The setting was an afternoon in the dilapidated out-arena some while away from the city. The area looked old, the stonework was crumbling and much of the arena's amenities were horribly broken. For those visiting, both the fighters and the spectators, there was little remarkable about the arena besides the fact that is was really big and had a good open pitch of grass and sand in the middle. There were very few people in the audience ((you may insert your character as a spectator if you like, and reply below)). A few nobles were present, a few commoners, and a troupe of Imperial assessors, Imperial Guards and courtiers, the usual crowd who does the assessments for Imperial Guard examinations. In the pitch was Tristan Kade, already standing roughly in the middle, while Henrik Norrvakt swaggered onto the pitch like he expected this to be a piece of cake. Truthfully, Cedric had merely challenged him to a battle in the ring, but had not specified what any of it had meant. Tristan's presence, as well as the Imperial assessors didn't quite cause him to consider that this was actually a guard examination, and that he was not actually coming here to fight Cedric alone.
Henrik walked towards Tristan, his thumbs hooked through the leather straps on his chest harness, his teeth chewing on a toothpick as he shuffled his feet back and forth with a saunter. There was a bold self-confidence in his posture, his shoulders pushing forwards in turn with each step he took like he didn't actually want to be there, or like he knew he was going to win whatever it was he signed himself up for. He eventually reached Tristan, whom he looked at from head to toe. Tristan was dressed in some pretty heavy plate, which was to say, he was massive. Being the seven feet plus that Tristan was, Henrik looked horribly under-dressed with his leather belts, gladiator leather skirt and leather harnesses and shoulder pads. Tristan looked at him, or more specifically down at him, in a similar manner that he would always do to Cedric, since Henrik and him were the same height give or take. His stance was uncertain, not scared or intimidated, but nervous. Tristan kept fidgeting with the straps on his gauntlets, unsecuring them and re-securing them, and the shuffling of his feet in armor could be heard as the metal clinked together each time he shifted his knee.
Henrik looked at him for a moment as he was just about to open his mouth, until it dawned to him what he'd signed up for. A flurry of thoughts later, in what seemed like a mere few seconds, Tristan had suddenly thrown his visor on his helmet down, and raised his sword in position, pointing at something behind Henrik. Henrik didn't turn around to look, he had probably even anticipated what was behind him before Tristan even tried to draw his attention to it. There was a deep guttural growl behind him, the kind that one hears when one disturbs a nursing mother dog over her pups. A warning, but perhaps also a challenge of sorts, a challenge that would say "Try me, I dare you, and you will not live to regret it". It reminded him of the alligator he had once seen chained up during a country fair, the same vibrating hissing and growling that came from the depths of an animal's throat, but far deeper, and far louder. As he turned, his mouth fell half agape as the Dragon stood a mere few feet away from him, both eyes looking down on him at the height of an average northern House. He had seen parts of it from a distance, but it was a whole different story up close.
As his mouth fell agape, a muttered "Well fuck me" escaped him, the tooth pick that had earlier toyed around in his mouth falling to the floor and digging into the dirt. He snapped his mouth shut with a deep swallow, not one out of fear or regret, but perhaps one out of the sudden realization that not everything in life comes easy, and this was one of them. Whereas normally pride and self confidence would be an ally in the ring, this time, caution would be a shield and pragmatism the only brother in arms worth keeping. Over confidence would cause him to commit to mistakes, so like he was prone to in situations of stress during war, he purged himself mentally as he scanned over the Dragon. Tristan behind him had meanwhile gotten into a stance to deflect the first incoming attack, or try to wait for the opening move. Normally he would have acted first, struck first, or set the key-note for the battle to showcase his ferocity for that early intimidation. But Tristan knew that the Dragon was sizing up Henrik, and that Cedric was mocking him, so he let him do just that, as Henrik still stood there gawking at the Dragon.
He gawked at the feet, the claws of which were indeed the size of a crown person. He wagered they were capable of cutting someone in half like a hot knife on butter, the scale of a blue hue but predominantly gray with a light shimmer of the setting sun, and the vibrant purple and blue feathers in the crown, richer even than most of the noble dressage. Settling on those icy-blue eyes with the purple colorations, there was at first a sense of apprehension, it was after all, staring straight at him. But the longer he looked at those eyes, the more there was a sense of recognition. For those not familiar with the Dragon, they might frequently have a hard time connecting the Dragon with the Human person, but not Henrik in this situation. Whether it was the slight raising of the lower eyelids, or the expression of the brow on the eyes, or the emotion behind the movement of them, they were very familiar.
They had the same familiarity as Cedric's eyes whenever Henrik would show up to him, or when Cedric found him at the palace. The kind of beaming eyes that a child would have when it found a quarter Regal under a table, forgotten in the dust and dirt, or a hungry man about to consume a whole ribeye steak. Perhaps the latter thought was disconcerning given the size of the Dragon's jaw and razorteeth, but the sense of familiarity definitely came across to Henrik. This was a Dragon, but it was also unmistakably Cedric, and Cedric wouldn't eat him. After all, Henrik thought of himself as the life of the party. Without him, Cedric would be utterly bored out of his mind, and with that safety of familiarity, he allowed some sense of himself to return to him. The corners of his mouth pulled up as a wry grin almost formed, just barely suppressed, while he reached for his weapons and positioned himself in a stance that would befitting of the duel to come. There was immediate recognition of the fact that Henrik recognized him too in the Dragon. Nothing had been said or done, explicitly, but between them, the exchange could have been summarized as followed.
