Ridge Battle }{ >OPEN<

[Eris Blackthorne]

Panting, and a wild look plastered upon her face; Eris Blackthorne grasped her axe tightly, preparing to swing. There was a rumbling, vibrating sensation under the red earth, and the dark-haired girl held her breath to try and pin-point a source. The tiny pebbles and rocks practically hovered just above the ground, and then... nothing.

It was suddenly clear to her, in that brief moment of silence, just how hard her heart was beating.

BABOOOSH!

Large chunks of dirt and rock exploded from behind her as the mud brown wyvern screeched upward, flailing foreward like a fish out of water. Eris heaved her mighty axe around with surprising speed, slashing at it's soft belly. She made decent contact, and blood oozed rapidly from the gash. This, however, only made things worse.

In a dangerous frenzy, the wyvern swung it's head around like a whip, catching Eris at the legs and causing her to flip and soar about ten feet. Landing hard, she felt the wind leave her lungs, and she sat up gasping for air.

"Augh... this thing.... is.... too fast...." she spat to herself, some blood dribbling from her mouth.

Grabbing her axe and using it as a support, she stood unsteadily. She certainly had the strength the lift the damn, over-sized lizard... but it's ability to burrow underground so quickly was something she had never experianced. She was stuck, and it was angry.

[Morrigan Cahdera]

A black haze cleared as Morrigan's bombardment spell shattered a solid stone bolder blocking her path up the moutain. ignoring the pebbles still falling, she continued her model-like strut up the path with her pure white hair flowing behind her. The breeze was strangely warm for mountain air and it irked the elf-woman, but, then again, almost everything did.

Stilettos and all, she walked up, storm clouds building on the horizon behind her. Thunder rumbled in the distance and then silence. The earth shook below her. A short cry of alarm left her lips and she fell to the ground.

Thwack! The sound of steel meeting flesh rang in the air and Morrigan's head spun to the right and behold, there was a battle on the ridge fifty feet from her.

A tall, human woman equipped with a giant axe stood fighting an enraged wyvern. Blood dripped from it's stomach wound as it's head dove and flipped her.
It seemed the battle was to have a different victor, but the driven woman stood and prepared to defend herself again.

Morrigan wasn't really the type of person to help anyone, but she felt compelled to aid the woman-- if she needed the aid at all.

Standing up, she pulled a katana out of a scabbard on her back and pointed it at the wyvern. "Caecitas!" she spoke clearly and intently. The sword began to glow a with a brilliant, white light and the same light burst from eyes of the wyvern that hovered close to the woman, instantly blinding it.

[Eris Blackthorne]

The incantation was so crisp, it seemed to echo through Eris' skull like a memory. When the light engulfed the monster's eyes, it flailed in panic and rammed itself into a nearby cliff wall. Rock and dirt exploded in all directions as the wall collapsed, trapping the wyvern temperarily.

Eris pulled her axe up to her shoulder, resting it so that one arm was free to smash away rock as it flew torward her. Grunting with effort, she charged for the wyvern as it struggled blindly in the rubble, screeching in a mixture of pain and anger.

"HHHAAAAAAA!"

The huge axe gleamed in the sun as it swung over her head, appearing weightless in the hands of this mighty women. With a thick hacking sound, the wyvern ceased it's screeching and died instantly as it's head rolled away from it's body.

Eris stood very still for a moment, breathing heavily and registering the fact that it was finally done. She felt as though she could have collapsed right then and there, but instead she turned around. Emerald eyes fell upon the elven woman who had probably saved her live, and she managed a very humble grin.

"Thank you..." she sighed, drying the sweat from her brow, "...I thought I wasn't going to get out of that one alive. I'm in your debt..."

Eris was a simple girl raised on a simple farm, and although she was blessed with incredable strength, her gift had never clouded her mind. She was honest and trustworthy, which was very rare these days. Most people didn't survive on being honest anymore.

"My name is Eris Blackthorne, wielder of the Giant's Axe. May I have the honor of knowing your name, my lady?"

