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concoursec2010-09-05 11:42 pm
notanobject.livejournal.com) wrote in concoursec2010-09-05 11:42 pm
Entry tags:
Storming Battlefields Alternate Version
Character(s): Oswald (Dreamer) and Gwendolyn (Viewer)
Location: Dream-Battlefield
Rating: PG
Open/Closed/Finished Closed
Summary: Oswald's perspective on that fateful meeting during the first skirmish over the Cauldron.
I have never seen autumn before. Ringford is a green, ever summer country. The leaves rarely fall there. Yet…The similarity between dried leaves and dying Valkyrie is apt. They both tumble from the sky in the same way.
Both are also shockingly fragile. Cleaving through them with the Belderiver is effortless, almost laughably easy. I hardly need to slip into my stronger form. Is this the full force of the mighty Aesir?
And yet-
And yet, they are many, even for something meant to be a surprise attack. I can feel the Belderiver singing as it carves through air, armor, and flesh with equal ease. It seems to glow brighter with each death, and the thrum it makes louder. I can barely hear my own blood hammering in my ears, compared to that. The sound is almost intoxicating, drowning out everything else. The weight of my armor, my arms…I cannot feel any of it now. My body is light and fast, and it doesn't matter that it feels like a sea of Aesir soldiers are trying to kill me.
They still try, but it has no consequence. Their spears and axes are all so slow, and it is the easiest thing in the world to dance and weave between them, and slide the Belderiver in through their gaps. One by one, first slashing and then dying as my world begins to slow and go red, and the idea of anything outside of one foe and the next vanishes.
It's when I tear through a force of six, before they have time to raise their axes, that I realize I'm no longer myself. Black fire tints the edges of my vision, and my eye feels like it's either going to burn itself out or set the entire field ablaze. Neither seem like a bad thing; the fire is in my blood, pushing me onward, carving, cutting, killing so easily that even their strongest warriors last only a heartbeat before they crumble.
"I will face him!"
Another Valkyrie is waiting for me as I turn around, and I find myself shedding the shadows cloaking my body. It's almost like taking a deep breath before diving back in, and I realize how much I need that breath when she rushes me. For a moment, I can feel her spear graze my ribs.
But only for a moment.
Then, her spear goes flying out of her hands, and she's pinned to the ground. I only need to run her through, and this fight will just become another beat before the next enemy.
I don't know why I look into her eyes before doing just that. But I do, and it makes everything freeze. The battlegrounds are gone, the corpses replaced by somber pillars and the dusty air with a cool northern wind. And I see her again. This time clad in blue silks and with a hopeful expression that feels strangely familiar. Her hair is down, and she looks nothing like the warrior I suddenly remember is still beneath my sword.
I can't keep my breath from coming out in a gasp at that…And then she sees it fit to speak again, almost tauntingly.
"How long do you intend to keep me pinned down?"
In response, I let her fall, spinning and slashing as I hear another berserker trying to charge in. The battle fever is starting to pick up in my head again, but for some reason I feel strangely glad that killing strike wasn't meant for her.
"Go on. Run away. This battle is over…Anymore deaths will just be a waste." And thinking of her dying…I find that I shy away from that thought. Just like how I almost run from her, although I can't help but steal one more glance at her.
I only hope she listens to that, or gets orders that say the same. I find myself wanting to remember that face in Ragnanival, instead of seeing it again on the other side of my sword.
Location: Dream-Battlefield
Rating: PG
Open/Closed/Finished Closed
Summary: Oswald's perspective on that fateful meeting during the first skirmish over the Cauldron.
I have never seen autumn before. Ringford is a green, ever summer country. The leaves rarely fall there. Yet…The similarity between dried leaves and dying Valkyrie is apt. They both tumble from the sky in the same way.
Both are also shockingly fragile. Cleaving through them with the Belderiver is effortless, almost laughably easy. I hardly need to slip into my stronger form. Is this the full force of the mighty Aesir?
