Sword and Snow

Emery

As Emery's clawed fist slammed into Avuri's forearm, she grinned. The block was sturdier than ever, Avuri's patchwork scales resilient under the force, despite being so scattered. Avuri returned the hit with her other hand, slamming a punch into Emery's midsection.

Emery barely reacted at all. It was something she was still getting used to. It wasn't that Avuri's punch was weak or anything even remotely close to that - it was just Emery's scales at work. It took her a while to ascertain exactly how they functioned, because they didn't make sense to her at first.

For Kord, his scales looked, felt, and functioned much like armor when he was in his draconic form. They were hard and very difficult to penetrate, even with Qi. Of course, they didn't cover his entire body yet, as that apparently required him to grow a bit more in strength for them to spread in the way that Emery's had.

Emery's scales were almost soft and pliant to the touch. They had initially felt like they wouldn't be particularly more useful than light leather armor - putting aside their potential as an intimidation tool. However, the more Emery practiced, the more she was coming to understand her new body.

Essentially, as far as she could tell, her scales hardened under pressure, while also being incredible at distributing force across a wider area. Avuri's punch may have landed squarely on Emery's solar plexus, but not only was the punch stopped dead by her scales, but Emery barely felt the hit. Instead, there was a light pressure spread out across half her torso that amounted to feeling like a light shove.

It was something she still needed to get used to, but she could take and shrug off hits that should have been a problem for her. Blunt forces were basically a non issue for her now, unless they carried so much size or force that it was unreasonably dangerous. Sharp weapons and cutting force could still hurt her, but that wasn't to say that her scales weren't cut-resistant. They were, just far less so than they were resistant to blunt forces.

Emery angled slightly to let Avuri's punch slide off her stomach as she turned and spun. Another move that she'd need to get used to, because it was no longer a stupid way to leave herself open. Her tail unwound from around her waist just enough to whip out at Avuri during her spin. The fully scaled appendage was far heavier than her arms or legs, making it an incredibly deadly club for her to swing at people.

But Avuri knew it was coming. She responded by kicking up a gust of wind with her draconic wings, moving away and out of reach in a quick burst of wind. Emery finished her spin, a blade forming in her right hand in a guard position as her tail coiled up again. She'd need to get used to the balance of it more properly before she would be able to use it more effectively in combat. Meanwhile, Avuri hovered in the air a bit above her, her wings flapping occasionally to keep her aloft, but mostly supported by her own Qi manipulating air currents to keep her in the air.

Emery sighed and dropped her guard. "This isn't working."

Avuri chuckled and slowly floated to the ground, similarly no longer in any sort of fighting stance. "I know. It's getting a little silly. I know what you're going to do four or five attacks in advance."

"It feels more like we're dancing than anything else. Not exactly great training." Emery said, as the two of them tried to lean their foreheads against one another as they often did, only to bump their horns together. They both snickered at the sound.

"We're going to need the Elders to practice with us, aren't we?"

"Probably." Emery sighed. "On the plus side, they all fight differently, so it's likely that we'll learn a lot."

"True." Avuri muttered. "I'm going to miss being able to train with you."

"Me too." Emery agreed. "But with our connection growing so strong, there's quite literally no point to it."

"I dunno," Avuri hummed. "I wouldn't say no point."

Emery eyed her skeptically."And exactly how do you figure that? I feel like I know you're going to throw a punch before you even do."

Avuri rolled her eyes. Emery was stubbornly only thinking about the whole situation in one way. "Em, you say that like training with a wooden post is useless, when I know you know it isn't."

"I'm not looking to train with you the same way I would with a post, Ri."

"I know that. But we have so much limit testing to do right now that I feel like even if we can't spar in the normal way, we can still work together. For example," Avuri lifted her arm up, purposefully displaying her forearm to Emery, "I need to know what my scales can do."

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The limb, in her draconic form, had a smattering of pearlescent white scales scattered about like freckles. Unlike Emery's scales, which basically had the appearance of an armor-like hide, Avuri's looked almost useless because of how patchy they were. Except, during their practice, Avuri was regularly able to catch punches and kicks on her limbs that probably should have been able to shatter bone with little effect.

When Avuri let her arm drop back to her side, she nodded toward Emery's body as well. "We also don't really know where your body's limits are anymore, either. Sure, we know we're both more resilient than before, but we need to know roughly where our limits are."

Realistically, Avuri knew she didn't even truly need to explain herself to Emery. Their bond had been growing stronger almost by the day since they had melded their Qi together. They were still working through all of the implications and effects that their merger had, but the obvious one was hard to ignore. Their thoughts and feelings were more tangled up than ever, and it was becoming a nuisance.

