You, who have trucked with failures; behold victory.

Her hide glitters, the first of her namesakes, proof against weapons mortal, and demonic. Would the gods have entrusted the world to that which could not stand against hell? But you do not have room to stare. You do not [i]dare[/i] avert your gaze. Hunched over, nearly on all fours, yet her long nose all but brushes yours. She bares rows and rows of glistening fangs. Her snarl could tear mountains to rubble, were she to unleash it in full. The air is fire, her eyes are fire, save where they are split by an endless blackness that threatens to swallow you whole.

Do you see the antlers, flowing from her head, save where they fork and split like lightning? Do you see her tail, flowing long from her body, swaying hypnotizingly slow? The only time you will see it, before it strikes? Can you bear the sight of her blade, weaving sinuously down the ridges of her back, waiting for its master’s hand to spring to life? A thirsting thing of scale and fang, once grasped, not to return until it has drunk its fill of victory?

And you thought to [i]defy[/i] her, liar? Kidnapper?! Poisoner of her lands!?!

Yet the gravest insult of all; the wind answers for you. In deafening hiss and eternal hail, it hides you away and cries fight me! Fight me! How can you fight me, o glory of heaven?

The wind, make a demand  of [i]her?[/i]

The wind must learn its place.

An ocean stirs. Raging flows of Essence swirl through her. Embers fly from arrows deflecting off her hide. Faster and faster, more and more, flowing down the length of her tail, a secret weapon of the dragons.

(It is a secret weapon the same way a fever is a secret defense. A wager, that this will hurt you far more than it hurts me. A body takes in so much Essence, that no weapon or being can approach without first passing through fire. Teachers of the flows often let their students stumble into this art on their own, that they may experience firsthand the dizzying, burning reasons why only the desperate or foolish would try it in battle.

These rules, like many others, do not apply to dragons.)

She spins, her tail striking like lighting, and a crack of thunder sends torrents of burning air down the hallway. Arrows in flight burn, melt, shrivel to useless nothing, and it is all the opening she needs. Four claws shred stone and climbing! Leaping! Catching the air and hurling herself ever forward! Wall, floor, ceiling, it makes no difference. All are hers. All will serve. A feral mass of scales and violence tears after the kidnapper, and the wind feebly strikes at her wake.

Pathetic. How can the wind fight a dragon?

[Rolling to [b]Defy Disaster[/b] with Daring: 4 + 3 + 2  = [b]9[/b]. The Vermilion Beast will sacrifice [i]the appearance of control.[/i]]