[Morrigan Cahdera]

Morrigan lowered her sword as the wyvern fell to earth, dead and continued to look onward as the woman thanked her and introduced herself. She closed the distance between them and did the same:

Nodding in turn to the thank you and spoke, "I am Morrigan Cahdera, a sorceress of the north." Sheathing her sword, Morrigan continued, "Pardon my prying, but were you hunting the wyvern or was it the hunter?"

In contrast to Eris' honesty, Morrigan was crafty. Having grown up around the elvish court, she had learned to lie and how to get away with it, but out here in the wilderness there was nothing she needed to hide.

[Eris Blackthorne]

Eris let out what sounded like a forced chuckle and said, "Ah, well... I fear that I am the hunted out here. I had hoped to cross these mountains without trouble, but alas..."

She seemed distracted, mostly due to exhaustion. It was strange for her to feel so tired, what with her amazing physical strength, crossing a mountain and tossing around a few overgrown lizards shouldn't be a problem. But she was growing pale in the face, and the world around her had started spinning.

"Wha.... I...." she muttered in a drunk fashion, falling to a knee.

Her hand touched her forehead, finding that her skin was icey cold. She quickly thought back to the night before, remembering that something hadn't tasted quite right in her dinner at the inn. Her dimming eyes peering up to the elven woman pleadingly before rolling back into her head. With a light thud, she fainted upon the dusty earth. A loud clatter afterward signified the dropping of her giant axe.

[Morrigan Cahdera]

((Sorry it took me so long! I didn't quite know how Morrigan would react... and I don't think this is what you had in mind. ))

A sly smile formed on Morrigan's face; her agent in the inn had actually done his job. She sauntered over to Eris' body and knelt down beside it, saying: "Sorry, I just couldn't have the wyvern kill you."

Standing up, Morrigan surveyed her catch. "What's so special about you?" she thought out loud.

Morrigan had been ordered by a mysterious someone to find the Wielder of the Giant Axe and take her, alive, to the brink of the Selkia Forest. It frustrated her that she had been lowered to the status of a bounty hunter, but she really couldn't argue with her employer when he had threatened to kill her family. And that too bugged her. Her family wasn't her family at all: they had adopted her.

Thunder struck and goose bumps formed on her arms. Something was wrong. Turning around, she saw creature in the distance, a flying beast, a dragon. The wind blew fiercely and her long hair flew dramatically behind her.

"Oh, why now!" She knelt down beside Eris again and slapped her face. "Wake up!!"

A light rain started to fall and looking up, the dragon was closer and the storm was on them. Soon, the dragon would be too. Taking Eris under the arms, tried to pull her under the cover of the trees where they would be out of the rain and, hopefully, out of sight.

[Leaf]

OOC: Just ignore this post if you'd rather not have three/have aplot already planned out

IC: Sparrow, in wolf form, watched the two women with a laugh and shifted back to human in order to attempt to help. She didn't know where her clothes went when she was a wolf, but she didn't really mind because they appeared back on her body when she changed back, which had always been useful. She swung up into the closest tree and waited until they were underneath her before she jumped down behind them, hoping to startle them into an amusing reaction. Just in case that reaction happened to be violent, she stood on the balls of her feet, ready to jump out of the way and grab a tree branch to defend herself with.

"The danger is minimal," she said with a smile. "Or as minimal as danger with a dragon can possibly be. She is pregnant, merely trying to protect herself and her territory." Although food probably wouldn't go amiss for a , pregnant dragon. "But if you wish, i can take you to a place not far from here where the dragon cannot reach." A dark tunnel, underground, with plenty of creepy-crawlies for company. She had slept there for the last week, trying to avoid as far as possible the local wolf pack, who didn't take to her living in their patch of the Ridge with as much grace as she could have hoped for.

But whether or not these women wanted the shelter she was offering, it wouldn't do any harm to get back to her little hole in the ground and hide out. She took a step backwards, wondering whether she should show them her ace in the hole and change to wolf form so that she could get there faster, or just start running as a human. After all, she didn't have to run particularly fast - just faster than the two women.