And yet-
And yet, they are many, even for something meant to be a surprise attack. I can feel the Belderiver singing as it carves through air, armor, and flesh with equal ease. It seems to glow brighter with each death, and the thrum it makes louder. I can barely hear my own blood hammering in my ears, compared to that. The sound is almost intoxicating, drowning out everything else. The weight of my armor, my arms…I cannot feel any of it now. My body is light and fast, and it doesn't matter that it feels like a sea of Aesir soldiers are trying to kill me.
They still try, but it has no consequence. Their spears and axes are all so slow, and it is the easiest thing in the world to dance and weave between them, and slide the Belderiver in through their gaps. One by one, first slashing and then dying as my world begins to slow and go red, and the idea of anything outside of one foe and the next vanishes.
It's when I tear through a force of six, before they have time to raise their axes, that I realize I'm no longer myself. Black fire tints the edges of my vision, and my eye feels like it's either going to burn itself out or set the entire field ablaze. Neither seem like a bad thing; the fire is in my blood, pushing me onward, carving, cutting, killing so easily that even their strongest warriors last only a heartbeat before they crumble.
"I will face him!"
Another Valkyrie is waiting for me as I turn around, and I find myself shedding the shadows cloaking my body. It's almost like taking a deep breath before diving back in, and I realize how much I need that breath when she rushes me. For a moment, I can feel her spear graze my ribs.
But only for a moment.
Then, her spear goes flying out of her hands, and she's pinned to the ground. I only need to run her through, and this fight will just become another beat before the next enemy.
I don't know why I look into her eyes before doing just that. But I do, and it makes everything freeze. The battlegrounds are gone, the corpses replaced by somber pillars and the dusty air with a cool northern wind. And I see her again. This time clad in blue silks and with a hopeful expression that feels strangely familiar. Her hair is down, and she looks nothing like the warrior I suddenly remember is still beneath my sword.
I can't keep my breath from coming out in a gasp at that…And then she sees it fit to speak again, almost tauntingly.
"How long do you intend to keep me pinned down?"
In response, I let her fall, spinning and slashing as I hear another berserker trying to charge in. The battle fever is starting to pick up in my head again, but for some reason I feel strangely glad that killing strike wasn't meant for her.
"Go on. Run away. This battle is over…Anymore deaths will just be a waste." And thinking of her dying…I find that I shy away from that thought. Just like how I almost run from her, although I can't help but steal one more glance at her.
I only hope she listens to that, or gets orders that say the same. I find myself wanting to remember that face in Ragnanival, instead of seeing it again on the other side of my sword.
no subject
When she sees the Valkyries falling by her hand, she wonders what new sort of nightmare she's having. Then she notices the sword on her gloved hand, and a slight taste of darkness she had only sensed once before...
So, she concludes. In this dream she's the Shadow Knight.
Seeing the slaughter of her countrymen from a perpetrator's point of view, unsettling though it may be, is nonetheless oddly enlightening. Of course, Oswald is remarkably agile for one wielding armor, moreso in his shadow form, which feels strangely intoxicating. Yet she can't help but notice all those openings the Valkyries leave as they attack - no doubt depending on their own agility to save themselves from retaliation, yet unable to fend off against an opponent who can match them in speed without the aid of dark powers.
She should feel dismayed over reliving the deaths of her sisters, yet she has trouble relating their faces to names.
She feels Oswald shift out of his shadow form just in time to hear herself. It's a small comfort to know she had actually grazed him, even though his disarming her is just as embarrassingly swift from his side.
And then... is this a feeling of recognition? A quick flash to that one time Myris had talked her into wearing Mother's old dress - and what is that all about? - and then they're back in the battlefield, and she's glad she managed to sound defiant to his ears. He quickly turns to dispatch the berserker, says his piece, and runs away, and all the time Gwendolyn can't help but notice his hesitation, not just at killing her, but at the thought of her dying.
...most likely this was another effect of Time Compression, and the Sorceress wished to fool her into thinking him a sentimental fool. She knows Oswald simply didn't wish to assist in suicide that day.