#nioven

Elora took the taunt, extinguished her dual blades, and vanished. She watched as immediately the Jedi’s stance changed, a lower guard, a higher stance - one she can more readily react to a wide berth of attacks upon her. Any normal Knight might have been slow to adapt, she? She was certainly different, even as she closed her eyes to focus her senses now on just where Elora may be. She kept scanning the horizon, checking her blind spots with her mind.

She kept shrouded almost near to the end of her ability before she surged forward. A twist, a kick up, and while the Jedi may have been checking around her, she certainly did not check above. She she yelled with the effort as her focus broke and she appeared just above the Jedi, igniting her blades - about to neatly decapitate the Jedi from the spinning momentum with a slash from her mainhand. But the Jedi’s instincts were true as she had enough time to block the slash handily. Which Elora was counting on. She stabbed down with the second blade hoping to find purchase in her shoulder when the block, instead, was more of an overhead strike, deflecting both of the sabers away as she completed her twist and landed low.

She dodged a knee to her face and parried another overhead strike as she spun back up to her feet trying to follow up with a quick stab with the Jedi’s saber deflected before she just extended her leg and caught Elora in the stomach. A tight exhale as she let the pain suffuse through her, starting another flurry of strikes but every one was systematically beaten back with the double-handed strength of her own or by the Jedi getting too in her face to strike her effectively in the first place.

After minutes of a rampant affair her arms were burning, she saw the sweat dripping off of her opponent’s olive-green complexion, as finally their blades caught and sparked with the sudden stalemate. She breathed through a fierce grin as the grim, scarred, countenance of the Jedi similarly just had to smile. They were warriors, that shared fire burned in both of them, and this? This was a hell of a blaze.

She took a gamble.

She suddenly shifted to the side, deflecting the saber off of her own two as the Jedi was set off balance. She could quickly cut back up through - she had her opening, but instead extinguished her blades, and - using the Jedi’s own leg as a perch spun to catch a hooking heel to the side of her face. She saw the sudden reversed grip on the blade as the Jedi caught her foot and absorbed most of the damage as she was sent rolling just a couple feet onto the dirt.

She didn’t use the chance to quickly follow up and in seeing the Jedi in that last moment - she could have easily just pointed her hilt her way, ignited it, and probably ran her through somewhere vital if she had so chosen to. But they didn’t. Neither of them did.

Instead they had space between them now, weapons off, and for a moment they just stared at each other, panting. She drew some hairs from her mouth as the Jedi pushed herself back up. The hair around them was electric with the promise of more carnage, more of a fight, more of this energy they both found they thrived off of. Even as the adrenaline and surge of aggression threatened to burn her until she was empty, Elora knew there was only so much farther a Jedi could go with such a style before threatening to lose something in themselves; or admit something they fought against.

So they stared each other down, caught their breath, and allowed for the dust to finally settle on the battlefield.

“Do you yield, Sith?” the Jedi called. She was the first one to speak, gulping back a breath as she kept the hilt of her white saber at the ready, blade ready to be ignited once more. Elora looked between the hilt, and those light, fierce, eyes of her opponent.

“Do you?” she questioned simply. It was a good fight, it would be a shame to destroy something that gave her such pleasure in fighting - the fierce, wide, smile still hadn’t left her face. There was a huff of something like laughter from the Jedi as she just shook her head.

“No fucking way,” she challenged. Damn, if that wasn’t enough to make her want to go for round two but - they were both unfit to continue in the fashion they wanted to.

“You’re such a good sport. I’d hate to destroy you now,” she replied. Her own hilts were warm in her hands; heavy, as well.

“Then I believe we are at an impasse,” the Jedi concluded.

There was a beat and at once they both, at the same time, returned their hilts to their belts.  The Jedi heaved a sigh and flipped her braid off of her shoulder as Elora ran her hand through her hair, pushing it back.

“What’s your name, Jedi?”

“Nioven,” she said after a moment, brushing the dirt off of her white armor as she stood tall, kept her chin raised. Proud, fierce, beautiful, Elora clicked her tongue and shook her head - good fighters are always wasted on the Jedi. “Yours?”

“Darth Aesis,” she said. After a moment she gave a sharp nod to Nioven “you may call me Elora. Nioven, you would be such a force to be reckoned with if the Jedi did not hold you back. Literally and figuratively, I imagine,” she said. It usually fell on deaf ears but she saw the annoyance of being called a Knight, the frustration in some of her strikes.

“Yeah, sure,” Nioven nodded somewhat then stared her right in the face, “but at what cost? If this is some line, I’m definitely not biting Aes - I mean - Elora. Sorry.”

“A shame,” and she meant that. There was a quick tightening of Nioven’s lips, a quick look away, maybe she was more onto something than she intended. “If that is indeed the case, you should know this will not happen again.”

“Yeah ... I know,” Nioven replied with a setting of her jaw and a fierce nod of finality. “It seems bad form to wish a Sith, especially a Darth, good luck but, uh. Maybe instead I can say: I hope to see you again, Elora. Definitely.” That fire ignited behind her eyes, one last fight, where one of them does not walk away from it.

“And I hope to never see you again,” she countered. She smirked a little and turned away, “it’ll be a damn waste for me to kill you when that time comes. The Jedi still need to find some way to keep this war interesting!” She called without turning around and heard the soft laughter from behind her.