Cracked rib.
This was… not how she saw this part of the fight going down.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, stupid, bad, bad, bad, stupid.
She had to focus, had to concentrate, had to tell the searing pain that touch her ribs and spread out and about to the rest of her body to shut the fuck up and - oh god, she was gonna vomit. She was gonna fuckin’ puke her guts out all over the place. If anything had been learned today, it was complacency. She took a lot of her fitness for fuckin’ granted. Join the Black Guard, they said. It’s not like you have a choice, mage, they shouted. At least you’ll be out of the gutter, they said. It’s not the jungles of Rhakros at the very least, they hollered. The worst thing you’ll fight are rioting citizens, they preached.
Slogans. Not even slogans pretending to even have a hint of truth to them - but she bought into them into a completely different way: she had gone soft. She was nothing without Transmutation’s backing - and without it, everything that was propped up by the arcane had to stand on its own.
And it couldn’t.
She saw the punch coming and, even in her agonized state, managed to throw herself back so that the swing became a miss. She pressed her hand down on the ground, summoning earth to spear - there it was again. Her go-to solution. Transmutation. Digging into a power that, at present, was not hers to command.
Routine and habit, the twin thing she thought she could rely on, had become her enemy.
Fuck.
Hating herself for stooping to something so unhygienic, she lurched forward… and spat in his face, the projectile coming out a mixture of saliva, blood, and half-digested breakfast puke.
This was… not how she saw this part of the fight going down.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, stupid, bad, bad, bad, stupid.
She had to focus, had to concentrate, had to tell the searing pain that touch her ribs and spread out and about to the rest of her body to shut the fuck up and - oh god, she was gonna vomit. She was gonna fuckin’ puke her guts out all over the place. If anything had been learned today, it was complacency. She took a lot of her fitness for fuckin’ granted. Join the Black Guard, they said. It’s not like you have a choice, mage, they shouted. At least you’ll be out of the gutter, they said. It’s not the jungles of Rhakros at the very least, they hollered. The worst thing you’ll fight are rioting citizens, they preached.
Slogans. Not even slogans pretending to even have a hint of truth to them - but she bought into them into a completely different way: she had gone soft. She was nothing without Transmutation’s backing - and without it, everything that was propped up by the arcane had to stand on its own.
And it couldn’t.
She saw the punch coming and, even in her agonized state, managed to throw herself back so that the swing became a miss. She pressed her hand down on the ground, summoning earth to spear - there it was again. Her go-to solution. Transmutation. Digging into a power that, at present, was not hers to command.
Routine and habit, the twin thing she thought she could rely on, had become her enemy.
Fuck.
Hating herself for stooping to something so unhygienic, she lurched forward… and spat in his face, the projectile coming out a mixture of saliva, blood, and half-digested breakfast puke.
