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When she lunges at him with blinding speed, coming close-quarters for the first time since this whole ordeal began, Elidibus knows somewhere within that something bad is about to happen.
Irhya had taken down every one of his creations, and was driving him up against the wall fast. Just because he knew how to use a body didn’t mean he knew how to mimic their movements, their very thought processes – it was everything and nothing like fighting the real Ardbert, and suddenly she was giving him no room to breathe at all, striking swiftly enough that he wonders if such a feat is even possible with a sword so large.
He is satisfied in the knowledge that she will do nothing to desecrate Ardbert’s body, but at the same time, something isn’t right. Her methods are telling; she has failed to make the finishing blow several times now, instead fighting to overwhelm him. To disarm him.
And what does she expect to accomplish from this? He doesn’t know, and frankly, it doesn’t matter, because he’s taking her measure either way. As expected, she aims for his hands, to knock the axe from his grip; he parries, doubles back, and the process repeats. It grows tiresome.
"You do not fight with your full strength," he says, mildly accusatory. "Surely you must desire to free this body from my control? So why hesitate?"
Irhya doesn't answer verbally, only makes another swipe at his hands. But this time, when he blocks, she lifts her knee and pushes off from the ground with her other leg, slamming it into his stomach. The armor Ardbert wears absorbs most of the blow, but it does leave him short of breath, which is the opening she's been looking for at last.
She does not put any distance between them, though. In fact, she gets even closer, wresting the axe from his control after a fair bit of resistance and making sure both weapons drop to the floor. Once that's taken care of, she lunges again, aiming to knock his feet out from under him, or just use her weight to push him over.
He knows full well what a difficult position it would be to recover from. Thinking himself safe to put some space between them at last, Elidibus teleports to the opposite side of the lobby, only to be followed shortly by Irhya, who slams into him at full speed with an arcane shield. He raises an arm to deflect it, but the blow is deceptively heavy so for someone of her size and weight. It has to be the shield doing the work, he thinks, because there's no way she'd ever be able to topple a stalwart like Ardbert without magical means. It ought to have been less effective due to the sheer mass of his aether, but…
Elidibus lands on his back, Irhya atop him. They both know he could shatter even the strongest ward she puts on him to keep him in place. That he could simply blow her away with untold power like she was a rag doll sitting on his chest.
He doesn't.
For a few moments after that, it feels like the world itself, even the shades of the ancients surrounding them are all holding their breath.
"Try it," Elidibus says. "Kill me. You want to, I can sense it."
"No," she replies with a snarl. "Give him back."
"I think not. This body has yet to outlive its usefulness. And you've yet to prove I cannot best you with it, besides."
Irhya makes a noise somewhere between a sob and a rapid drawing of breath. She clenches her jaw. "You already know the answers, but you pretend not to. What is the point? If you think we can never reconcile our differences, then–"
He makes to lift his head. She grabs his hair and slams him back down into the floor. Borrowed flesh though it is, Ascians are still subject to the pain input from their body, a fact she knows all too well, and the move disorients him for long enough that when his vision stops swimming, she has pressed her forehead against his threateningly.
"At least let me finish," she growls, indignant.
"Stupid girl…"
The swell of power begins, and she knows what comes next. Bracing herself for impact, Elidibus launches a spear of pure aether into her midsection, one all too reminiscent of a different attempt on her life that was only absorbed not by her defenses, but by another.
When the dark cloud dissipates, she remains on top of him. Not dead, he notes with dismay, but there is a gash in her stomach where her shield couldn't mitigate the blow completely. Her just desserts, crows her brain, for even trying this at all, for thinking she could change his mind, or exorcise him from Ardbert's corpse. Her glare is full of venom, and her ears pin back.
"Impressive." Elidibus's fingers twitch as he sets his hands back on the floor. "But to what end do you perpetuate this nonsense?"
"I'm not playing mind games anymore," Irhya says flatly. "I'm just pissed off now."
"You are?" A sour laugh. "You're angry? Angry is how I've felt about you for a long time. Angry that you've deliberately and firmly seated yourself right in my way. Angry that you desire anything less than the perfection we once had. Angry…"
Angry that you keep trying to get inside my head.
He isn't trapped here. He could escape anytime. Yet he's entertaining the conversation. Boldly, she goes a step further, adding, "And you ruined Ardbert's body, too," a brief, narrow-eyed gesture, "you shaved his stubble."
At that, Elidibus has to laugh. She really is that petty, then. He props himself up on his elbows, and she sinks lower, straddling his hips now.
"Is that so?" A smile with no feeling behind it.
"Not even an apology," she remarks with a cluck of her tongue. "Son of a bitch…"
Unfazed by her less-than-polite choice of words, he opens his mouth to reply, only to find he can't – she's covered it with her own. And before he can even consider biting her lip to make her back off, she does it to him first, cinching a portion of his bottom lip and then snapping down as hard as she can with her teeth.
As he yelps and pulls back so far the back of his head hits the floor a second time, she says, "I may need to take this frustration out on someone. You'll do just fine, Ascian."
Something about the taste of blood in his mouth and the utterly challenging way she says that lights a fire. Right now, to kill her is the ultimate goal, his duty to his people – to shut her up and knock her down a few pegs in the process is a petty spark of impulse.
