A Match of Monsters

Chapter Twelve

Elain's eyes watered as she forced herself not to close them, too afraid she would miss the moment where everything tipped, where one of the dragons would begin to overwhelm the other.

But the moment carried on unchanged, and the two great beasts remained equal as they battled each other.

Strike. Defend. Retaliate.

It did not matter if they moved against each other with fang and claw, or smoke and magic, as the pattern always remained the same. Enchanted shields flashed and smouldering scripts wove through the heavy atmosphere, as her Ladyship both simultaneously defended and attacked in perfect harmony. Every time Manasseh would raise his claws, her Lady's wings would stretch forward and around until they were over half extended and curved around to protect the delicate scales from her forehead to where her breast curled back under her body.

But no matter how brightly Manasseh's claws glowed with his magic, he could never manage to peel away her magical defences. Even though Elain could not see her Ladyship's magic with her naked sight, she likened the dragoness's protective spells to that of an onion; seemingly endless layers to peel away, with each one stronger, more potent and harmful than the last had been. Granted, an onion would only make one cry, not explode and force them a distance multiple times the length of their body across the cave. But it was still the closest similarity Elain's limited experience could give her.

With each of her Ladyship's shields that Manasseh broke through, the sound and force of their shattering became more and more that it had been before. Soon, not even the Lady could brace herself firmly enough against the magical eruptions, and Elain winced as she heard the high screeching of the dragoness's claws digging into the delicate stonework under her paws as she attempted to anchor herself, and leaving deep gouges that spanned the distance she had been forced across.

Yet throughout the fight, her Ladyship remained calm. Too calm. She did not respond to any of the taunts her opponent spat at her, or even appear to acknowledge that he spoke in the first place.

Battle taunts of winning or losing, of what had happened in the past or what would happen in the future. It did not matter what the male said, as nothing phased her. The Lady stood as still and silent as the eye of a storm against Manasseh's wild rage, her only movements were to brace herself each time the faintly shimmering enchantment of her shield exploded, or to strike back at Manasseh's blows with her own. Each hit was as wild and obvious as a hay-maker, Manasseh clearly seeing each move and preparing for them. His tight shoulders barely flinched as he easily blocked each hit. If Elain had not been watching as closely as she was, she would have noticed the small movement as the muscles along his back tightened in reflex with each block, and understood exactly how hard her Ladyship was striking him, the hits easily avoidable or not.

To Elain, she felt that her Ladyship was only playing with him.

Never would the little girl admit to this aloud, but as the two immortals fought, the Lady reminded her of a certain mortal animal; a feline. Not one of the cats that resided in barns or out in the wild, of which hunted always to survive and killed their prey at the first chance they could get, but much more like the sadistic, domesticated house cat. Not in the lazy or entitled sense of nature of these pampered and spoiled rotten creatures, but rather in the way the selfish creatures would chase down unnecessary quarries and took a sick joy out of playing with the lives of whatever poor, little animal they could get their claws on. Hurting and teasing whatever critter they currently possessed only enough so that it would not be able to run from them, but not so much that the prey would not stop running altogether. Taunting the animals with false hope about survival, the entitled felines would spend hours persuing their victims, inflicting many minor wounds that barely hurt the animals as individual injuries, but when inflicted together, one on top of another and another, the cat's target would eventually tire from blood loss and hopelessness long after it should have died.