 for hurtful language and mild violence.
Rain Came Down
The light spattering of raindrops on the flat of a swordblade were all that
could be heard by her. It was the entire world, fixated. Her breathing was
outside of reality, not part of her and not part of her body. Mirror reflective
of the streetlamps below, the blade itself quivered. Rain warped its surface and
slid down and fell, twisting earth itself.
Siloutted across the rooftop, black and hunched over into a cocoon, he was
waiting. There was no reflection from him. The rain came down in a curtain
between them, devoid of words but consistant like the beating of a xylaphone.
Her feet slid out, heels lifted from the grainy rooftop and her elbow flexed.
The sword, an extention of herself, her entire arm a blade, came forward in a
careful arch. Her free hand moved, fingertips touching the hilt.
Hands closed. The leather squeaked inaudably between her fingers. She could
feel it, but hear nothing. Rain slicked down her face, trailing in her fur. It
was only the rain. No other sound.
He hadn't moved.
She jumped forward, bringing the sword up on an angle and begining to run.
Footfall was hypersensitive, the scratching sound of claws on gravel moving
rapidly enough to match rainfall. Ahead, he began to uncoil, unfurl from the
cocoon he'd formed out of his own body. Three meters away and he was already
standing. Darkness receeded from his face long enough for a cerulean sliver to
impale the storm.
Her blade met opposition when she swung, she could not see but she knew what
it was from. The lights below lied, but it was there. His sword had moved in the
distortion of the rain and now held her at bay. From his stance fixated against
the neon lamps of the rooftops, she could see he held her one handed.
Muscles tightened under her skin, she could feel them clenching around bone
slowly from shoulder downwards. Her palms were sweating, through her fur, and
her grip quivered. The blades scraped against one another. The sound was like
ripping violin strings, and it shredded through the air the longer she held her
stance. His feet were splayed calmly, his entire modis unconcerned. Hers was
locked, trained and solid and quivering.
He didn't waste time driving the point home. The blades broke contact and she
was sent back, stumbling, her feet tripping over one another on the slick tarred
surface. Hind claws dug in, small fissures sinking into the rooftop as she took
time to breath. Readjust, to glare, and he stared impassively through a shadow
of his own body.
To charge again.
She met his blade this time with a series of quick strokes, each one blocked
lazily with one hand by his own. She moved around him, attacking on each side,
but he followed her effortlessly each time. The more she moved, the easier it
was for him to predict her next movement, and his cobalt eyes never left their
focus on her. Like the optical illusion of a great painter, they followed her
wherever she chose to run.
He was in no danger, and wanted to prove that now. With a deft flip of his
wrist, the blades interlaced, twirled around one another counter clockwise. He
was light on his feet and took control of her swipes easily. The sword that she
had been squeezing until her palms sweated seemed to phase through her
fingertips and go flying up and away, undirected, to clatter on the rooftop in
the shallow rainwater meters away.
Now she was trying to get away, but couldn't see where her sword had gone,
and tripped over her hindclaws. She went down backwards, clattering with a high
pitched yelp. The living equivolent of her weapon. He lowered the dark blade and
took steps forward. No sound, but the rippling of rainwater against her backside
was indication enough.
He filled the sky, dark and towering, a Rauc obscuring the universe from
view. The lights lit him from below and reflected up against his pale yellowed
fur and into the cerulean eyes, a golden sea of fire swimming there. The corners
of his mouth turned down, and his shoulders raised slightly in response to an
unheard sigh.
"You haven't learned anything, have you?"
And she tried to scramble away.
His sword came down.
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