Chapter 346: Blades Clashing.

Chapter 346: Chapter 346: Blades Clashing.

This is a stage unlike any Khobi has ever fought upon before.

Out here in the open there’s no arena, no rings, no crowd. Just the wilderness, and them.

​It feels right , somehow.

​Loac doesn’t wait for him to set himself; doesn’t even wait for him to draw his sword --he’s on him the moment the words leave his lips and Khobi has but a single heartbeat to wrench his blade from its sheath to stop him from rending him in two right there where he stands.

But a heartbeat is all he needs, and when Loac’s blade comes swinging down at him, glinting like lightning against the churning, grey sky, Khobi’s is right there to meet it, just like Loac knew it would be.

And as Khobi throws him back the air abruptly shifts ; turning turbulent, and blazing with heat, and Khobi finally gets to see what he’s been aching to see again.

​Sparks. So blinding, and so, so blue.

​(They feel exactly how he remembers.)

​And from the way Loac’s eyes positively blaze as he parries his first strike, he’s been looking forward to this just as much as Khobi.

Unable to hide his eagerness and seeing no reason to bother, Khobi launches himself off the rocks they’ve been perched on, cloak billowing out behind him as he soars, crashing down into Loac like a landslide and starting in at him before he can find his feet.

He’s been forced to watch from the sidelines for too long now; gazing out at the storm when all he wants is to run wild in the rain, and he can wait no longer.

And as Loac whirls to face him, cloak sweeping wide against the rugged backdrop of the wild, there’s just no denying that he is more than happy to oblige.

​He strikes, and even though the force makes Khobi’s arms ache and he nearly goes careening off his feet, he takes it with relish ; beating him back and throwing himself behind his blade.

And as they track across the frozen landscape, kicking up flurries of fresh snow with the chill wind whipping at their faces and tearing up their eyes, those two blades strike up an old song between them; a crisp, wild beat that Khobi loves and which sets his chest on fire.

Out here it reverberates off the distance mountains, climbing high into the afternoon air and letting the wind take it.

​It takes them, too, whisking them away across the snow in sprays of white and their blades weaving as they weave; catching daylight like shooting stars.

There’s nothing out here but them; no footsteps but theirs.

The training ground gets so easily churned to mud, but this snow lies as an untouched canvas and they’re free to carve out whichever paths they choose; picking their way across the uneven terrain by feel alone because they simple can’t bear to look away.

And while Khobi has to tread more carefully as he chases Loac across the frozen shoreline, for the ground here is treacherous and unpredictable in its rise and fall.

Loac however, knows this place by heart and has always been impossibly light on his feet, so even with the snow underfoot he never stumbles or trips; ghosting across the snow like he’s only skimming the surface.

Or maybe the earth changes for him, giving him solid ground to step on wherever he pleases.

Even with the furs he moves like he’s weightless; flitting here and there like a wraith but striking hot and wild like thunder rolling across a summer’s sky.

​"That all you got, Khobi?" Loac taunts as they come in close; blades whispering sweet nothings to each other as they catch and grind like lovers spent too many years apart.

But he’s panting as he says it, and there’s fire in his eyes and in his voice and in his limbs and it’s pouring out of him and into Khobi, wrapping him up and spurring him on and burning so wild and hot it might just burn up the world.

Their blades sigh against each other as they strain, and as Loac’s leans in close Khobi feels the urge to follow; to lean into his shape and let him lead him where he will.

It’s that gravity in motion again; always, endlessly luring him in.

​That’s where the danger lies.

​So with a shout Khobi twists his blade; breaking the equilibrium, and swings. Three strikes, in quick succession.

​Clean.

​Crisp.

​Perfect.

​Just like how Loac fights.

​The asshole catches each one, his blocks just as clean, just as crisp, and just as perfect.

And then he smirks, tantalisingly running his blade up the length of Khobi’s. It looks feather-light but the force behind the almost sensual gesture makes his arms quake.

​And then, with a wicked look that sets Khobi’s blood on fire, Loac sends the same three strikes right back at him, but harder.

​Khobi neatly blocks each one.

​"You’ll have to do better than that," he taunts right back, red eyes flashing with wildfire as their eyes lock across their blades in a rare moment of stillness between them; two forces equally unstoppable and immovable.

In moments like these, where the world beyond them fades away and their bodies draw in so close and so taut, Khobi can feel every quaking of Loac’s breath and Loac can feel his.

All around them the air is changing --has been, since the moment Loac tossed him that sword --Loac’s eternal storm brewing like a beast all of its own.

And as Loac wrenches their blades free of their tight embrace, Khobi feels time start to slow as the tempest rises, and knows that this is it; this is what he has been craving with every fibre of his being.

And like a starving man, he dives blindly into the darkness.

But the storm he was expecting isn’t there.

​Instead, in it’s place there’s starlight, as clear and still and as limitless as if he were standing beneath the open night sky.

Then Loac grins. And just like that the air has no sting, and it’s no longer winter. And as the wind rushes out of Khobi’s lungs; the moment he’s trapped in too still to let him even draw breath, that current strikes up again, humming to life under his skin like a storm gathering, aching to spark.

It wants out; wants to pour into the space between them until they meet, like two halves snapping whole.

​He hears cicadas, keeping time with the racing of his heart, and suddenly, the furs he’s wearing are suffocating.

​Hand tightening on his blade, he sees Loac sweep his cloak aside and plant his feet.

He’s surprised there’s even snow underfoot anymore when suddenly it feels like summer.

Like this, in his heavy winter furs and the wind whipping at his hair, he feels not quite beast but also not quite human; rather something in between.

Something ethereal from a story that stalks the wilderness, hunting and hungry and wandering free and wild and without a care.

Something bright and dazzling, like midnight in a starlit sky. And so, endlessly blue.

​In that moment, Khobi hears the wild.

​This, he understands, heart hamming in his chest, is the real Loac.

​Perfection.

​Like something from a dream. And as the world starts to turn once more, revolving out of time, Khobi feels the shift once more, and knows instinctively, that Loac is coming for him.

​Three strikes --not lightning, but stars --so bright and fleeting that Khobi doesn’t so much as see them as he feel them.

And without even thinking his body just moves on its own; eyes flashing iridescently red as his sword comes up each time to bar Loac’s way.

One of them catches him across the arm, but with adrenaline flooding through his veins he barely feels it; it’s not the first time Loac’s blade has drawn blood on him and it won’t be the last.

Red tarnishes the snow here and there, and if anyone were to chance upon this place it would be impossible to tell whether the tracks they’ve carved and the blood they’ve spilled made by men, or beasts at play.

​Perhaps both, because in ways this is just as much chase as it is fight; the pair of them kicking through snow drifts and leaping across dips in the earth, and as they battle along in their current of theirs like two leaves tangling their way through in eddies down a stream, Khobi realises that they’re both laughing, too.

It’s push, and it’s pull; this wave they’re riding flinging them wide and wild, but always, somehow, drawing them back to one another.

It’s so easy, getting caught up in the way Loac moves, because Khobi wants to see more of it; wants to feel his shape whispering against him, wants to feel him straining and see the patterns he can make come to life.

But that’s not how you win.

​And he’s going to win .