Displays like these are ones Tarhos has seen before. Men and women desperately unleashing every ounce of rage they'd saved up towards their cruel lords and tragic lives in one final stand to keep themselves, their families, their homes from the sword. But these little exchanges had become precious and rare since passing into the Entity's realm. Most survivors seem to understand their roles and cling to their sad, little lives, regardless of their re-usability.

The careening toolbox, en route to the Knight's helmet, is knocked off course by a startlingly quick arc of his armored forearm, bringing his blade to rest with the broken tip buried in the dirt. Leaving it behind, he helps the little cretin close the distance between them by taking as many loud, clattering steps towards her as it takes. Then her fury begins.

It's through her tears of desperation, the scent of her heated blood creeping into his helmet, that he realizes why he detests her so. She doesn't just enjoy success, doesn't merely thrive off of the thrill. No, she needs it just to stay alive. To feel safe.

A passing thought occurs to Tarhos as he stands, stoic, allowing the sad, wounded, little girl her tantrum. How long would she have lasted under Kadir Hakam? Would it have made her strong enough to do something that mattered, here, now?

Unlikely.

Her words are meaningless to him -- the wailing of a petulant child who has yet to learn the most important lesson of keeping herself alive: the strong rule the weak. Her many blows, toolbox wielded like some awkward cudgel, land as intended. He allows them to. One, after another, none of them so much as cause him to flinch or stumble. Regardless of the hard edges the makeshift weapon affords her, his steel is forged with expertise and care. Even with consideration towards the adrenaline rushing through her veins, his fittings stay true and hold his armor in place. Like his armor, he too is built to receive violence and walk away without noticeable damage.

So he stands, shoulders square, chin leveled, eyes down on Min, totally unaffected.

"Are you done?"

When her strength wanes, so too does his patience.

"Did that bring you comfort? Did it change the glass in your arm? Does it change this?"

With one hand, like an athlete grips a ball, the Knight fastens a vice-like grip on Min by the forehead, waits a beat, and raises her off the ground. First, by mere inches, then, altogether too soon, she can see the glint of two hidden eyes peeking over tufts of hair embedded in the eye slots of his helmet.

Eye to eye. So he can watch the fight drain out of her along with her hope.

"把我放下来！"

The moment Min feels her feet leave the ground, she’s kicking, twisting and bucking, her high pitched yell tearing through the silence of the realm like the shrieking of a small wild rabbit that had been caught outside of the safety of it’s burrow. In the distance, she barely hears it in the pounding of her ears, one of those blasted generators sparking to life, maybe somewhere far off in the distance——but she doesn’t know. It’s impossible to focus on anything but that blank helmet so unnervingly close and face to face with her own.

She can feel his fingers tighten around her head through the gauntlet. Pressing into her skull. Small strands of black hair tearing under his iron grip and getting caught in the small crevices of the gauntlet’s metal. A small, small mercy compared to the agony Min knows is likely coming next. A single admittance that reflects exactly what he had wanted to see from her all along.

Acceptance.

It slowly fills her dilating pupils, shows in her stuttering breaths from her scratched throat and the way her struggles begin to cease from sheer exhaustion. The sort of acceptance when you know your efforts had finally ran their course. The Knight is a boss fight she can’t win, in a way. Min almost wants to laugh at how silly the comparison is in a moment like this. Or cry, the streaked tears that had already been shed down her cheeks forgotten in her tantrum. She’s not sure.

"I’m not——scared of you."

Min’s quiet, pained hiss is almost lost to the air. Maybe trying to convince him, or maybe trying to convince herself. She can feel her muscles locking, like they were instinctively bracing for a blow that had yet to come. Reflexes built from this constant loop and dance. Her eyes continuously dart to that hulking claymore at his side. The mere sight alone is enough to make her flinch.

Her blood soaked hand finds it’s way to the knight’s wrist and grabs on tight, an attempt to anchor herself and stop the trembling in her fingers. "Even if you kill me here," The young woman pauses for a breath and squeezes her eyes, trying to muster a firm, defiant expression. She isn’t positive it works. Every time she jostles around in his hold, she can feel that sharp stinging sensation shooting up her arm. The small grunts and whimpers betray all they need to. "I’ll come back, and i’ll—I’ll make you sorry."

Splat!

