Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Rhayne moves first.

The metallic silk doesn’t come in a straight line. It opens space before the aggression, drawing an arc that forces Mira to adjust the spear’s tip so she won’t take the first contact on her forearm.

Mira gives half a step back. No alarm in it. Probably calculation. Her spear drops from the center into a low guard, the haft locked between both hands, the point angled at Rhayne’s knee. The first thrust comes.

It’s the correct answer. Against a flexible weapon, aiming for the torso means accepting the dance. Aiming for the base means cutting the dance before it begins.

Rhayne sees it.

She doesn’t jump. She only crosses her rear foot behind the lead one and lets her body turn along a narrow line, sending the spear’s point past where her leg had been an instant before. The Battle Ribbon follows the turn, comes back from the left, and the metallic silk touches Mira’s shoulder with the lightness of a ribbon in a recital.

Except the weapon isn’t a ribbon.

A thread of blood appears at the same moment.

The shoulder recovers almost immediately, but that brief interval, in a real fight, is long enough to die in. The spear’s point rises again too late to keep Rhayne from stepping in once more. The metallic silk passes under Mira’s elbow, spirals upward, and forces the Amazon to open her arm or be wrapped.

Rhayne doesn’t pull.

’Good decision, good girl.’

If she pulled early, Mira would turn the spear’s haft into a lever and break the ribbon’s line. Rhayne only touches, exits, and lets the effect work.

The Battle Ribbon’s passive begins there.

Every contact steals a little of the opponent’s time. The kind of thing skilled fighters feel before they understand it. The foot recovers a little slower. The shoulder’s rotation doesn’t close as cleanly. The distance that felt safe stops being safe on the next exchange.

Mira notices it on the third touch.

Rhayne spins inward, body low, a free hand opening for balance while the Battle Ribbon passes at waist height. Mira tries to retreat and stab at once, a short move meant to force Rhayne to choose between stopping and impaling herself. Rhayne plants a hand on the ground, slides under the spear’s line, passing a hair from her own right ear, then turns over her shoulder, letting her heel sweep close to Mira’s face before she comes back to her feet. A clean spinning wheel kick.

The kick passes close, but it’s only a feint. The metallic silk touches the Amazon’s thigh at the end of the spin and opens another shallow wound.

Mira sets her jaw. "She’s slowing me down."

Freya crosses her arms across the circle. "Then stop letting her touch you."

The next sequence comes more aggressive. Mira doesn’t try to hit Rhayne right away. She pushes the spear in short lines to occupy space: point at the shoulder, point at the knee, haft spinning to cut the side of the body. It’s a moving fence, every motion meant to keep Rhayne from crossing the center.

Rhayne is smart enough not to fight for the center. She dances around it.

Her body looks too light for the violence of the circle, but the lightness has structure. Every turn starts at the foot, runs through the hip, ends at the wrist. The Battle Ribbon isn’t dragged by her motion. It’s guided. When Mira closes the attack angle with the spear’s point, Rhayne breaks her own axis and pivots. When Mira uses the haft to sweep her legs, she jumps low, just enough for the shaft to pass under her feet.

Mira’s spear starts arriving too late. Not by much, but enough, as if she were tired. I know it’s the Battle Ribbon’s passive.

Rhayne enters from the left side, the ribbon curving behind her body like a silver tail, the metallic silk hissing as it cuts the wind. Mira tries to correct with a wide step, shortening the distance, and a haft strike at rib height. Rhayne spins outward, lets the blow pass flush against the fabric, and answers with the ribbon wrapping the wrist of Mira’s lead hand for half a second.

This time she pulls. Not hard enough to tear the weapon away. Enough to break the alignment.

Mira’s arm opens, the spear’s point leaves its stance, and Rhayne slides close enough to touch the Amazon’s chest with two fingers before pulling back. Not a fatal blow. Rhayne’s leech probably does little damage. But it says one clear thing: I arrived.

Mira looks at the spot where the fingers touched. Her face doesn’t change much. Only her eyes go harder.

"You move too pretty for someone so quiet."

Rhayne is breathing faster now, but she doesn’t look lost. Her hair tied back leaves her face exposed, and the expression there is still firm.

"Thank you."

Mira releases the spear with her left hand. A dagger appears between her fingers.

The motion comes with no warning. She throws the blade at Rhayne. Rhayne dodges, and the dagger strikes the ground behind her, a low diagonal that passes close enough to hold the breath. Rhayne sees it, registers it, and returns her attention to the spear, because the main threat is still in front.

’Damn it... careful, Rhayne...’

I remember something I almost let slip myself.

Mira advances right after. The spear comes at belly height, short and fast, forcing Rhayne back into a crossed step. The Battle Ribbon answers, touching Mira’s forearm once more, leaving another thread of blood running. The accumulated effect makes the spear lag, and Rhayne uses it to turn over her right leg, opening space for a counter-arc of the ribbon.

And it’s in that turn that the dagger returns.

It comes from behind. Not flying like an arrow. Returning like a weapon called back to its owner’s hand, pulled by a line I can’t see. The blade enters Rhayne’s blind spot, high, hunting her back before she finishes the rotation.

Mira’s gesture and the dagger’s sound make Rhayne catch it at the last instant. Too late to avoid. Early enough not to lose. She throws herself into a side aerial, clearing a critical point.

The dagger opens a deep cut along the side of her thigh. Her landing fails for an instant, and the Battle Ribbon loses its perfect curve, slapping the ground with a metallic crack. Blood runs fast down the skin and stains the dark leather of her trousers before dripping into the dirt.

My hand closes on its own. Zhang Xi takes a step. I raise two fingers, telling her to wait.

Rhayne doesn’t fall.

Her face goes white for a second, but the good leg takes the weight. She pulls the ribbon back with a short flick of the wrist, breathes deep through her nose, and resets the wounded foot farther behind, shifting the dance’s axis without asking her own body’s permission to suffer.

Freya smiles at the corner of her mouth. "There’s her passive. Amazon Recall."

Mira catches the dagger back in her left hand and stows it without looking.

Rhayne looks at her own thigh. Then at Mira. Her expression doesn’t change, and that scares me more than the running blood.

Mira seems to notice it too. The Amazon advances to exploit the wounded leg, but Rhayne changes the dance. Fewer full turns. Less long support on the cut side. The ribbon starts working in smaller curves, closer to the body, touching wrist, shoulder, hip, always stealing a little more time.

Mira begins to lose the exchange. Not from weakness. From accumulation. Her body is already cut up with shallow wounds. The physical damage is almost irrelevant, but the magical weight is real.

Mira breathes deep. Then she calls another item from her inventory.

A small buckler appears on her left arm. Round, marked by old cuts, made to take impact without trapping the hand. Not big enough to hide the body. Big enough to deny contact.

Mira’s stance lowers. Spear in one hand. Buckler in the other.

Rhayne sends the ribbon up again, hunting the path along the side.

Mira advances.

And for the first time since the start, the Battle Ribbon meets something that doesn’t yield, doesn’t catch, and doesn’t bleed.

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