“That seems more like your own motives. And, this be a duel to the death not,”De’Tearion replied.
When she shrieked, De’Tearion collapsed to his knees, gasping and holding his ears in agony. He nearly passed out, but she stopped just beforehand and he managed to somewhat recover.
He teleported away, reappearing behind Jackie again and stumbling to the ground. He tried to stand, but failed, black blood trickling from his ears. After a moment to let a wave of dizziness pass, he raised all four arms and threw four balls of the stunning energy. One was aimed directly at Jackie, the other three were aimed around the first one.
De’Tearion then crawled over to a tree and leaned back against it. His ears rang loudly, seriously disorienting him, making him lightheaded. And, the amount of magic he’d just used at once had exhausted him. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to continue fighting.
"Maybe. But who cares?" Jackie shrugs.
She's hit by the first, and the other ones graze her. She doesn't have another charge in the voice amulet, so she disappears with a click of her heels, gasping as the darkness of De'Tearion's attacks hit her fully.
Damn him and those shadows.
De’Tearion didn’t register that Jackie was hit. It also took him a minute to realize that she was gone. When he finally did notice, he groaned in pain, then groggily maneuvered to his feet, turning around so that he could slowly climb the tree.
A moment later, De’Tearion was once more in the branches. He found himself a comfortable spot and laid there, quickly falling unconscious. Translucent black drool occasionally fell from his mouth as he slept.
Jackie winces, spitting up dark red blood.
She was sure she was going to end up unconscious soon, but it's not like she could stop it.
Sure enough, a minute later she was unconscious.
De’Tearion slept until it was nearly noon. When he finally woke, the familiar ache of hunger nagged at him. His ears also hurt, and De’Tearion had a bad feeling that his balance would be way off for a while.
He groaned, crawling along the branches toward a tree, and sluggishly climbing down. It was strange, not jumping down like he usually did, but he was glad he hadn’t jumped. The moment he stood on the ground, lightheadedness bombarded him and he stumbled and fell.
“Damn that woman,”he hissed under his breath, moaning in pain as he slowly sat up.
De’Tearion sighed, then teleported back to the cottage he was staying in. He then maneuvered onto the small bed in the corner, leaning against the wall and holding his head while trying to ignore his hurting body.
Some time after noon, Jackie wakes up and spits up a clot of congealed blood.
Her armor's enchantments were the only things that had kept her from dying last night.
"Damn him." she snarls.
She looks around. She was in her own room.
De’Tearion didn’t move for a long while. He wasn’t really paying attention anymore to what part of the day it was. The pain slowly settled until only his ears were still throbbing. He simply stared into oblivion, his mind blank except for the occasional thought on the oak wood the cottage was built from. It would likely be a while longer before he could even attempt to stand without falling down.
Near midnight, Jackie tries to stand, and partly succeeds. Wincing, she clutches her temples.
"Damn him. Damn him."
De’Tearion fell asleep again, and didn’t wake until it was a little after midnight. His ears still ached, but the wounds were mostly healed.
To experiment, De’Tearion shifted to the edge of the bed and slowly stood up. He nearly fell over again, but this time he moved his feet to stabilize himself. Dizziness bombarded him then, and he sighed.
“How had she screamed like that?”he mumbled shakily, genuinely wondering.
He sat down again, taking a deep breath. Then, he got comfortable and took another nap.
Jackie manages to completely stand a little bit after dawn. She huffs and strips off her armor and her overclothes, stepping outside to go to the nearby stream to bathe and get clean.
She sighs as she strips down completely, letting her long hair down. She dips a toe into the water, making barely a ripple, before stepping in completely.
She completely ignores her surroundings, one of the only times she does.
De’Tearion woke at dawn. He got up, and managed to walk to the door of the little cottage without falling over. He then opened the door and walked around some more, testing his limits. Surprisingly, the more he walked, the better he felt.
With a thoughtful chirp, De’Tearion decided to return to the site where he’d battled Jackie. He concentrated a moment, remembering what the place looked like, then teleported. After a minute to inspect the place, finding nothing of interest, De’Tearion sighed in boredom. He then inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, seeking out Jackie’s scent.
It came to him quickly and he found the trail she’d made while walking into the forest. He opened his eyes, following that trail.
Eventually, he found where Jackie was staying. He kept to the shadows, but it seemed like she wasn’t at home. So, he followed the freshest trail he could find and discovered her bathing in a stream.
He moved to a place downwind of Jackie, in case her sense of smell was as good as his. He also kept his distance, to avoid being spotted by sight or hearing. Then, he watched her, spying on his current nemesis as much as admiring the scene in front of him. He couldn’t help but stare at Jackie’s long, gorgeous hair.
(Just stalking her lol)
Eventually, Jackie turns and perks up her ears, then smiles lazily.
She adopts a casual stance, one hand on her hip.
"Nice to know you enjoy watching women clean themselves, Akle-Ikli."