A large lob of saliva shoots out and makes contact with the killer’s helmet, splattering like a stain.

The last insult she can offer.

@yamaokablade

"Did you really think it would be that easy?"

The Knight snarled in his helmet, vision momentarily white from the burst of pain Min's makeshift dagger had prompted in his left shoulder. She was cunning in trials, and ruthless outside of them -- a set of traits that Tarhos would find desirable in a recruit, but her circumstance as survivor afforded him little options in that avenue. Reaching up with one gauntlet, armor audibly shifting, he pulled the shard of glass from his shoulder and threw it back at her with astounding force.

"It is impossible to underestimate a pest."

His gauntlet ignited in pale green flame, a warning that his company was never too far to be conjured.

"You overstep, worm. Come. Bring flesh to blade and let us end this absurd competition you've invented."

The shard of glass soars through the air in a blur, the split second it takes to go from it’s place in the knight’s hand to it’s jagged edge pointing between Min’s eyes no different from that of a bullet. Only here, there’s a breath of an opening where she’s able to raise her arms defensively to shield her face from impact that wouldn’t be offered anywhere else.

Not that it does any good.

The shard pierces her left forearm where her Lazer Bears shirt leaves protection to be desired, and she cries. The noise choked and lodged down her throat with every breath, a hand hovering and twitching over the shard like she wasn’t sure whether to pull it out or leave it. Min feels the fresh, warm blood begin it’s decent down her forearm, dripping onto her fingers––but through the white hot pain, one word sticks out.

Competition.

Everything was always a competition for Feng Min. Her career, her need for approval from her father. The only competition in life she could never win. But standing here before this towering brute in metal, bleeding and cornered, it was another one to add to that list. And Min? She was tired.

“A competition? That’s what you think this is?" The short woman takes a moment to regard the man’s figure as armour shifts back to it’s full height. Her voice is shaky, barely held together. Like a precise code that had finally found a game breaking bug lost somewhere deep inside. A persona that she no longer had the strength to keep up. "你这个该死的混蛋."

Min’s hand twitches, wraps around the glass shard with intent to pull—face twitching and contorting like she was trying to muster up the courage. But with a hushed, frustrated curse, her efforts fall flat. Cowardice or fear, she doesn’t know what it is. But there’s something else there that she couldn’t deny any longer, too. "You just don’t get it, do you?” A bitterness creeps into her shaking tone. She can feel her chest tighten the longer she takes in that emotionless, dirty helmet. A mirror of her own expression barely twisted back at her through it’s lost shine. Min resents this. She resents him—and within her, something snaps. "This is—this is all just some twisted, fucked up game to you, isn’t it? Well what did i do to deserve being put in a game like this?!" In that moment, Min thinks of that moment back at the hospital, her team in emergency surgery due to her own fault behind the wheel. Maybe this was a truly befitting fate for her. A game she would never be able to win when her obsession to be the best wound up harming those around her.

The Shining Lion needed to be humbled. As much as Feng Min knows it, she doesn’t want to admit it.

"我恨你！" Her cry of anger tears through the air, and in her abrupt outburst, her hand finds the closest thing to her. A toolbox. It’s hurled towards the knight’s head with as much force as her injured forearm allows her––but it doesn’t there. After the toolbox makes it’s first impact, Min steps forward and keeps going. Seizing the toolbox from it’s clattered place on the ground and swinging it with a vengeance. She can feel the pain surging through her skin, but amid her tantrum, she doesn’t care. "I HATE YOU!" The toolbox raises, a hopeless hit with little damage landing against his armoured shoulder. "I HATE YOU!" Another lands against the chest piece, and she can feel the tears streaming down from her now red eyelids. Whether from anger or the fear of knowing what’s coming next, she doesn’t know. She still doesn’t care.

Even through her ragged breaths, she doesn’t stop. Not until the energy drains from her with every drop of blood and the pain becomes too much to bear.

