Gunnaya's swing plunged through the air, toward Blithe's right side. Following the arc of her blow, Gunnaya saw Blithe's arm wind up for a stab. In quick response, she angled her staff's swing into Blithe's arm. Her plan was to knock, or break, Blithe's arm down, before she could fully extend her blade into a strike with any degree of force.

Gunnaya's strike landed first, acting quicker. When the staff began pushing into the arm and it began giving under the strike, it was fortunate for Blithe that, due to their respective angling, before her arm reached its maximum flexibility, the staff smacked into Blithe's side. This was, by no means comfortable.

With her arm knocked about, Blithe's stab landed with limp force, snagging on the fur hide for but a moment before deflecting away with only some fluff as its prize.

Blithe desperately hauled her shield between them once more, knocking the staff away if it had not been withdrawn already, and set both her arms upon it, readjusting her grip so that she could discard it.

Facing the oncoming shield, Gunnaya took her left hand off of her staff, and drew her axe. Tucking her right arm in, she slammed herself into Blithe's shield with her right shoulder. The collision was loud, but Gunnaya had her feet firmly planted in the snow. Hopefully the elf, using only one arm to hold the shield, would be more shaken than Gunnaya, by the collision. The elf wouldn't stop pushing forward with that damned shield. All the tall, barbaric woman could think to do was to knock her backward. As her right shoulder buried itself painfully into the solid shield, with a thunderous *THUD*, Gunnaya prepared to parry another jab from the elf's sword.

Blithe had just set both her hands on her shield to readjust her grip, and so she withstood the shock of the shoulder ram, giving ground with her arms a little, but maintaining her footing. Both her arms were trapped between their bodies, no room to maneuver or stab again. This left Blithe the only option of attempting to push back as hard as she could, ramming her own right shoulder forward into the shield a beat after Gunnaya's momentum was absorbed. She pulled her left hand free of the shield on impact, meaning the shield would likely fall away as the clash finished.

Blithe planned to cut from her upper left to lower center, while stepping back with her left foot. This was a cut and not a swing, the hilt being pulled back and centered to prepare for another strike, limiting the strength of the blow but Blithe was always one to prefer a one-sided victory and not an exchange of deathblows, loath to leave herself open. But, if Gunnaya was not pushed back, there would be no room for such a maneuver, and she would instead attempt a pommel strike along the same angle, while keeping her left hand free to grapple, hand close to her chin, fearing an attack from her right.