(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

questions and him running about the planes like an addle-cove on the
slightest rumor. Ugly as sin, too.
But then he would smile. Sometimes he'd stand up with as much banter to
the skull as it gave. Sometimes that deader would laugh, and he had a stupid
throaty roar that would make her grin too. There were times when he would
throw himself into the fray, sheathing the knives of their enemies in his
body so none would find their way into hers. He did it for all of them, but
sometimes she thought he had this look in his eye whenever he glanced at
her while waiting for his wounds to knit. She remembered planting a blade
in his guts in anger, before she knew what he was. She remembered him
drawing her back from the darkness as she lay in a puddle of her own blood.
His skin was coarse and twisted with scars. His body stank of
formaldehyde... but she knew how soft he truly could be.
Annah ignored the wetness painting her cheeks. She almost laughed...
wanting it all to end, wanting closure and being through with his idiocy.
Those had been such stupid reasons to follow.
"He matters more to me... than me life."
Fire and ice crashed about her as she weaved and dodged. Flames lapped at
her skin. Shards of ice sliced arms upraised to shield her face. The
punch-daggers struck home, cracking against supple limbs that seemed to
bend under her blades. It folded in on itself as if to shield its body from her
daggers.
She would win this battle. She would win.
A roar of flame knocked her back, and elbows and knees cracked against the
floor as she rolled. Annah groaned, the stink of singed leather and burning
blood filled her nostrils. She looked up to see the creature's wings unfurling:
they had only folded in to protect its body from the blast. Her attacks had
done nothing.
Annah's boots slid out from under her. She was so disoriented... more
battered than she thought. She tried to will herself to move... tried to stand
and fight. The chiming chorus of a thousand ice crystals coalescing sounded
above her, and still she tried to move.
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