A Game of Cat and Mouse

[kleineklementine]

Olive growled as she realized Kentamin was pulling her down with him and she landed, hard, on top of him, her face smacking against his. But she was quick, fury at seeing this cursed "knight" again searing through her. Even though it hurt with her right arm still cutched tightly by Kentamin, she twisted her body and pulled herself up so she was straddling him. With her still-free left arm, she grabbed his throat, trying her best to strangle him while squeezing with her legs to try to keep him pinned.

She leaned all her weight into her grip on his throat, so that her face was mere inches away from his, their noses almost touching. "Fuck... you...," she said through gritted teeth, strained by the effort she was putting into her clutch on his throat, "you... fucking...worm."

[visualspice]

The awkwardness of having a woman straddling over top of him and pinning him to the ground was all lost as him as she was quite literally trying to strange the breath out of him. Gasping and gurgling, he shook his head violently in hopes to thwart her attempts.

"Get... GET OFFA ME, YOU CRAZY MAGE!" he barked, and used his other hand to snatch onto her wrist and attempted to yank it away.

[kleineklementine]

Olive had to release her grip on his throat to keep him from grabbing that arm, as well. She yanked it away to avoid Kentamin's grasp, then pulled it back - an act that was painful for her other, pinned arm - and hit Kentamin as hard as she could across the face. Holding on as tightly as she could with her thighs to try to keep Kentamin in place, Olive tried to get another hold on the templar's throat.

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The second hit had a lot less force than the first,a nd came out more like a stinging slap than anything, and made the priest in training growl out puffs of white breath.

"DESIST YOUR ATTACKS NOW, MAGE!" he roared, trying to wrestling himself out from underneath her, while also grabbing at her hand again, but this time, instead of grabbing at her hand, he twisted the other one at a painful angle- and the second he saw her react, he acted upon that and tackled her up from underneath him and suddenly, she was on the ground in the snow with he over top of her, growling in her face and pinning her down, one of her arms across and pinned against her chest.

[kleineklementine]

Olive yelped in pain as he twisted her around, pulling roughly on her shoulder as she was contorted beneath him. She struggled, painfully trying to escape, but he had her properly pinned. Olive stopped struggling, but she was still tense, and she sneered. The urge to use magic to attack him was huge, but she'd promised herself she would never use her magic to attack. And even now, she was going to hold herself to that. With nothing else to do, she spit in his face.

"What," she growled scornfully, "can't handle a woman on top? Not that you'd know anything about that, O Virgin Priest."

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Kentamin flinched at the spit, before growling and rubbing it away off on his shoulder. But then at her words, he couldn't believe she'd accuse him of that here, or anywhere for that matter! His chastity was in honor of Angsar! HOW DARE SHE MOCK HIM! But that didn't stop him from his natural blush.

"STILL YOUR TONGUE, SINNER," he hissed. "And maybe if you repent before you die, Angsar will forgive you."

[kleineklementine]

Sensing that she'd hit a nerve, Olive decided to keep down this track. Maybe if she flustered him, she'd force a window where he was distracted enough and she could escape from underneath him.

"You're sure you wouldn't like me to do something else with my tongue?" she retorted smugly, taking the upper hand in their verbal exchange, even if she had the decidedly lower hand in the physical exchange. "A proper man might take advantage of a situation like this. I bet you only do that with other priests though, right? Isn't that why you all join the 'brotherhood?' So you can all give each other a 'helping hand?"'

[visualspice]

Kentamin knew these mages were awful, but he hadn't realized just how awful until he heard this woman speak! Flustered was an understatement, he was pissed and his one hand moved swiftly as he struck her across the face.

"SILENCE! How dare you mock the holy men of God!"

[kleineklementine]

The full force of Kentamin's blow landed across Olive's face. But the movement gave Olive the opening she was hoping for and, before Kentamin could pin her again, she twisted away, managing to roll out from below Kentamin. But he still had her other arm in her grasp. In hopes of freeing it, she lashed out violently, kicking hard at Kentamin to try to gain her total freedom.

