The pines, they often whisper

They whisper what no tongue can tell

Floppy ears twitched, attention wandering. So much happening at once, yet her attention remained on the largest fight. @Eisa's words made her grin, a vicious grin. "Good." That was all she said before she watched the other charge into the fray as well.

@Kireena easily drew her attention and she nudged her mother's shoulder with a soft rumble that seemed so ill-fitting for the expression of hostility and malice that she bore. Though with her focus on the fight once it truly began, claws still scraping against stone as if she were a hungry beast straining against chains to feed, eager to sink claws into unsuspecting flesh, she didn't quite find the time to properly respond to her. Though the arrival of @Sybil was reacted to with a low rumble before she looked between them, tail lashing behind her. And again she responded to her mother's affections with a soft rumble and a somewhat playful nip at her ear. "I will be okay, mama. Be careful...please."

As she watched her mother walk away, floppy ears once again laced back, fur raising on the back of her neck and spine. Dual toned eyes briefly lingered on the Firnen group, but then the scarred lioness turned, near colossal frame stalking towards the gathering around @Amara. She greeted the dark lioness with a low chuff, but found herself a spot to stand without squishing next to anyone, ears twitching, tail lashing while she stared intently into the arena.

---

+5 Observe a fight (Aeistrios vs Morrigan)
+5 Maintain your weapons (sharpen claws on stone)
+5 Learn a new fighting move (potentially)

code by corvus

Daneri had zero idea as to what she had just walked into but something told her it was big. Like a pride challenge but... bigger, if that were even possible. There were so many lions present that she could barely function. Eyes wide as saucers as she maneuvered her way through the crowd. Picking out all the scents and trying to find any family members or even anyone from Lorien. It was with great and lucky happenstance that Daneri often washed her coat clean of the Lorien scent; not by fear of being attacked but simply because she didn't like everyone knowing her business.

The longer she looked around the more she realized that there wasn't a whole lot to do. There was a brief moment where she saw @Asbjørn in the crowd standing next to an older lioness that she had just called for a theft challenge against someone. Daneri remembered promising that she would play this game at another challenge but this... felt different. A lot different and thus she did not call for him and looked away, seating herself down as she finally locked eyes with what the main event was and it didn't look clean.

It was a fight, that much was obvious, but it looked far more brutal than any pride challenge she had ever seen. This was a lot deeper than that and with each hit that the other took she felt her body flinch. The pain in their bodies that they couldn't even feel because their adrenaline was so high. Daneri looked around to see if there was someone she could ask questions but no one around her seemed inclined to so much as look in her direction. There was no way she was going to butt into anyone's personal space, either. So she kept her eyes focused on the match as daunting and perilous as it looked.

+5 - Observe a fight (Morrigan v. Aeistros/DM)BG — ART — CODE

So the day finally comes when all the whispers and tension hanging in the air finally coalesce into something solid, something real, something terrible.

For all of Maven's efforts in strengthening both her body and her mind, she is not ready to hear the call for death ring out across the valley. But then, how could anybody be prepared to hear something so cruel?

Morrigan may have been prepared for it, perhaps, and it is only because it is the mountain Queen's fate hanging in the balance that the abyssal woman dares to make her own way to the Pit. The suspense of not knowing is more than she can handle within the safety of the Summit, safer though it is. She travels swift and quiet, taking care to leave a deliberate trail of overturned stones atop the snow behind her so that @Capucine might be able to follow her more easily through the storm.

The duel is already underway by the time Maven makes it down to the bottom of the white-frosted bottom, and she tears her bloody gaze away only so that she can try to make sense of everything else, searching for any other familiar faces amongst the crowd as if that might be able to ease the tense racing of her heart. @Nero's pale form is difficult to spot between the darkness and the snow, but still her attention gravitates towards him, dark-rimmed ears pinning back when she registers his condition. She steps forward, intent upon questioning him or reprimanding him or both, when the sight of another freezes her in her tracks, eyes wide and startled.

