[Duel] Qalb-az-Khorshid vs. Huoxin

[Meepfur]

He felt wretched. Qalb-az-Khorshid had never been a lion with a confidence problem...right up until a week ago. He'd started trying to gain entrance to the Motoujamii two weeks ago, to fulfill a promise he was dead-set on keeping, whatever it took. He'd been eager and hopeful to start, in spite of how little practical experience he had when it came to fighting. He'd learned in preparation for his pilgrimage, and had even had a scrap or two, but that all felt like a very long time ago, before he'd gone back to the fairly easy life of a pride-dwelling lion. He was a very capable hunter, but fighting...? That was proving to be a problem.

The most frustrating part was that when he trained, he wasn't bad, and he was definitely getting better; the problem was, when he had dueled for entrance into the pride, his nerves had gotten the better of him, especially the second time. His first duel had been almost light-hearted, with a good-humored lioness who had offered him pointers. The second...well. She'd made it clear that she thought he didn't belong. He should just give up.

But she didn't understand. He'd given his word. He needed to do this, and he would.

This time, he would not only start strong, but he would keep it up. He had to.  

[Meepfur]

Another day, another opponent - another lioness, at that. Not that he saw that so much as he saw another solid obstacle, another warrior who was almost certainly fully capable of crushing his hopes. Again. But he'd been training hard, and trying to better prepare himself to hold it together even with the promise he'd made on the line. He needed to keep in mind why he was fighting, let it fuel him, but not be overwhelmed by it.

This time, when he landed a hit, he didn't allow himself to get excited, and when struck in turn, didn't despair over it. Instead, he swiped hard to strike another blow.  

[Meepfur]

He could do this. He could do this. It wasn't so bad, see? Keeping his nerves from running wild was quite the task, and for him, most of the battle. He knew what to do, he could even be good at it, as long as he disdn't lose his grip. She struck at him again, just as he moved to do the same, and each respective blow was glancing enough to be brushed off.

No big deal. At least he hadn't taken another good hit, or missed completely.  

[Meepfur]

Okay, okay. This was okay. This- alright, that one actually hurt. Khorshid grunted when Huoxin landed her next blow, but he tried not to let it get to him. That was when everything would inevitably fall to pieces, and he wasn't going to let that happen again. He kept his calm and struck out again, although it was a weaker hit than he was capable of.

It was still an improvement over his last, pathetically bad attempt at a duel, but...  

[Meepfur]

He saw the hit coming, and made the conscious decision not to fully dodge it. He took the blow and rolled with it, so that he could use the moment she struck out as an opening to counter with his own strike. Maybe it was a sound tactical decision, maybe not, but at this point, he was willing to take the risk.