Hit it with your big purse

She hadn’t noticed the lion. Valentine was going to fight the lion? Esti shot a look to Cascade that was half worry and half amusement at the agreement between the two species. Turning back, Valentine agreed no maims, then joked about watching Ashmedai while she was recovering. Esti didn’t even have to look, she could hear their son’s tail hitting the ground excitedly as he called out, “Really Dad?! Would you!?” He made the emotion to run up alongside his father, but Esti shot him a look that sent him straight back to his haunches. Right, as long as Ashmedai stayed out of this, it would be fine.

As the male began to set his defenses, Esti began to do the same. She started with widening her stance, bending her knees slightly while her toes spread, nails scraping into the cold, rocky ground. Trying to remove her excited smirk, Esti’s lips curled up, narrowing her eyes and flattening her ears, her whole face scrunching to provide ripples of extra skin. Her head lowered and her tail rose, forming a line as her spine evened out. Along this line, her hackles rose and a small growl rippled from the woman’s chest. She was ready.

As Valentine charged, Esti charged. The two running for each other head on, attempting to minimize the distance between them. Just before they met in the middle, Valentine dodged to Esti’s left. Esti reciprocated, attempting to jump to her left to meet Valentine head on. His left shoulder would not clash with her left shoulder, since she had moved over, instead hitting her directly in the front part of her right shoulder. The area had little fat to protect it and it felt like bone collided with bone, though it would only bruise moderately later. For now, the shoulder stung and Esti was sure Valentine would be feeling it too.

Valentine’s next assault was to stomp on Esti’s toes. With Esti’s position now being head on with Valentine, his left forepaw slammed down directly onto her right forepaw, his nails scratching between her toes and onto the webbing between them, but not fully securing the forepaw. Blood would well up from the moderate scratched, stinging, though Esti would still be able to support weight on the forepaw.

The last attack was to bite the left side of Esti’s face. Now being face to face, however, Valentine’s bite latched onto the right side of her maw, with only the left side of Valentine’s teeth hitting her skin. The teeth would drag down from the bridge of her snout to the end of her lips, causing moderate scratching that burned like fire and bled like a waterfall.

A snarl left Esti’s now bleeding maw as she prepared for her attacks. Esti sought to reach out and turn her head to her right to secure a grip on Valentine’s left ear, just at the base where she could control his movements and attacks. She would aim to latch her top teeth behind his ear while the lower jaw sought to clamp onto the inner ear. Esti intended to twist his ear to his right, seeking to throw off his balance. She attempted to hook her left forepaw around Valentine’s right forepaw and pull it towards her to throw off his balance further as she redistributed hers to her three remaining paws. Esti lastly attempted to push forward and slam her whole chest squarely into the middle of Valentine’s chest, seeking to push Valentine off balance. They were the same height, so pushing him down wouldn’t hurt much, but it might throw him off guard.

"Speech"
'thoughts'