She is here. And this time, Maven has very little interest in what @Ghyslaine might have to say.

Abruptly, the girl turns away from them both, expression thunderous as she seeks to stand with @Isla ♔ and the other Illyrians instead, elongated fangs exposed entirely to frigid air. Do as you must, is the Heiress's command, and Maven steels herself to defend against whatever might come her way, that old familiar mantra repeating itself at the forefront of her mind.

Show no fear.

---

(OOC: Open to fights up to a minor maim)

You're only sixteen, going on forever

art + code by sammiie

The impact knocks the breath out of her, and the ache of it radiates through her body. The female seems to turn into her- facing her more head on as she barrles into her, She hears the sneering words of the female, as she speaks and Eisa snarls in defiance and response. "Shut the fuck up" She hisses in rage through the grip she has on the female's left shoulder, as the emotions boil within her. Truly she had never even said such a word, but the anger at the situation at Aeistrios- at the danger he had put her family in, was bubbling to the surface. As the female's teeth find the pitch of her mane, the hair there atop her forehead, she snarls in pain and defiance, opting for a move she's seen her mother do.

Eisa attempts to thrash her head, to bite into her opponents shoulder more vigorously, but also aims to slam down her left paw into the female's own paw, with her claws extended, hoping to drive her claws in between her toes. She remembered her mother doing that, and knew it had to hurt.

Eisa vs @Toblerone
For Minor Maim
Round 2/4
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 6 + 19 + 20 + 15 + 7 + 8 + 5 + 11

Dodge:

Rolling 4d20: 17 + 10 + 3 + 11

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 4 + 19 + 14 + 12 + 1

ART BY YUMPY, CODE BY LARS

@Cassandra VS. @Renfri FOR Renfri
— VOID —

Due to Renfri successfully escaping, this fight has been voided.



Please allow the challengers to respond to the fight results first. As per the site rules, if 3 days go by without a post from the challenger(s), they can be skipped. Whichever comes first! Any posts made before this will be removed.

A growl escaped her as she was unsuccessful in drawing out @Renfri herself with her claim. Tail flicked Crossley back snd forth and duotoned eyes scanned the crowd to search for another target. Perhaps she would take a page out of @Elaine ♔'s book, and attempt to steal a child from the Oasis. Maybe she could even pass said child over to @Kvare as well. Giving her uncle another look, she would prowl forward as her eyes settled on a figure nearly invisible with the snow.

A smirk graced her muzzle again as she kept her stare on the albino yearling. "You. You will do." Cassandra said, making her claim on him clear. Perhaps he would be enough to drive Renfri from her hiding spot. And if not... it was an able body to trade to Kvare since he had gifted Zephyr his freedom with the promise that she would get him a Saxe member to replace the cub.


Cassandra vs ???
For Theft of @Elio
Round 0/3

actions. "speech."

Art & Table code by Zodiac

Every girl needed to be hated. Toblerone would have purred, if not for the teeth in her shoulder and the hair in her mouth. Reverse psychology absolutely worked on her. Even if unintentional. If this grubby little hero wanted Toblerone to spend the rest of the fight spewing insults, well, this protest guaranteed it. She took in breath sharply as the other started digging in and shaking her head, thickening the slashes and worsening the blood pouring from her left shoulder and forcing a snarl on the pink lioness's next exhale. She flinched backward, yanking that front left limb backward and dipping weight to her hindquarters - an instinctive restabilization, akin to the survival apparatus that kept her eyes narrowed and ears back. Claws sliced across her left front toes, mostly yanking at the (glorious, beautiful) fur. This pain was survivable. She experienced it mostly as an insult.

"Oh wow, language?" she scolded, and she imagined the hoarse quality of her voice to only add to her intimidating qualities. This was... this fight was fine, it was still gonna go her way. Remember what Aeistrios had done. Use superior weight. Crush them. Make them beg. "How about you kiss my toes and apologize?" with that, (with a flourish, perfect timing on point) she aimed to smash her right paw downward atop the crown of the other's skull. Claws out. Hope that skull wasn't attached to anything, like her brain, or something she was actually using.

