forum At War // OxO // Closed

Started September 19, 2021 by @ElderGod-Icefire

tune

“Perhaps we could do a psychic’s duel, Your Highness?” Xiomara suggested. “It’s at least something you’re good at.”
“Why not?” Kay swished his tail in her direction, then moved a bit aways from her. “Give me what sliver of chance I can.”
A psychic’s duel was considered the opposite of a simple brawl or wrestle. The entire point was to avoid being hit. One touch from your opponent made you the loser. Of course, they each had their psychic abilities to help out with this. The only thing that wasn’t allowed was telepathy, for obvious reasons, but neither Kay or Xiomara were very good at telepathically communicating with each other anyway. The addition of being dragons and having the power of flight always made things more interesting though, although some duels were done with the restriction of staying in human form the whole time.
Once they were a good couple of feet away from each other, Xiomara held out her foreleg.
“I’ll start us off. Three— two— one—“
She lunged, closing the distance between them in a single moment. Kaylum disappeared just in time, immediately taking a defensive position as he reappeared farther away from her. She responded quickly, teleporting as well and appearing nearer to him, flying over his head. Kay barely escaped, teleporting and flying away from her.
“This is very cowardly of you, Your Highness,” Xiomara observed.
Kay laughed. “Brave words.” He flinched away from her as she teleported again.
“You know I’m blunt,” she said, going in for a swing with her claws. Kay teleported just as she came down on where he would’ve been. “I’m just telling the truth.”
“Well the truth hurts, Xiomara.” He said, finally turning offensive and telekinetically willing the pebbles and stones to rise from the ground and shoot toward the other dragon. She dodged, merely flying above the little projectiles to avoid them. The duel settled into that sort of pattern. Xiomara took a mainly offensive position, using her claws or teeth to attack, and Kay taking defensive, but using telekinesis to pull an offensive move occasionally.

Eventually, Nik and Aron took a moment to breathe, wrapping damp towels around their shoulders and taking slow sips from water bottles. They watched Xiomara and Kay quietly, occasionally talking to each other as they studied the duel currently going on between the two dragons. It was fascinating, especially for Nik, to see this side of the dragon shifters. They usually only saw the death that followed in their wake, not this sort of thing. It was interesting to see the two fight each other, rather than infantrymen from Kevra.

Now, they both tried to keep the fight clear of the humans, but with duels like these, it was difficult to keep the playing field contained. Neither of the dragons wanted to accidentally hit them with a stray teleporting wing or tail. Sometimes they had to get near the humans to avoid their opponent, but usually not near enough so as to invade their space.
It was at one of these points that Kaylum caught sight of something on the Kevran prince’s shoulder, peeking out beneath the towel. The utter familiarity of it made him lose focus, and he didn’t avoid Xiomara in time as she teleported to touch him on the foreleg.
“It seems I win again.” She grinned. “We could always do a rematch if you want. Um, Your Highness?”
But Kay was still staring at Nik’s shoulder, trying to see if he wasn’t imagining things.

Nik blinked at Kaylum when he realized the other prince was staring at him. "Can I…help you?" He asked slowly, shifting. As he shifted, the towel fell lower on his shoulder, baring the full mark to Kay's view. Nik didn't really like the intensity with which Kay was studying him, eyes flicking between the dragon prince and the guard, Aron shifting defensively in preparation for a fight. Just in case.

Kaylum's eyes widened and he shifted to human form. He glanced at his own shoulder, then looked between it and Nik's.
"Your Highness? Is there something wrong?" Xiomara stayed in dragon form, just in case.
He let out a sigh. "This would be so funny if it wasn't actually happening," he said and turned to let Nikolas see the mark on his own shoulder, identical to the on Nik's. It had been there for as long as Kay could remember, but he had never really cared about what it meant until recently. His soul was tied to someone… and the prince of Kevra, of all people.

Nik stiffened faintly. "You're fucking shitting me." The language wasn't exactly princely, but he couldn't stop himself. He took a faint step closer, studying Kaylum closely. "That's…this isn't possible." His eyes were narrowed and focused, taking in Kaylum. Aron took a step closer, gaze moving from Xiomara to Kaylum to Nik, silent and watchful.

Kay tsked, more annoyed than anything. “I’m not, but we can pretend as if I did and this never happened,” he said, avoiding Nik’s gaze.
To him, pretending was so easy. His parents did it all the time whenever there was something ‘he wasn’t ready to know yet.’ Although the things his parents hid from him turned out to be things he could actually handle, this wasn’t one of those things. Thus, pretending and avoiding it all seemed like the easiest and most painless option, especially when Nik was still technically a stranger to him.
Xiomara had moved so she could get a better look at what they were talking about, and for a moment she caught Aron’s eye. She stayed quiet then, looking between the two princes.

Nik nodded slightly. The revelation of this could go one of two ways: it could tear apart the fragile peace, or it could cement it. A marriage between them could cement peace, but if any of their parents reacted negatively, this peace would shred apart like wet paper. Either way, they weren't in a good place to reveal the news. Plus, he didn't know anything about Kaylum, and the idea of getting to know him more was a bit of a scary idea.

(Marriage? Nik honey, you thinking marriage already?)

“Wonderful.” Kaylum’s eyes relaxed with indifference as he moved past the two humans. Xiomara shifted to human form and followed after him out of the training.
“Your Highness,” she spoke once they were out of earshot, “do you think you should tell—“
“No.” He cut her off, his voice hard. “I don’t want to think about this ever again.”
“But you know it’s inevitable that—“
“Maybe. Maybe not.“
“Your Highness, I may be getting ahead of myself here, but a union between you two could could all but guarantee peace for both Tesh and Kevra. At least consider the possibilities of that, if not for yourself.”
He paused, rubbing his fingers against his temple. “Xiomara… he’s slain so many of us. I’m sure he’s killed as many dragons as Mother has killed humans.”
Her brow furrowed. “Isn’t that all the more reason to do it? To prevent any more of us from ascending to the stars?”
His fingers moved down to play with his dreadlocks. “I don’t want to think about it right now.”
He closed his eyes, and teleported away. Xiomara followed.

(it's purely political lmaoo)
(soulmates = marriage = politics)

Nikolas watched him go for a long moment, then pulled on a jacket, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. He turned to Aron, blinking at him.
Aron shrugged his shoulders at the prince. "I…don't know what to tell you." he said slowly, tossing Nik his jacket. Nik pulled on the jacket, frowning just a little.
"This could destroy the peace or forge it from steel." he said quietly, eyes slightly unfocused as he considered what had just happened. "And I don't know which would be worse." he blinked, eyes focusing on Aron as he looked over at his guard.
Aron shrugged again, putting on his own jacket. "Yeah, uh, I don't know what to say." he said slowly.