partner was quickly following up, and too close. The flashing sword bit into Daear's left shoulder as he twisted aside to dodge it as best he could, drawing blood and arcing a decidedly annoying pain through Daear's side.

Trying to regain leverage, Daear hastily vanished the spear and replaced it with the light, curving blade he kept on hand when his spear proved too unwieldy or cumbersome. It wasn't as much his home as the long-hafted lance, but his training with Osgarre had given Daearmuid an appreciation for the deadly grace with which the weapon could be wielded, and that was enough to put him at home with it.

Thyra fell hopelessly useless as she watched the battle unfold, though she maintained a chilling outward calm that she hoped intimidated her would be attackers. Her eyes followed Daear's every move, and it was a fight to keep herself calm each time a sword darted too close to the Prince. The young queen was able to remain in control and calm up until the sword bit into Daearmuid's shoulder. Her mind went deadly still and she could see only the blood dripping down his bare shoulder. That deep hue seemed to spread over her vision and she stepped forward, bending to pick up the discarded spear.

The men were so busy trying to cut through Daear that neither noticed the small girl slip around the winged Eyrien. Thyra looked less like the young woman she was and more like the visage of a Cildru Dyathe. The coolness of the hall took on a deadly edge as she gracefully slipped forward, somehow dodging all three blades as they clashed inches from her. Using the spear she casually drove it into the stomach of one of the men, his own weight as he doubled over pushing the weapon deeper. Thyra let go of the shaft and stepped back, coldly watching the man crumple to his knees.

The second fighter, despite being a trained warrior paused for just a fraction too long. His eyes staring disbelievingly at Thyra. It was all the opening Daear needed to end the encounter.