@Eisa vs @Toblerone
Minor maim
2/4

Hits:

Rolling 6d20: 17 + 9 + 4 + 3 + 7 + 11

Dodges:

Rolling 4d20: 3 + 14 + 19 + 18

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 3 + 9 + 6 + 11 + 4

He has no dog in this fight, but that doesn’t mean he won’t come watch. Perhaps this place is not unlike his birth land after all; a call to death was a serious thing, life respected until it cannot be. Besides, it is the gods who decide who lives and who dies. Haakon has seen even seasoned warriors fall to the less experienced simply because it was fate - not skill - that determines the outcome. Nothing is guaranteed.

The fight has begun by the time Haakon appears, a pale wraith atop the pit. There’s barely withheld excitement radiating from his form as he comes to stand at the edge, claws digging into the blood-stained rocks and earth under his paws. Pale eyes take in the scene below him, the fights breaking out on the sidelines, the main fight like a beacon, calling for the bloodthirsty. He isn’t immune to it - but for now, he only watches. Waiting.

coded by flea + image by rabbit

theme music

---

Her son's is not the only face of the dead to join the audience and Morrigan can almost feel their presence in her bones as their voices reach coal-dark ears. @Banshee, @Nymeria, @Gareth, @Tormund, all of them were reminders of what awaited her after death, a promise that no matter who felled whom today, it was not the end. Sorry, Nym, she thought, you know I don't have it in me to stop. But she knew still the love that made the fallen Valour ask it of her anyway.

As her jaws successfully grabbed at his face, the first taste of his blood was sweeter than she could have imagined, the added warmth of it on her talons driving out all mind of the cold around them and leaving her in violent bliss. Even as they crashed together, painful bruising blossoming across her own chest, forcing her to return her right front paw to the earth, attempting to swing bloodied claws down toward his left arm as its claws dug deep into the flesh beneath the thick fur of her ribs, the first of her own blood dripping down onto ivory, steaming as it melted the fresh snow.

Her hind legs would shove back against his force, welcoming his embrace and as the pain of bruised chest muscles screamed against it. The closer the bloodier. As she did so she would only attempt to scrape through more flesh of his muzzle with her jaws as she moved to try and drag her face away from his with a snarl.

@Morrigan vs. @Aeistrios
For DEATH
Round II / VII
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 5 + 19 + 10 + 20 + 2 + 8 + 3 + 4

Dodges:

Rolling 4d20: 15 + 5 + 2 + 9

Luck:

Rolling 6d20: 3 + 12 + 4 + 8 + 19 + 5

coding & image by flea

Truthfully, she wasn't quite sure where this seemingly bottomless pit of rage came from. She just knew she had to yield to it, had to heed to the power it gave her. Did this pink female matter? Not truly, but she had spoken out against her grandmother- and for that plum bastard. She was as horrible as he was, surely- right? Pain, is something that Eisa is getting more used too, and this time, when teeth puncture into her flesh, she does not yield to it, does not grow nauseated by it, and instead lets it drive her rage- lets it focus her.

Her teeth tear into the female's shoulder, rendering the sweet flesh of her enemy- and as her claws scrape her enemies toes, she hears her words, and suddenly finds her enemy has sank to her haunches and is slamming into the back of her head pushing it down. "Fine," She snarls- as her jaws part, and she aims to let her enemy push her head down- lets her dig her claws into her skull and enjoys that her mane protects her, some from severe damage- as she aims to bite the female's lower leg or paw, aiming to crush and snap with her jaws- wanting to mangle the limb, to leave it in ruins.

Eisa vs @Toblerone
For Minor Maim
Round 3/4
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 8 + 5 + 16 + 17 + 2 + 3 + 18 + 14

Dodge:

Rolling 4d20: 7 + 9 + 17 + 12

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 17 + 20 + 4 + 2 + 10

ART BY YUMPY, CODE BY LARS