(Lol)
De’Tearion noticed the way her ears moved, and knew that he’d somehow been caught. But, he was curious how she’d react, so he stayed. He quickly regretted it, because all Jackie did was annoy him.
Without even responding, De’Tearion teleported away, appearing on the far side of the cottage Jackie was staying in. He peeked in one of the windows, studying the place. With a bit of concentration, his entire body turned into a cloud of gas. He then slipped through the small cracks and crevices of the window, moving to stand in the middle of the floor before materializing again.
De’Tearion wandered through the cottage, quiet as a ghost, inspecting everything. Jackie wasn’t the usual kind of person he dealt with, and he wanted to figure out who she was and why. He had already faced a similar situation with a previous nemesis, and it had nearly killed him three times. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Jackie steps out of the stream and wrings out her hair, then slips back into her clothes.
"And what, pray tell, are you doing looking through my underwear?" she asks De'tearion when she walks into her house, leaning against the doorway.
De’Tearion had been looking through all of Jackie’s clothes, searching for hidden weapons or items of interest. He then neatly folded all of her clothes. He glanced to the side at Jackie as he folded the last pair of her underwear.
“I know not what these are, yet I am a tidy individual. It would be rude to leave a mess,”he snorted.
He returned the underwear to its place, pondering why they were called ‘under-wear’. It sounded like a human name. And, the way humans named things had always confused him.
"They are what cover my modesty, my good sir. And you have been touching them with you buggy hands. They shall need to be washed." Jackie sighs, kicking the door closed as she walks fully into the room and sitting down casually on the bed.
"Now, what do you want? To settle our fight from yesterday? If so, forget about it for now. I'm not in the mood."
“Your ‘modesty’? Mercy have me. I despise riddles, woman. And, I doubt you are blind as well. My hands are human,”De’Tearion hissed.
He raised one of his hands, showing off his fairly clean, long fingered, human hands. They were pale skinned, just like his face.
“The only thing I have touched be trees since our last battle. As I said, I am tidy,”he mentioned.
He watched her cautiously, then leaned against the wall. The way his hair settled on his shoulders framed his handsome face, the pitch black hue highlighting his deep blue eyes. His expression was stone as she questioned him, though he honestly had no idea what he wanted. Or why he was actually there.
“No. That battle be over. And, I wish not for another battle either,”he replied.
Jackie bounces up and walks casually over to De'Tearion, leaning in and explaining exactly what she'd meant by "her modesty."
"Does that explain my 'riddle', Akle-Ikli?" she finishes.
"And as for your hands, they are not human, because you are not human." she sighs, sitting back down.
"Good." she chuckles, laying down fully.
De’Tearion snorted, rolling his eyes. He had already known what she’d meant. He had just been annoyed by her poor choice of description. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the right human words to accurately describe his annoyance.
“I am no child. I knew what you spoke of,”he huffed.
“Very well,”he replied, not denying the truth of her words.
De’Tearion watched her, confused by how relaxed she was around him. Though, considering that she had won a battle against him, and their second battle had been a draw, it honestly wasn’t too surprising. That, and her damn steel weapons.
He turned away, staring into oblivion. For some strange reason, he just wasn’t in the mood to leave. Maybe it was the loneliness that had been plaguing him since… he’d been forced to leave what had become his home. Maybe it was something else. But, he didn’t… want to be alone, even despite the fact that his current choice of company was an unbearable bitch.
Minutes passed as he was drawn deeper into his thoughts, and he unconsciously started picking at the crust on his arms that had formed during his first battle with Jackie. It cracked and crunched as he picked at it, and he crushed whatever he pulled off. It disintegrated into black ash in his fingers, revealing healed skin beneath the crust.
Jackie huffs. "Whatever."
She leans up a bit to watch De'Tearion.
'You haven't left yet." she observes. "Usually you'd be so hasty about getting away from me that one would think you'd teleported."
De’Tearion jolted out of his thoughts, then sighed, his demeanor becoming melancholic for a moment. He then breathed deeply, straightening and returning to his typical stony expression.
He didn’t respond to her though. Instead, De’Tearion looked around, studying the room some more. His hand unconsciously drifted up to the collar of his robe, pulling his amulet out and cradling the pendant again.
Jackie watches him a bit more closely.
"You put up your mask again." she notes.
De’Tearion turned back to Jackie, his face emotionless but stern. There was something dark in his eyes, even threatening.
“Why be it of any importance to you?”he hissed.
His hand held his amulet tighter, though he was still mostly unaware of it.
Jackie looks at De'Tearion intently.
"Just an observation. You just. . . look like you haven't smiled properly in a long while."
De’Tearion chirped irritably at her words. He didn’t want to admit that she’d hit a nerve, but she did. A really, really sensitive nerve that had haunted him for a good while now.
“Again. Why be it of any importance to you?”he asked emotionlessly.
