ORIGIN

The jungle itself--its canopy, as Arquia could see it--was thick and humid with masses of leaves and climbing vines. Now and then, past the clogging mist, she could catch a glimpse of game trails and patches of thick foliage deeper down.

It was above her that there was something of interest--far above, gliding slow and lazy circles above the thin cloud cover higher up. Her soaring shape had caught its eye and it turned, perhaps merely curious or perhaps territorial, and began to mirror her angle of flight from somewhat behind.

It was the sort of thing that--if the dragon tilted her head back, and checked behind and above her--might give her an edge against potential danger: the sight of a vast, broad-winged silhouette as a faint shadow against the fog and light. Or--if she kept her focus down below--might prove even deadly.

Generally speaking, a dragon had nothing to fear in the sky.

This no longer applied when the territorial creature stalking it from above--watching her closely (now that it had spotted her green-on-green) with the eyes along its jaws as it glided lower and swifter in chilling silence--had a head alone fully half the length of her body. Its wingspan was a third again as broad, not that it would have mattered: the Azhdars of Lacerta did not hesitate to tackle even larger prey.

When it had drawn near enough, its four wings closed and it slid into a downward dive. Had anyone been looking upward, they would have seen a shape like an enormous dagger plunge suddenly from the clouds, driving for Arquia's upper body.

Headfirst, beak closed, it drove its weight with the force of gravity to plunge that knifelike beak through her ribs: whatever the results of its attack it would then break away, its own four wings pumping with its momentum to spin it back up into the air. A hit-and-run, then, doing as much damage as it could to this intruder in the instant it made contact.

---

Arquia has discovered: the Azhdar. It is attempting to cause impalement or shredding damage with its beak.

The Azhdar rose swiftly, spiralling in a lazily large but quickly traversed drift away from its target. There it aimed to enter another circling, seemingly staring upward and ahead though those eyes along its jaw studied Arquia closely... gauging her.

The Azhdar made no attempt to avoid the strike. Given the size of its beak it, and its ferocity, it seemed wholly unafraid--and as she swung upward for it, it once again dove. The ten foot beak plunged for her chest again--as if daring her to finish her maneuver; if she so chose she could grapple it, but at the cost of potential impalement.

Her legs were simply far shorter than that beak.

There was a bruising impact--beak-on-ribs, the dagger-faced beast's impaling attempt skidding off of Arquia's dragon bones. A tear of flesh would be painful, blood spraying out from beneath emerald scales in ropes--but not fatal, the beak missing all that was vital. It would leave, perhaps, a jagged and brag-worthy scar but little else.

Claws scrabbled on beak and for an instant both struggled in that brief, primal way: scrabbling for purchase, for an advantage, to inflict wounds before the other could. But then it was over, the Azhdar attempting to free and away, shoving off to flap higher again. It wasn't looking to kill, or to eat: but to drive a rival from its nesting site. The beak finally opened, a raucous caw screeching down--deep and deafening--the scratches Arquia's talons had inflicted leaving their own bloodied marks across the face hovering above. It was clear that it was trying to pull free; whether Arquia released it--and allowed them both to survive--was now her choice.