After her encounter with Vjira, Arquia had gained a newfound confidence in herself. The dragon had been her size, and she had defeated it! Well, not exactly. More like scratched it up a bit and fled. But she hadn't gotten injured at all, which meant she was getting stronger. Good. This prompted her to return to Lacerta, the one place where she could find a real challenge. That wasn't other gembound.

Arquia took off on emerald wings, gliding high over the treetops. It was strange to view the area in this manner when she had only seen it from the ground. Well, not counting the time she fell from the tree but that didn't really count. It had been more like gliding. However she was glad it had happened. Sort of. The dragon still didn't have plenty of practice in using her wings, but it was still rather natural to fly despite that. And she had been training too, so it wasn't as clumsy as the first time.

Her eyes scouted the jungle below, trying to pick out if there was anything of interest.

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.

@Arquia

The memory of the Deinocornus was still on her mind as she soared. Did she really want to take the life of another dinosaur? Though, then, she had had Aran with her. His magic had been strange, sickly. If she were to hunt again, she would make it a quick and merciless death. Though there were occasional glimpses of trails through the dense canopy, none yielded any signs of life. The large kind.

And it seemed she was so focused on the rainforest below, she didn't think to check above her. Or perhaps she never considered that there were dinosaurs that could fly? Either way, the dragon was oblivious to the threat above.

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.

@Arquia

The Azhdar's attack had been silent. Arquia would not have noticed it if not for deciding to break from her linear flight, dipping one wing down to change course. And that was when she noticed from the corner of her eye something that was getting bigger and bigger by the moment. She barely had time to register that it was a dinosaur before her instincts kicked in, wings tucking in halfway and tilting to the side. The wind worked against her, as the sharp turn brought her directly against the path it was blowing. However it was enough for her to dodge the attack. The brunt of it anyways. Its beak clipped instead part of her tail, causing her to wince. That would leave a scar for sure.

As the Azhdar recovered from its spiral attack, Arquia took this opportunity to look back at the thing and assess the situation. It was HUGE. The dinosaur rivaled even her own size, and it looked fierce. Not to mention it had attacked her first. She was not used to being the prey.

But perhaps that wasn't a bad thing. This would be a fight to remember, one she could learn from. And she needed to teach it a lesson.

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.

@Arquia

She couldn't give it an opportunity to attack her again. It already had it's shot and knocking her out, and now it was her turn. Arquia turned to face the Azhdar, wings beating as she pursued the beast. If she hit it with enough momentum, perhaps it would be possible to knock it straight out of the air. She wasn't able to tell if she was heavier than it or not, but it definitely seemed to be more wing than muscle.

Nearing the Azhdar, she flew as fast as she could, claws out stretched to grapple the dinosaur and tackle it out of the air.

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.

@Arquia

That thing was all beak and no muscle. No matter what she did, it would just try to impale her. She would have to find a way to disorient it or make sure it couldn't dive her. Wait. That was it. If she just gained the height advantage that would make it rather useless. And it was coming down for her right now. So if she played this right...

But first she would have to dodge the attack. But the upward momentum was hard to break away from. The Azhdar was approaching, getting closer and closer. She didn't think the dinosaur would be this hard to deal with. And she definitely didn't think she would be at the receiving end of a 10ft head dagger. Uh oh.

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

(mild)

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.

@Arquia