Blitzkrieg: Earth is away from the phone right now.

Ulaume - savage woodnymph, prowling lupa; feral and fierce. Her wide eyes glimmering like dark suns from a nimbus sky, she is full of fire thick and gloating. The air, however, is bitterly cold. She feels its chill sink deep into her furred-over frame, clawing through grey hairs coarse and dense which blur her at the edges and soften her angles and bones. Pressing its tapered muzzle to the fell breeze that rises about her, the Beast shifts impatiently and eyes the falling snow with eager gaze and wild delight. It longs to throw aside her cumbersome skin and run lithesome and fierce through the icy blizzard, until the wind sucks the heat even from its thick starfield pelt. Instead, it sinks back into its place of darkness, unaffected by the freezing temperatures; sinks through layers of flesh to lie warm and comforting against her bones. Ulaume, however, throws herself forward into an active trot, feeling the blood racing hot through her veins as a distant tickle that courses along limb and shoulder, spine and haunch. Her slender body, unused to such temperatures which she has faced these past weeks, has overcompensated with a dense dark undercoat and long, silver guardlike hairs which spike out from her underbelly, and the planes of her high-stepping legs and sides. Ulaume’s chipped hooves find easy purchase against the ground she steps upon, frozen to rock-like hardness and coated with a rough smattering of snow. As she trots further into the whitewashed ‘Krieg, she steps more warily, however, as its once grassy surface has – decomposing – left slick patches of muddy, crumpling weeds.
Ulaume stares, wide-eyed, into the blinding white walls that surround her – she floats through an empty world; she is the nucleus of eternity. Her skin, warming from the exertion she forces herself to, shivers uncomfortably, but she moves ever more freely as her muscles thaw and her joints ease into old patterns of movement that even the bitter chill cannot suppress.

They, the opponents, come upon each other suddenly. As the cells of Ulaume and Brisingr meet, each might seem to the other a ghost – whitewashed and hazy, unfolding from the swirling camouflage of the snowfall which seems to melt against them and draw each back, pale grey phantoms destined to haunt this place of bloodshed for eons to come. Ulaume’s wide eyes pick her out, as her own eyes slide across Ulaume’s materialising form, and while Brisingr breaks into a slow canter, Ulaume maintains her careful trot, her highly collected, elevated strides allowing her to place her dark hooves with care upon the treacherous ground. However, she keeps to her trot for a few strides only, breaking into a tight and slow canter as the distance closes between them, her densely muscular frame seeming only to rock back and forth with the most gentle of motions, while her knees lift high in short careful strides. Their heads pass close, and Ulaume throws hers abruptly, lashing out with teeth and a cascade of her incredibly long and heavy mane which likely whips infuriatingly and distractingly at Brisingr’s face, though her teeth close upon nothing in a passing feint as they are now shoulder to shoulder, rib to rib.

Ulaume is no fool and Brisingr’s proximity heralds imminent assault, so she veers abruptly to the side away from the mare mere moments before they have drawn even – barrel to barrel – and mere moments before Brisingr steps out to the side, and so when she does, and bucks forward to kick out with both hindhooves, they smack upon her ribcage, slightly forward of dead center, and the blow, which Ulaume’s change of direction has made less solid and more glancing, causes her stagger slightly to the side, her dainty head recoiling in pain and anger, wide eyes narrowing both against the snow and sly formulation; her breath leaves her in a rough snort. The kick has been cushioned by Ulaume’s thick winter pelt, but it still leaves twin indentations upon her left side, beneath which bruising is spreading from crushed muscle but most certainly not from cracked bones. With each stride she takes as she recovers her balance and begins a small circle with a gentle curve back to Brisingr, the muscles that line her lower ribcage stretch and protest, so she keeps her stride short and easy, which is ironically a boon in this treacherous footing.

Ulaume’s icedrawn skull whips around, keeping her eye trained to Brisingr as the girl circles round to meet Ulaume in her own arc, keeping close. Ulaume lets her come, and within the first stride they take in tandem, she swings her head viciously towards Brisingr, teeth bared and snapping with the massive force of her tense well-worked jaw. Her savage jaws snap and clamp and rip and tear at nose and eye, perhaps ear (which would come into range were Brisingr to duck away from her assault at her face) which would be a prime target for her to clamp her teeth vice-like and powerful upon the stiff cartilage and tear away; perhaps tender throat with the precious jugular and windpipe therein (which would be possible where Brisingr to throw her head to the side in alarm and defense of her face). The proximity of Brisingr means Ulaume can use her frame as an anchor, leaning shoulder to shoulder as they circle in a long arc of which Brisingr takes the inner side – as she must, for her to have circled to come alongside Ulaume’s right as Ulaume herself circled in towards Brisingr – and so it is with a much lessened risk to both slips and slides and stress to her injured side that (at the same time as she bites with such savagery and vengeful power – it is not only a fierce attack, but also deliberate distraction in one) she lashes wickedly out in a combo attack with her forehooves, raking them down Brisingr’s leg in the course of her canter strides. That is, as her raised hooves strike down in stride towards the ground, they angle slightly to the side to crack, and knock and batter viciously at Brisingr’s cannons, fetlock joint, coronets and heels, their smashing course down her leg gradually angling them back to normal alignment; her position leaning upon Brisingr’s side and shoulder and directing their movement in the curve about Brisingr’s form allows her to do so without compromising her gait.

This does, of course, bring some pain to her side, but Ulaume – whose mother has taught her to drink pain as if water – devours it veraciously, pushes through it, letting the twinging ache of each stride be fuel for the vengeance she shall extract from Brisingr’s own flesh. When Brisingr slows, her tenacious proximity again works against her, for Ulaume can quite plainly see what she does in her periphery, as close side-by-side as they are. She collects herself further, letting this slow her in concert with Brisingr, bringing welcome respite to her aching side. Brisingr is now slightly behind, and slyly calculating Ulaume decides to use this to her advantage, and plants her front hooves, throws her weight forward even as Brisingr throws her weight back, and slams out ferociously with her two chilly, solid hindfeet straight into the tender softness of Brisingr’s exposed underbelly, taking two hits herself upon her densely muscular, heavily furred rump. As she does so, she feels the cramping muscles in her injured side stretch painfully and pull, but her gritted teeth and baleful glare push her through regardless. She is willing to sacrifice herself to this pain, and the fiery pain spreading across her rump, if she can score a malicious and excruciating hit upon Brisingr’s belly, perhaps cracking agonisingly off her breast bone, or else slamming brutally into her tender, exposed stomach. The power of her attack is lessened slightly by the impact of Brisingr’s hooves upon her rump, but not drastically so, and she pulls her rearend forward to leap away, quick eye watching for safe places to step, she slips awkwardly to the side as her hindfeet return, the punched muscles in her rump crumpling spontaneously at the sudden stress upon them, letting her abruptly unsupported hooves slide slightly out in the slick slush, only to reset themselves and allow her to fall into a slower and painful trot, finally stopping with breath fogging in great clouds into the air, skin atwitch and afire as she favours her left side with quickly hidden relief.

ULAUME
shake for that which sinks but can’t drown