By The Stream

Rose adjusted in her perch on the lower branches of the tree, draping her arms over a branch just a foot above the one she was sitting on and slouching.

"We do enjoy a good sparring match, so really, it's your call, but if you two remain indecisive for much longer I'm just going to pick something and go with it." Rose said with a wry smile.

Azalea relaxed visibly upon Remi's accepting response to their empathic abilities.

"I'm glad it doesn't bother you too much. And to pick up anything beyond surface emotions I actually need your permission, so you have nothing to worry about in terms of probing too deep. People who do that without consent are just terrible. I try my best to use my empahtic abilities to help people when I can, and not to cause any harm or invasion of privacy. It's sickening when people with empathic or telepathic abilities abuse them like that."

The twins' eyes met for the briefest of moments as meaningful glances were exchanged in wordless communication, after which Azalea stood up.

"Very well, I'll be your opponent, if that's alright. Shall we say, first to get the other off their feet wins?"

Rose grinned madly from her perch as she watched. She wondered if Remi was underestimating Azalea at all due to their admittedly thoroughly non-threatening presence. If so, she'd be in for a surprise.

Azalea, meanwhile, backed up a few meters from Remi, and settled into a comfortable fighting stance.

"No weapons, just magic, let's try not to really hurt each other or the environment overmuch...but that said, don't you dare go easy on me."

Azalea's gentle eyes gained a steely sheen as they caused the snow around them to sublimate, becoming water vapor, which swirled around Azalea like a misty shroud as Azalea's focus narrowed on their sparring partner.

Azalea was not, in fact, using water vapor. Well, they were, but only as "ammunition."

Azalea held the swirling aura of mist around them like a blanket, and with an inward flick of the wrists, condensed a measure of the mist into a large ball of water between their hands. They then forced it to compress into a tiny marble-sized mass of highly pressurized liquid water, and flung this toward Remi, aiming in the general direction of the mass of tree branches Remi had vanished into. It would reach the tree in about half a second, and explode in a high-pressure shower in all directions on contact with something sufficiently solid.

Azalea waited in suspense for that half a second, the misty aura swirling around them all the while, ready to condense and leap to their hands on command.

((btw I hope I'm doing this right. The combat thing. Always nervous I'll do something wrong or accidentally break a rule somehow or seem like I'm power playing or something, esp for the first time in a given site.))

Azalea reacted with a smooth, fluid motion, causing their misty aura to freeze around the branch-spear as soon as it reached them, moving their right hand in a dismissive wave that sent the ice-encrusted spear to move aside and clatter to the ground harmlessly.

Unfortunately, their misty shroud was notably depleted at this point, so they took a moment to sublimate more snow to replenish it, leaving them somewhat vulnerable for a few seconds.

Rose watched excitedly, quietly lamenting her lack of popcorn.

Azalea had made a tactical mistake. Those couple seconds it took to replenish their shroud weren't worth it, especially since a brief loss of focus on keeping their "ammunition" floating around them was enough to cause it all to fall away.

And fall it did. Seeing the blow coming, Azalea put their left foot behind them and shifted their stance so their side was facing Remi. They intended to block the kick, too, but it struck before they could. Remi moved a lot faster than you'd have thought by looking at her. Azalea took the full blow of the kick to their right side, and visibly buckled and staggered a bit. The mist they had been so carefully willing to stay suspended around them dropped like a fine rain to the snowy ground.

Azalea immediately shifted forms, their body melting into a puddle which slithered away like a watery snake and reformed into humanoid form about 10 feet away from Remi. For a fraction of a second, Azalea pondered whether they should heal the bruise from the kick--which remained even after the form changes--but decided against it and instead chose to liquefy a mass of snow and then refreeze it in the shape of a gently curved, blunt-edged sword, holding it out in a guard position and watching, waiting for Remi to make the next move.

((OOC: btw, please tell me at any time if you think I've accidentally been unfair somehow. Also, how would you feel about the fight ultimately ending in a draw? Not for a few more posts I mean, but as the desired ooc end goal. A bit cliche maybe but it would be a good note to begin a friendship on, I think.))