Sword and Snow

Emery

Emery had been entirely correct in her assumption. When her blade cut through the first Blizzard Dragon, it exploded in her face. It was almost like a membrane that was holding the entire storm was suddenly punctured, letting the full destructive force loose all at once.

Despite that, she suspected that the actual force of it ended up reduced because, like any explosion, the force was released in all directions. The same thought was shared by Avuri, especially when Emery was able to walk away from the detonation without so much as a scratch. The sharp bits of ice and cutting winds hadn't been able to penetrate Emery's new scales, even when she didn't have a guard up.

Avuri didn't take the insult lying down, though. She maneuvered the second Dragon straight through the chaos of the first's explosion, making it difficult to intercept. It had slipped into her space before Emery could get a blade on it, so she raised her arm to block instead.

The Dragon opened its mouth, preparing to bite down, letting out a blast of chilling cold air. Emery's body responded quickly, reinforcing itself with Vale's fiery Qi to stop her arm from freezing from the icy breath before the dragon even bit down. When it did, Emery shouted in unexpected pain.

The bite from the Blizzard Dragon had multiple dangerous parts that all added up to a rather nasty technique. Avuri had trained to incorporate some of Emery's techniques, which left the Dragon's fangs sharper than ever, and they were enough to piece Emery's scales. The concentrated force of the blizzard within the dragon all but shredded her arm where it touched, especially when Avuri was able to use Emery's part of their now shared Domain to make the cutting edges of the ice and wind sharper than ever before.

The only thing that Emery was able to entirely fight off was the freezing effect, thanks to Vale's Qi. But when she used her other hand to cut the Dragon apart, her right arm looked like it had been mangled.

The sight actually surprised her, if only because she wasn't used to what she saw. Some of the scales on her arm were missing, leaving behind bloody, raw patches of ruined skin. Other scales were bent in weird shapes, or cut into pieces, leaving her arm looking like it had been flayed.

The actual damage wasn't as bad as it looked. Most of her arm was in one piece, but the ruined scales made it look horrific. Emery felt a short spike of alarm from Avuri, but when she created a new sword in her 'mangled' hand and gripped it tightly to point threateningly at her wife, the feeling dissipated. She was making a visible point by using the damaged arm, and Avuri understood that instantly as well.

Avuri responded by creating another Blizzard Dragon, this time making it coil around herself. Simultaneously, she created a long spear made of ice with a vicious, crooked head. When she slammed the butt of the weapon into the ground, ice spread out around her, speeding across the ground at an unbelievable speed. Making the ice slick was a common tactic that Avuri always employed in melee scuffles, despite it not offering a large advantage. But when a single slip-up by her opponent could end the fight, every advantage counted for something.

Emery chuckled. The wave of ice simply couldn't approach her. Vale's Qi was too hot when it was concentrated, and Emery was able to easily keep a circle of ground around herself perfectly clean of ice, even as the rime slick continued to expand past her.

Avuri entered a guarding stance, and Emery took her turn with the initiative. Just as Avuri had, Emery vanished. She used every ounce of speed she felt she had, pushing off the ground with the draconic strength of her new body, leaving a small crater behind when she made no effort to avoid it. Unlike Avuri, however, Emery made her approach in a straight line.

She knew immediately that anyone else in her family would've been doomed. Their new level of speed was far beyond what anyone else in their family could handle. Emery had just a split section of time where she considered stopping her weapon mid-swing before it bit into her wife's neck, thinking she had been too quick.

She didn't even have time to finish the thought before the haft of Avuri's spear swept up to intercept the blade cleanly. The sound of the clash barely registered before Emery had begun her second attack with her left-handed weapon, a rising diagonal cut that would cut into Avuri's flank.

Avuri stepped backwards, deftly spinning the butt-end of the spear up to deflect Emery's strike away at an angle that used its own momentum to carry it off course with minimal effort. And once again, Emery returned a counter stroke before she even heard the guard connect.

The exchange lasted for enough blows that Emery had mentally lost track. The speed with which they both moved would've left the combination of strikes and blocks and counters looking like a blur to most of their family, but the two of them could see and react clearly to each strike, step, and slice.

Emery had to admit, Avuri had been right. At this speed, even with the ability to perfectly read one another's intention, it almost didn't matter. Practicing moving at the limits of speed they were pushing against would likely have a benefit all its own, even if they fell into something more instinctual like a dance.

After the first several swings, Emery could feel it. Neither of them were actually processing any of the strikes, or even making any conscious decisions amidst the flurry of weapons. They were both following nothing but instinct, simply feeling the other's actions. It was intense and enthralling, almost like falling under a trance during a dance, just following your partner's each and every move.

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Even if it was horrible practice for a fight, Emery couldn't be upset at it. There was something deeply satisfying about the way they moved together at the absolute height of the speeds they could reach, following the smallest twitches and tells from one another. The exhilaration and satisfaction of it was intoxicating.

