The Hunt (North, Beast #2)

[Nyra Charlotte Enigma]

Bran Viola

Nyra slit her eyes at the creature before her, barely hearing her cousin's words. Cousin? She knew he was an Enigma and she was too. She knew that they didn't have the same parents. The line of succession was unclear.

Juno couldn't stand him. She called him a coward and praised him for his cleverness, but the overall statement was one of distrust. Nyra truly didn't care who he threw his lot in with as long as he didn't interrupt her delicately balanced life.

He was ordering her to shoot down the wings. She closed her eyes and saw it in schematics. She saw it the way it would be if she designed it. She was still a poor imitator of nature. She could not program unpredictability. But the wings were thin, it was true, and the tips of her arrows were iron. Her hands were gloved and she could still feel the heat radiating off of the arrows. She wished they were knives.

She shot each wing, at the shoulder. The waxed feathers were enchanted to drive the arrow more accurate. The tips of her bow hid extra arrows. Juno did not understand the design, but she appreciated the function. Nyra couldn't find it in herself to believe that everything had to be utility. 

The dragon screamed. It plummeted. She should have been hurt, but she was not. Rather, she was stunned, trapped in the moment, watching it in her head. She could never create something that magnificent. One day she would learn how.

She had agreed to come because of its skin. With its skin and its scales, she could handle iron. She could create wonders the world had hardly dreamed of before. She could reinvent possibility. 

+2 damage, school of forging; Total of 7
Weapon + Outfit Aesthetics

[Annalise Lorelai Luce]

Dorian Northbow
Nikolai Hugh-Sokolov

Annalise stood behind her brother, at his shoulder. She wondered if he would chose to attack or if he would continue to limit himself. He had much to learn.

She readied her stars. Throwing stars, made of Undersea Steel, sharper than anyone expected. Sharper than they looked. Sharper than iron, in some cases. Sharp enough to puncture dragon hide. In the old days, they did. In the old days, the way the young warriors trained was dragon hunts. She trained on the stage. The result was the same. Discipline, pride, wisdom. Knowing how to strike and when.

She ran. Across the snow, one foot in front of the air, barely leaving footsteps. Two of her stars left her hand. In the air, they nearly looked like butterflies mid-flight. Then they landed in the dragon's forehead, digging in deep. The thing was already falling from the sky. It hit the ground with a massive crash, blood dripping into its eyes. That should blind it for now. Annalise didn't break her stride. She was behind it, switching to a knife, severing a tendon in one leg. She would tear apart this thing piece by piece if she could. She looked up at Nikolai. Would he rise to the occasion, kill the beast? Or would he continue to shy from his potential?

+5 damage, school of war; Total of 10
Weapon + Outfit Aesthetics

[Bran Viola]

Whoah. That was. Did the arrow move after shed shot it? And how had she reloaded so fast? A scream pierced the empty sky and shattered the barrier of his conscious thought as a living star fell out of the sky, dancing figures trailing its graceful arc across the hillside. Towards him.
 Bran stopped thinking, and threw himself from the pillar of the memorial he’d perched on as the firmament crashed into the sea of snow and its garden of statues below him.



Piercing force careened through his train of thought again as he broke his fall against a miniature buttress, connected to a monolith, something akin to a human mausoleum that retained its sharp contour even through the ashen snow. Bran landed heavily on his back as the immense displacement of air from the dragons fall from heaven altered his flight trajectory in midair. Bad, very bad. Bran shook snow from his hair. The thing had landed way closer to him than he’d expected. His decision had been made for him by circumstance.



The beast was now close enough that two other opportunities were in reach. Its mouth, its eyes. The fae chasing the thing would be able to see him soon, he had no time to wait for the thing’s mouth to open. Bran was not familiar with the creatures anatomy, but if it followed the usual rules, this might actually kill it. The brain needed access to the eyes. Based on the resilience the dragon displayed it was unlikely he’d break through the bone cradling the optical nerves, but it didn’t matter. It was time to leave. In a single fluid motion he drew one of his iron blades and threw it hard, its shape blending into a dark needle before being consumed in full by the material of the dragons left eye. That was good. If it was possible to pierce the things frontal cortex, or whatever the monster had in its place, that was a good attempt.


A wingless raven disappeared behind a series of statues before more marble sculptures could see him among their kin. The only trace he’d allow them to find was a single feather, lodged deep within the psyche of their prey. It was already a mistake to leave it there.



“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”


It was needless superstition that the feather was engraved. Bran clicked his tongue in irritation.

tags- Nyra Charlotte Enigma,

[Calanthe Willowlace]

   Calanthe had chosen to join this hunt for two reasons. The first was that this dragon was practically in her back yard, and a dragon that close to her garden simply would not do. The second was both far simpler, and far more complicated than the first: Call it what you will, she was bored, she was brave, she was stupid, she was a warrior, she was a dainty heiress wanting to prove her worth, the truth was the same, she simply wanted out. She wanted out of her manor, so cold that it froze her lungs and her heart, made it hard to breathe. Not cold in temperature mind you, that never bothered her, cold in feeling. Stuffy. Taut. Her home had only grown more stagnant since her half-sister had come to stay with them. That same sister was on this hunt as well, Calanthe wasn't too sure why. Perhaps she wanted to impress their father, or perhaps she too simply wanted to escape the frigid confines of the manor, she didn't know the girl well enough to even begin to guess. 

   A shout rang through the air, ordering the dragon's downfall and eventual demise, and chaos broke free. Arrows and throwing stars soared through the air, downing the beast. Swords whisked through the air, slashing the dragon's tough hide, as Calanthe ran forward to join the fray. She wielded a spear, a simple, yet infinitely useful tool; it could be used to block, redirect, slash, stab, and even throw. Wielding the spear was like a dance: she whirled with it, stabbing into the dragon's shoulder before spinning away from its thrashing head and claws and flailing wings.

   It was all a dance to her, her spear her partner, its pale silver tip now coated in the dragon's blood. It was a little fun, sure, but it was getting boring; she needed to do something more than pricking the creature. She alternated between dodging and darting in for an attack, swishing between her allies and avoiding the dragon's freezing breath, as she watched for an opening. Where was it?  Where? There! The dragon was swinging its head down, too intent on one of the fae attacking it, an underseaer if her memory served correct, to notice Calanthe. She darted forward and ducked under its chin, stabbing her spear upwards with as much force as she could muster into the soft skin where its jaw met its neck. Ripping her spear back out of the dragon's neck, Calanthe ran back to the loose ring of hunters surrounding the beast, dodging the thrashing dragon as it spewed frost and fire at anything that moved, desperate in the way that only a creature faced with death could be. She slid back into line next to Nyra and lightly pulled her back, out of range of the dragon's deadly breath; she was still an older sister at heart, even for siblings as unfamiliar as this one. There was some irony in the action she supposed, defending one creature when drenched in the blood of another, but perhaps that was always how the story would go, the eternal duty of the eldest child: protect your home and your family, even if it means death, whether it be your own or another's.

mentioned:Nyra Charlotte Enigma ,

damage: +8 (school of herbalism graduate)

Damage Report 30 Damage Points have been done. Calanthe Willowlace has killed the dragon. 0/120