Previously, they really only shared thoughts and feelings either when they wanted to, or under stress. After their most recent changes, they both found that their thoughts, intentions, and feelings were basically an open book to one another. If Emery so much as thought of Avuri, she was immediately able to read her like an open book - unless Avuri actively kept herself shut off.

The issue was, keeping themselves closed off to one another took effort. Not a lot, but it required enough focus that it'd be near impossible during any sort of stress, which meant during combat was right out. And, they realized while training, thinking about the other as an opponent was enough to 'open the book'.

And the reading was getting more intensive, too. Even when they had discussed it with each other, or tried explaining it to Vale, they couldn't find the right words. Unlike before, when they shared thoughts almost like a person would send letters, it had become almost like direct access to the other's thoughts.

And yet, it wasn't overwhelming, nor did it feel like having two voices in their head. It wasn't confusing, or 'noisy', or anything really. It just was. It felt like their minds were in constant conversation with one another, but it was so instantaneous that conversation felt like the wrong word.

Emery had mentioned it felt like they were almost one person, and that had set Vale down a path of other, very specific questions, worried they might be genuinely on their way to becoming one person, but that wasn't how it felt. There was no bleedover between them, and they always felt like two distinct people. Even when they were thinking together as a single unit, there was separation there that felt as permanent as ever. And the answers they gave seemed to put Vale at ease.

Somehow, it just felt like any barriers of communication between them had broken down, especially when they wanted to communicate.

It was no surprise to Emery when her wife threw her next punch. Nothing about it was really a surprise, exactly, but she was still surprised by the strength behind it.

Avuri had held nothing back. The force of the contact would have probably outright killed most of their other family members. And those it didn't outright end would have ended up with a mangled, or perhaps even missing, arm.

Emery took the hit on her forearm in a standard block, and was sent skidding backwards. She hadn't set her stance, and as she tried to dig her feet into the ground to remain steady, she instead stumbled. She managed not to actually trip, but she did end up flailing her arms comically for balance.

"Ri?" She asked, confused by the sudden attack.

Avuri grinned wide, shaking out her hand. "Like I said, we have limits to test, Em. And short of the Elders, probably, there is no other way for us to actually push those limits."

"Well, yeah, we can ask the Elders for help. They already said they-"

"Or," Avuri interrupted her, the smile on her face steady as she adopted a fighting stance, "we can just-!"

Avuri all but vanished. It was incredibly rare that either of them used their full speed, especially now when they had yet to explore their new capabilities. Even with her foresight of the attack, Emery had to genuinely put in effort to track Avuri's movement. And the white blur of her body wasn't moving in a straight line, either. She was including feints.

Even with the benefit of knowing exactly where Avuri was planning to move, Emery had trouble tracking her. She could, but it wasn't easy.

When Avuri's foot connected with Emery's block this time Emery was prepared. Her back foot cracked the ground behind her and a blast of air exploded away from them. Avuri kicked away from Emery's guard, putting a bit of distance between them.

Emery was about to say they really should practice with the Elders again, but Avuri ignored her thoughts, instead bringing her arms up in a motion that Emery immediately recognized. Avuri exhaled, her breath coming out in a visible puff as if the air was freezing cold, and she created two of her Blizzard Dragons.

The technique looked more complete now than it ever had before, the intense blizzard full of cutting wind and sharp ice so tightly condensed that it looked like it was a fully realized beast. The body was no longer clearly made of swirling wind, ice, and Qi, and would be easily mistaken as a real living creature.

Both dragons snarled at Emery, and that was her cue to take this seriously. Neither of them knew how strong they were now; Avuri's earlier punch and kick had solidified that for both of them. Emery knew that her wife was not holding back, and she had a sneaking suspicion that if she didn't answer in kind, there was every chance that Avuri might accidentally shred her to pieces.

Well. She trusted Avuri to not do that, and there was clearly no intent to kill coming from Avuri either, but being devoid of killing intent did not mean that an attack was devoid of killing power.

Emery quickly adjusted into a more serious stance of her own. She created two Qi-forged jian, raising them in a defensive stance. They would normally be near useless against Avuri's Dragons, but if they were more solid and physical now, maybe they could be cut. Emery secretly suspected they might explode if she did so, though.

Either way, she felt like she needed something to keep between her and the vicious attack.

Avuri's grin split her face wide as she felt and saw Emery decide to take this seriously. "I hope you're ready, Em!"

"Oh, you're so lucky we decided to train outside the Basin today."

"Fair, but complaining about that won't save you!" Avuri shouted back. With a surprisingly devious sounding cackle, she raised a hand to point at Emery. "Go!"