knock 'em back - o, practice

[redvox.]

REDVOX "VINNY" ABRAMO - cis male - goat-bat hybrid - harbinger

In all honesty, Vox truly didn't "get" powers. He understood their usefulness, as well as why people might've wanted them, but he felt he did pretty well without them. Perhaps it was just used to the useful combination of animals that he represented, or just because he had been honing his fighting skills for quite a while now, but he never really felt the need to fall back on methods using strange magic that didn't seem as though it presented to everyone. It just unnerved him, knowing that someone could randomly wake up one day and have some odd power they had never expected or wanted, or some new strange body part like wings or horns. He supposed he couldn't be that disturbed, considering he had just sort of woken up in his current hybrid form after the fire that had first overtaken the Halls's original territory. Still, he didn't truly consider that a power, since he hadn't willfully attempted to become a gat. He never even would've been able to, considering that, before he had taken this particular form, the thought of a hybrid of a bat and a goat had never even crossed his mind once, and certainly wouldn't have been the little feline's choice of an alternate form. Still, he couldn't say that he was that unhappy with it now. He had originally considered it to be a curse from the gods as a result of failing the Halls, but now he wasn't so sure, considering he was still stuck within it even now that the Halls were rebuilt. So now he chose to think of it as a gift rather than a curse – a useful and resourceful form that had been able go help him in rebuilding what had been lost. He was certainly larger now, and it had certain tools of survival that his old form hadn't had, such as being omnivorous and having razor sharp bat fangs he could sink into foes. There were certainly advantages to it, as well as disadvantages.

Still, besides his current gat form, Vinny didn't truly have anything unusual about him, and certainly nothing comparable to the flame powers that Aslisk currently possessed. He couldn't even imagine trying to control such a thing, and he often found himself now growing anxious around the wyvern, worried that she was about to set their entire territory ablaze thanks to the fact that she couldn't control it yet. Hell, even if she could control it, Vin still found himself commonly worried that one day she would just get pissed off enough to burn their lush territory to the ground. This both terrified and annoyed him, and he was fairly sure if she ever did do such a thing, powers or not, he would absolutely wreck her shit in his fury afterwards. Still, it seemed as though Aslisk hadn't completely burned everything down up to this point, and as such Vinny hadn't been keeping such a watchful eye over her, finally beginning to trust her a little. Not a lot, granted, but at least a little bit. Enough where he didn't feel the need to follow her every little move or action just to make sure he wouldn't be forced to take her out in some way. In addition to this, the Harbinger had somewhat given up in his attempts to keep her in bed in order to avoid exacerbating her injuries. It wasn't that he didn't care anymore, but it was more that she just never listened to a word he said. He could tell that she enjoyed their little verbal spats on occasion, but she never really listened to any of his orders, and insisted commonly that she would be fine, even with all the moving around and dragging over her burn wounds. He wanted to snack her upside the head to get her to realize that wasn't the case, but she'd probably just get some kind of satisfaction by jokingly saying that he had made her wounds worse, and he really didn't have the patience to deal with that for the moment.

Vox had somewhat intentionally been avoiding going out as of late, mainly due to the worsening conditions of the outside world around them. It seemed as though this winter was being particularly cruel to everyone in terms of the snow on the ground, the chill in the air, and the strange mist that was settling over everything, so Vinny much preferred the warmth of inside the fortress, interacting lazily with the other members and setting up little Christmas themed activities. However, not everyone was pleased with just hanging about inside, and as Vox found himself descending the stairs to the lobby, he noticed Aslisk teleporting down outside, and his interest was piqued, wondering what she was doing. His claws giving a little tip-tap as he descended the last few steps, he watched her move off, her entire body seeming to have a firm sense of purpose as she strode off into the woods. Immediately Vox felt a large spike of anxiety within his chest, worried about what the hell the female was doing that made her seem so determined. Normally he would've been proud of any of the other Halls members for showing such initiative, but... this was Aslisk. And while he didn't truly hate Aslisk, he definitely knew she had a penchant for causing trouble, so the gat's thoughts could only really go to the most immediate explanation that she was planning on causing trouble somehow. Sighing, Vin decided to head out after her, squeezing his oddly shaped body out of one of the large windows in the front of the fortress, frowning as his wings sunk into wet snow. A sigh left the harbinger as he shook his body from side to side, trying to get rid of any snow that had already decided to cling to him. He knew he would grow more and more cold as more of the slush clung to his thin and unprotected wings, but there wasn't much that he could do as he followed Aslisk, a few minutes behind.

Eventually, the male came upon the scene of Aslisk training, blinking in confusion for a couple of moments at the shoddy training dummy in front of him. It was poorly constructed, and he almost couldn't recognize the purpose of it. That was, of course, until Aslisk decided to go flinging herself forward. Vox jumped a bit as she sunk her talons into the dummy, and he watched in faint amazement for a moment before relaxing again. She hadn't really actually done anything yet, except for just leaping forward. However, after a moment, she was moving again, swinging around and whipping her body to use her flaming tail as a weapon, the Harbinger's wings shoving him backwards a bit in response as he watched. The flames immediately made alarm bells go off in his head, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling as Aslisk set the dummy ablaze, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. After a couple of seconds, the flames had been snuffed out once again, and Vinny thankfully found himself gradually able to relax again, a sigh leaving him as he listened to Aslisk cheer triumphantly. A small part of hin considered just turning and walking off without interacting, considering how absolutely delighted she seemed with herself, but eventually he decided against it, deciding it would be a bit creepy to just watch from afar and then wander away. Moving a bit closer to the scene, Vox eyed the charred dummy for a moment before speaking to Aslisk, his green gaze flicking over to her as his ears perked up attentively, "What'd that dummy do ta you? It steal your sandwich or somethin'? Cause ya certainly didn't go easy on it. Were ya tryin' ta get practice using your weird powers?" Part of the Harbinger wanted to add on "powers granted by the gods", but he ultimately held back, knowing that Aslisk didn't really believe in their gods or what they represented. She had her own beliefs, and whether she thought her fire powers were from her supposed god of death or whatever was her business.