Not until she’s forced to accept that she truly, truly can’t win.

a mix of arguments, tension, manipulation, gossiping, fighting, & general emotional messiness!

you  weren't  supposed  to  hear  that.

don't  look  at  me  like  i'm  the  only  one  lying.

want  to  tell  them,  or  should  i?

you  think  i  don't  know  what  you  did?

i've  hit  people  for  less.

oh,  i  thought  you  already  knew.

that's  funny,  you  didn't  say  that  last  night.

say  that  again.  i  dare  you.

you  wanna  talk  about  loyalty?

no  offense,  but  if  you're  the  last  to  know,  that's  on  you.

go  ahead  -  pretend  like  it  wasn't  your  idea!

they  deserve  to  know  the  truth.

you  didn't  hear  this  from  me,  but  -

oh,  so  now  you  care?

don't  flatter  yourself.  you  were  just  convenient.

you  crossed  a  line.

we  had  bets  on  how  long  it  would  last.

it's  not  even  a  secret  anymore.

you  don't  get  to  cry  about  it  now.

touch  me  again  and  see  what  happens.

say  it  again.  louder  this  time.

you  really  thought  nobody  would  find  out?

don't  act  so  innocent.

okay,  but  am  i  the  villain  for  laughing?

tell  me  who  else  knows.  right  now.

this  whole  time,  and  you  didn't  say  a  word?

don't  act  brave  now.

you're  really  gonna  do  this  here?

it  wasn't  supposed  to  get  this  far!

you  can't  rewrite  history.

oh,  i'd  never  say  it  to  their  faces.

it  was  supposed  to  stay  between  us.

we're  all  thinking  it,  i  just  said  it.

you're  not  as  untouchable  as  you  act.

do  you  even  feel  guilty?

they  warned  me  about  you.

go  ahead,  make  it  worse.

if  you  repeat  this,  i'll  deny  everything.

the  next  thing  out  of  your  mouth  better  be  an  apology.

you're  about  three  seconds  away  from  regretting  this.

you  keep  pushing,  and  i'll  push  you  back.

they're  going  to  find  out.

one  more  lie,  and  i  walk.

they're  lying  to  you.

you  need  to  back  off.  now.

you're  defending  them?  after  everything?

don't  try  to  hide  it.

tell  me,  was  i  just  a  placeholder?

you  really  think  sorry  fixes  this?

there's  nothing  left  to  say.

don't  act  like  you're  the  one  hurting.

i  don't  owe  you  any  explanation.

whatever  helps  you  sleep  at  night.

you  should've  seen  this  coming.

i  hope  it  was  worth  it.

i  told  the  truth.  just  not  all  of  it.

you'll  miss  me  before  i  miss  you.

smile.  you're  ruining  the  mood.

i'd  watch  that  tone  if  i  were  you.

it's  not  my  fault  you  believed  me.

you  have  such  a  talent  for  pretending  you're  innocent.

we  both  know  this  is  over.

i  never  said  i  was  a  good  person.

if you are sending to a multi-muse, remember to specify the muse that the prompts are being sent for . you can add + reverse to swap roles .

👕 Blood seeps through receiver's shirt from a fresh stab wound.

🗡️ Press a bladed weapon into the receiver’s side.

🤕 Peel back the receiver’s bandage to reveal the infected wound underneath.

💉 Inject a painkiller into the receiver’s arm.

🏹 Yank an arrow out of the receiver’s shoulder with a swift pull.

🪢 Wrap a makeshift tourniquet around the receiver’s thigh.

🔥 Cauterize the receiver’s wound with a hot blade.

🩸 Smear the receiver’s blood across their cheek.

🦴 Snap the receiver’s dislocated shoulder back into place.

🪡 Carefully stitch the receiver's wound with steady hands.

🔫 Press the barrel of a gun against the receiver’s fresh bullet wound.

😴 Carry the unconscious receiver somewhere safe after a brutal fight.

🫳 Trace fingers along the receiver’s old scars.

💥 Slam the receiver into the ground hard enough to crack a rib.

🔪 Drag the tip of a knife slowly across the receiver’s forearm.

🩹 Apply pressure to the deep slash on the receiver’s abdomen.

🦵 Kick the receiver while they’re down.

🫦 Wipe blood from the receiver’s split lip with a rough thumb.

🔄 Twist the knife embedded in the receiver’s shoulder.

🧑‍⚕️ Lay the receiver on a operating table under harsh light.

🪏 Dig fingers into the receiver’s wound to retrieve a bullet fragment.

✂️ Clean and cut dried blood from the receiver’s matted hair.

👊 Punch the receiver to give them a black eye.

🧊 Hold ice against the receiver’s swollen face until it numbs.