But it's an impulse he hasn't felt before. (Has he?) And frankly, that he's feeling it at all is almost unforgivable in itself. He is the Emissary, an impartial entity among his brethren. Yet this hatred he feels… it's deeply personal.
Huffing air through his nose furiously, Elidibus grabs her by the scruff of her collar. "You will not," he hisses.
"What can I say? Adrenaline is a powerful motivator," she admits without a mote of shame. "And anger, too. How can we forget that?"
Ardbert's blue eyes flash dangerously as she closes in again, fingers digging into the leather of his armor so hard that the leather begins to stretch and crease in her grip, bruising the skin underneath. She must be in pain from that wound, he thinks, and yet it doesn't deter her any.
Loss of consciousness from the blood loss never comes, though. If anything, the bleeding seems to slow to a sluggish trickle despite the circumstances, no doubt thanks to that bizarre arcane control she has over her body. Deciding he can't rely on a mere flesh wound to slow her down, he instead tries keeping his senses trained on her, watching for any mistake she makes. Never do his eyes close, staying locked on hers, and she seems to be of the same mind. All the better, as far as he cares.
Fine. He'll play her game for a while. He does want to hurt her, after all. It's personal. He wants to cause as much harm as he can, body and soul. To make her bleed so she can feel even a fraction of the way he struggles.
"If you hate me so much, why don't you just leave?"
Irhya is breathless as she comes up, this time having dove in to taste the blood on his tongue for as long as he'd let her before doing the same back to her. Her hands are at his sides and quickly descending. "Because I have a duty to fulfill," he says, furrowing his brow deeply.
She contemplates that for a moment. "To kill me, you say. So you can continue the Rejoinings. But you can't kill me. And I can't kill you; not here, and not with the resources I have." A pause. "It's frustrating, isn't it? Doesn't it just make you want to tear me to pieces? To string my corpse up from the ceiling as a display to the Scions who will come searching for Y'shtola and I later, perhaps?"
It's warm. Not just his body, but a tiny little speck of his heart, too. Not warm in a pleasant way, but certainly frustrated, she has that much right. But he doesn't answer her properly, his expression only growing darker by the moment.
No. This anger, and the emptiness that lurks behind it… it's meaningless. Completely irrelevant to his continued carrying out of his duty.
Her hands find the waist of his skirt and belt and unbuckle it, practiced enough with this type of armor to be able to do so in short order. What remains are his codpiece and pants, and taking them off completely would be a pain…
"I wonder," he says dully, "if this is because you wished to have Ardbert himself this way?"
"Not really. I don't think he was interested."
And an Ascian would be? But before he can give voice to the sentiment, cool air rushes over the sensitive region between his hips, and suddenly he is breathless with anger and – and arousal. There's no mistaking the way his cock jumps to attention when she puts a hand around it, propping herself up over him and making intense eye contact as she strokes him mercilessly.
It's too hot now. This space around him feels so narrow all of a sudden. His mind is too narrow for all the emotions trying to force their way in. But he struggles briefly with himself, then shoots up to bite Irhya at the exposed part of her neck as hard as he can like a predatory animal going for suffocation.
She hisses with something like delight, pleased just to have any sensation at all. It doesn't stop her from using one hand to try and loosen her skirt, though – and to her surprise, it is Elidibus who uses a gauntleted hand to find the crotch of her smalls under her skirt, with a gentleness he does not feel at all, and severs it in one swift motion.
Then, abandoning the pretense fully now, he shoves her back slightly and plunges himself into her from below, roughly enough to make her choke out a pained moan. The sensation of disorientation only increases, contrary to what he'd expected; he feels like he's going to float out of Ardbert's body, anchored only by the invisible link that binds soul to flesh.
He grunts loudly. Too angry to take his time, too angry to care about hurting her, he shoves roughly upwards over and over again, rutting hard into her, and despite the pain it must be causing her, she still seems to crave for more, scrabbling for purchase at his shoulders while her tail twitches wildly against his legs. The powerful sensation is an easy focal point for his own seething rage, pain and confusion, so he takes it, allows himself to run wild with it. In the name of hurting her. In the name of the star…
While he bucks up, she grinds down, using her inner core muscles to lessen the pain and make it more pleasurable. He's a little dizzy from his inability to catch his breath, but everything is on fire and he thinks he might collapse into himself like a dying star if this doesn't come to a head soon.
There's nowhere except his face for her nails to dig into, so she makes the brazen move of raking her nails down one cheek, leaving burning trails down his skin, across where his stubble should be. It only makes Elidibus go harder still, each thrust filling her further than she thought possible until finally, finally, the blackened thread snaps, and his eyes snap shut, unwilling to watch as he reaches his peak faster than even he'd anticipated. Her back arches, lips parting in a silent wail that ends in a high-pitched keening noise.
They breathe into each other's open mouths as she bends forward again, unable to keep herself upright as they come down from the high. And then, the last lingering motes of raw emotion fade away, bringing Elidibus back to the infuriating emotional flatline of before. They are both a mess at this point, all dried blood and rapidly cooling sweat as he wipes one sleeve across his face and kicks her off, not about to bask in the afterglow.
"Leave this place." Elidibus gets to his feet and fixes his clothing, looking down at her with icy regard. All the color appears to leave his face. "We're done here." Without waiting for an answer, he teleports away, leaving Irhya on the floor struggling to stand after all that, her weapon still lying on the floor some distance away.