[visualspice]

Olive may have gotten out from under him, but despite the kick, his grip held firm as he growled and tried to reach for her other wrist again.

[kleineklementine]

Olive gritted her teeth, pain shooting through her arm and shoulder as Kentamin kept his grip on her. But now she twisted her body around and stamped her foot down, hard, into Kentamin's stomach. Jerking her arm away as soon as she made contact, she finally freed herself from the Templar.

Her vision wasn't fully restored yet, but it was good enough and, wasting no time, Olive leapt to her feet and threw herself onto Kentamin's horse. Hoping to get away before the sniveling man could grab ahold of her again - or of the horse - Olive dug her heels sharply into the horses side, urging it towards the mountains, invisible in the ever-thickening snow.

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The hard kick stunned and winded Kentamin, but only giving Olive enough time to loosen his grip and get away, but the second he saw what she was headed towards, he let out a sharp cry and thew himself at the horse, one hand clutching the saddle horn, the other one grabbing her limb as the horse let out a cry and began to run around confusedly in a circle.

[kleineklementine]

Olive cursed when Kentamin grabbed ahold of the horse saddle and the beast became momentarily wild. But Olive, Constance Carwick, was the daughter of a duke from a duchy famous for their horses and their horsemanship. Gripping onto the horse with her legs - ignoring Kentamin for the moment, a dangerous necessity - Olive pulled the reins to bring the horse under control and end its frantic circles. Once she had the beast calmed, or at least as calm as it was going to be, she directed it in... well, a random direction, if Olive were honest: she didn't know where she was and even with her vision returning, the snow was so thick now she couldn't see farther than a few meters ahead of them... and urged the horse into a gallop.

Once the horse was off, Olive turned back to Kentamin, who was still gripping desperately onto the horse and was being pulled roughly along. Holding onto the reins with one hand, she used the other to wind another punch at his face.

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Kentamin winced and growled at the woman, his body being jostled by the galloping horse, though he tried to smash his shoulder into her to deter her from striking him, but his main objective was NOT to fall off.
Oh.. and to NOT let this mage get away with his horse!

[kleineklementine]

Olive drove the horse on full speed. The faster she went, the more likely they would lose the leech stuck onto its side. In attempt to shake Kentamin, Olive drove the horse off the road and into the forest. It was enough work for her to guide the horse through the snow-laden pine trees; her hope was that it would be too much for the Templar. Or maybe that he'd be skewered on one of the trees. But as she drove them farther from the road, the ground started to slope gradually uphill and the horse splashed through small, shallow, half frozen and fast-flowing mountain streams.

Though they wouldn't be able to see through the thick snow, they were headed up a narrow mountain valley. Steep, black rock slopes - hidden by the thick falling snow - rose up on either side of them, wild and untamed, mantled by thick banks of snow and ice.

Snow and ice was also stinging Olive's face as she drove the horse relentlessly on, crystallizing on her eyelashes. She could just hope that Kentamin was having a worse time of it than she was!

[visualspice]

When Olive stopped trying to personally smack him off the side of the horse, the templar in training was filled with relief, but it was a brief feeling riding on the back of the tingling sensation of fear of being jostled around and smacked hard by the on coming pine trees and other things that the horse raced across. But he somehow managed to bear it all, clinging tightly to the horse before he felt the confidence to risk it all- when his hand suddenly shot out and grabbed onto Olive's wrist.

"DESIST AT ONCE!"

[kleineklementine]

Kentamin grabbed onto Olive exactly as the horse leapt to cross a small, swift mountain stream channel: exactly the wrong moment. She was off the saddle when the horse jumped and, when Kentamin grabbed her, he succeeded in completely dehorsing her! The result was that the two, half-frozen combatants tumbled backwards over top of each other in the deep, fresh snow while the horse thundered away into the valley.... and disappeared.

