Sunbeam Lair ❝i am exhausted, i am exhausted— pillar of white in a blackout of knives.

they're just

He felt her feather light form give way beneath his weight, but any sense of victory he may have felt was just as quickly torn away. He heard first her vicious snarl before the sting of teeth met the skin of his hindquarter and he was pulled down along the very path he had come up through to meet her. There was no telling who had the upper hand during their fall, nor who would come out on top at the end of it.

As they came to a rolling, unceremonious stop in amongst the foliage of the cavern, Redshank's tongue quickly snaked out to lap at the blood that had appeared on his teeth. His own, he realised with a start. Unbeknownst to him, the woman's claws and the jutting rocks alike had pierced skin, leaving smatterings of blood upon the lair's walls.

He had ended up on his back, stars filling his vision as his assailant recovered and scrabbled to disentangle from him. Redshank let out a slurred growl, rolling back onto one side and watching the now unkempt woman face him, looking the part of a rabid snow fox. The boy stumbled to his feet, wishing for the world to stop spinning. "Get—" he started again, before an explosion of pain erupted from behind his ear and he lurched to one side, eyes squeezed shut.