It also didn't help that Emery knew without any effort that they both had such unreserved, brilliant smiles plastered on their faces. It was rare to be able to exist so singularly in a moment of raw prowess like that.

And then their weapons broke.

It was sudden, and left both of them stunned. It wasn't anything so simple as a weapon cracking under strain, either. Their weapons were essentially Qi constructs, designed to be strong, resilient, and tough. But Avuri's spear and one of Emery's swords had practically shattered on contact, returning to essence.

The sudden end of their dance was so sudden, that Emery didn't even register that she still had her left-hand weapon. Somewhere along the way, Avuri had simply let her Blizzard Dragon puff away as well, having never utilized it. They both just stopped and stared at one another for a long moment before they snapped out of their enthralled state.

The area around them was clear of everything. The spot they had picked as their training ground had started as a medium sized clearing with patches of a naturally resilient grass that managed to grow in the heightened cold of the Flowing Dragon Peak. And that was before Avuri had forcefully froze the whole ground.

Now, none of that could be seen. The entire clearing had been stripped down to bare, frozen dirt that had been trampled and packed so forcefully by their feet that it felt almost like stone.

"Uh…" Emery let out a confused sound, as she lifted her left-hand sword up to look at it. The weapon, from pommel to tip, was full of hairline fractures and cracks. She suspected that another clash would've shattered it, too. That had never happened to her in combat before. Only during training when she was well and truly exhausted. But she didn't feel all that drained.

Avuri was looking up to the sky, a mild look of confusion on her face that matched how Emery felt pretty well.

"Em? How long were we out here, you think?"

The beautiful sunset hadn't registered at first, but there it was. The striking pink and blue hues in the sky looked as lovely as they ever had.

"It must have been a while."

"That felt like…seconds. Minutes, maybe. But hours?" Avuri murmured, in awe.

Emery tried to not think about it too hard. "Probably around two, if I had to guess. It was mid afternoon when we started."

"What happened, exactly, do you think?"

"If I had to guess?"

"Combat meditation?"

"Yeah, probably." Emery agreed.

It was the only thing that made sense. She had heard of people meditating while working on other tasks, like house work or whatever the case would be. She also knew of a number of Sects that practiced combat meditation, but it was supposed to be a state of flow that was incredibly difficult to access.

There was probably something about the way their minds had access to one another that allowed them to work their bodies against one another with minimal conscious thought.

"What the actual hell, Em?"

That got a chuckle from Emery, and she shrugged. "I don't know. Hardly the first time we've done something weird like that, though."

"I know," Avuri said, sounding immediately exasperated, "but where does it end?"

"For what it's worth, I don't think we've done anything too far fetched this time. It's not like whatever we just did would be useful for anything."

"Except, you know, running conditioning drills." Avuri said flatly.

And Emery couldn't exactly argue that point. Her body felt well worked in a way that she rarely felt anymore outside of real combat scenarios. Usually, Cultivators in the upper parts of the Sky Realm had to hold back during practice and training to avoid damaging other people or their surroundings. It was one of the reasons that high-Realm Cultivation became so spiritual; the physical parts of it literally became too dangerous to practice without thought.

"I can literally feel what you're thinking, stupid." Avuri said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah." Emery responded with no bite.

"Oh. Right!" Avuri said suddenly, pointing to Emery's right arm. "Also, that."

Emery's perfectly normal, un-shredded arm. She blinked.

"Yeah, alright." Emery said, inspecting the limb that she last remembered looking like it had been gnawed on by a beast. "That one I don't understand." She shook out the limb, half wondering whether loose scales would fall off or something, but her arm seemed to be in remarkably good condition. "Did you-?"

"Heal you?" Avuri finished the question, looking incredulous.

"Yeah, I figured."

In a practiced motion, Emery brought her other hand up, still holding her remaining sword. She pushed a bit of extra Qi into it, reinforcing it despite the cracks, and cut into her own right arm. It wasn't a particularly deep cut, but she made sure it was enough to cut through the scales.

Avuri, able to feel what Emery was thinking, watched on, just as curiously. None of the Elders had mentioned any sort of accelerated natural healing as a Dragon-Kin, but dragons themselves did heal quickly.

It took a minute before it started, but the cut on Emery's arm did indeed start to repair itself. The initial cut was clean and fast, so the skin and sinew didn't really have all that much work to do to stitch itself back together. But still, even if Emery's arm had taken the supposed two hours of their battle-trance to heal itself, the fact that it had at all was astounding.

Wordlessly, Avuri offered her own arm up to her wife. In response, Emery repeated a similar cut on Avuri's arm. They wanted to know if it was just Emery that healed like that, or a more general effect.

And they had their answer when Avuri's arm began repairing itself even quicker than Emery's had.

By the time Avuri had her head in her hands, scratching at her scalp in bewilderment, her arm looked nearly pristine.

"Well. None of the Elders mentioned that." Emery said, speaking the obvious.

"You don't say?"