Olive scurried to pick herself up from the fall. Her vision was almost entirely returned now - or at least, she thought it was - but it didn't make much of a difference. All she could see in every direction was white. Snow, snow, snow. If anything, it was only falling faster now. And now that they were up in the mountains, the wind was fierce and the temperature considerably colder.

Staggering on her feet, Olive was trying difficultly to pull out her hand cannon to finish this wretched Templar Trainee once and for all when she heard it. Olive froze. It wasn't a sound she knew well. But she'd heard it before, once, when they had transported her from Valinarus to the camp beyond the mountains. At first it sounded very far away, a distant roaring. But it was quickly getting louder... and nearer.

"Fuck," Olive swore. Then, without further explanation, she turned on her heel and ran, but the snow was deeper than her knees and she didn't get far. Racing down the mountain towards them was an inescapable, roaring wall of white.

Avalanche.

[visualspice]

It was chaotic and madness, and he was NOT about to let her get the upper hand.
But perhaps that was the down fall to them both, for as they rounded a sharp bend and the horse took to the air, the grip he had on Olive did not help to cement him to her, but rather, pulled both of them clean off the horse.

And down they went, into the cold snow-
and Kentamin fell hard, catching his head off of something hard as he lay there, still as death, except fr the faint puffs of white breath escaping his lips and the seeping of red blood onto the white snow beneath him.

[kleineklementine]

The avalanche thundered down the mountainside and Olive had no chance to outrun it. She didn't stand a chance and she knew it, but that didn't prepare her for when the force of the avalanche hit her. Before she could think "oh fuck," her world was transformed into the crushing rush of snow. She could hardly breathe, fear and adrenaline coursing through her, and Olive was almost certain she was dead when... it stopped. Or at least slowed. It took Olive a moment to realize she was no longer moving, then once the reality snapped in - that she was still alive! - she scrambled to dig herself out of the snow.

Olive gasped for air when she finally surfaced. The avalanche was over, but the blizzard was only worsening. As much as she didn't like to use magic, Olive knew that now was a matter of life and death. She didn't have the same level of control or range of power that a trained mage would have, but Olive was slowly learning to control things, if she focused. Trying to block out the cold and fear and anger, the winds and snow around Olive began to calm while the storm raged on outside of her sphere of influence. That's when she saw him. Unconscious and half-exposed amongst the snow and debris of the avalanche.

Olive wasn't going to miss her chance.

Numbly grabbing for the hand cannon, Olive stood... then immediately fell. Trying again, Olive again immediately fell over when she put weight on her right ankle. Fuck. She tried again, staggered a step, and collapsed. She looked down at it. For now shock was blocking the pain, but Olive was sure: it must be broken. Olive's heart raced. She didn't even know where she was... Somewhere in the mountains, away from a road or a settlement or anyone else... She'd never be able to get out of here with a broken ankle. She'd die.

Unless.

Olive looked around. Maybe a hundred meters away she spotted a rock overhang that still was providing some shelter; the avalanche had blown over it. But she still would never make it out alone. But she couldn't, she... Olive looked back at the still form of Kentamin. His chest was rising and falling. She couldn't. She'd have to.

Gritting her teeth, Olive dragged herself to the fallen form of the Templar. That was already hard work and when she reached Kentamin and hooked her arm under his to drag him with her towards the shelter, it took nearly all of Olive's strength and energy. Once she reached the sheltered space beneath the overhang, Olive collapsed. But she couldn't take any chances. She pulled Kentamin the rest of the way in then untied the scarf from around his neck. And retied it around his hands after pulling his arms behind his back.

She was guessing she'd want him immobilized when he came to....

Olive then leaned against the back of the rock, using the remainder of her energy to keep the blizzard outside, and to raise the temperature inside.

[visualspice]

How he had survived he couldn't know. At least in that moment he could not be told. He was still unconscious, even as the poor young woman lugged his sorry form around. He was dragged about, limp as a doll, and made no protests when his hands were bound behind him. Though as he sat there, half wilted, hair stucka nd matted against his face, lips turning pale and his body, involuntarily shivering; things looked very bleak for the pair of them.