"Here I am, now you can see me."
"Yes you are, and yes I can. I know you are."
"I know you do."
The moment Henrik readied his weapons, the Dragon pushed off from the ground pouncing backwards, with its wings spread wide to cause momentary lift, adding to the distance of his leap. A flurry of grass blades flushed into the air washing over Tristan and Henrik, a loud set of thuds heard as the Dragons feet landed again, his tail smashing into the floor for added provocation to the two warriors. Tristan was being tested for the Imperial Guard, while Henrik was frankly just being entertained for the heck of it. His primary objective was obviously not getting crushed or cut in half, but his secondary objective, to try and impale the Kade with the weapons he had given Henrik himself. Black Steel was great and all, but Dragonsteel would be even better. Tristan charged first then, taking the lead as would be expected of the Imperial Guard who do not cower and hide behind others. He silently advanced, with a steady pace yet not a fully sprinting one, primarily aimed at closing the distance, which then also resulted in Norrvakt sprinting ahead. Not that Henrik was really planning to coordinate with Tristan, on the contrary, Tristan was doing something to prove himself, but in doing so disprove Henrik's courage, and he wasn't having any of it. Perhaps however, his earlier stance of flushing his mind of any ego and pride would have better suited him in this position. The Dragon reared its behind, just as quickly as Henrik had started a sprint, to whip its tail in his direction while he just passed by Tristan, who promptly dropped down to a slide which was too late for Henrik.
Henrik was hit in the chest by the short end of the tail, not only getting his face wacked with a large fluffy bundle of feathers and fur, but also getting smacked in the chest by something with the force equivalent of a wooden log. Henrik was propelled backwards a couple of feet, sliding and rolling on the floor as he went, losing his grip on at least one of his weapons and tasting a fair amount of grassy dirt in his mouth. Tristan meanwhile leapt out of his slide and started flinging his weapon at the Dragon, trying to break its defensive stance. Henrik tried to regain his sense as he watched Tristan just sort of awkwardly wave a sword around the size of a toothprick for the Dragon, it didn't particularly seem to affect his scales, the slashes. Henrik reasoned that Dragonscale could only really be pierced, not slashed through, unless it was the soft tissue on the stomach. Then again, this was just Henrik theorizing, he didn't know if Dragons actually had a soft belly, and he was well aware of just how wild this assumption could be.
Henrik got back to his feet, just as Tristan was being driven back by a leg swiping at him, Henrik grabbing his discarded sword and putting all of his clothing pieces back in place and tightly secured. With his weapons at the ready, he charged in again, intent on keeping his wits about him a bit more, and focus on his responses. Cedric was clearly playing, that tail did not swing at full speed otherwise it would have broken every bone in his ribcage, but the situation still demanded for caution. As anyone who owned a dog would know, even dogs who play can sometimes go too far and cause serious damage with tooth and nail. When he reached the Dragon, it was busy swiping at Tristan who was barely avoiding the hits, so he used the breathing space to grab the leather belt by his side, and leapt onto the Dragon's extended behind leg, using the heel joint as a jumping board to crawl onto the Dragon's back. Obviously, the Dragon didn't seem to like this one bit, or even expect it, as it even made a very audible surprised noise, one that caused both Henrik and Tristan to chuckle in amusement, despite the tenseness of the fight.
The Dragon immediately started galloping, trying to kick its behind up to push Henrik off, who tightly gripped onto the fur and feathers on its back that ran from the mane to the tail. There was scales all around him, he scanned them up and down, but all of them seemed a lot tougher than the ones on the side. The scales on the back in fact seemed thickest of all the scales on the Dragon's body for as far as he could see, so reaching the neck was a priority. Just how to get there however, was an interesting conundrum, since the Dragon was practically galloping through the arena, its weathers flipping erratically around while whipping up a dust storm to the annoyance of the small crowd that was watching. Henrik's grip was being pushed to the limits and beyond each time the Dragon kicked its behind legs up, his body being forced through intense pressure while his hands started slipping. On the final kick, Henrik's hands slipped, sending him flying into the air.
The ground moved further and further away from him as his legs and arms splashed around trying to reach for anything solid to hold onto, until the Dragon seemed to overcompensate, still upset over having been turned into a rodeo show, that it kicked its front legs up and started standing on its hind legs. Just as the Dragon did so, and Henrik was about to reach the height where the upwards momentum would turn into a downwards fall, some quick thinking caused him to reach for his loop belt, and hooking it around the Dragon's right horn, the really big one, essentially hooking him on. As the Dragon came down, Henrik was slid along the horn like a zipline to the side of the Dragon's head, resting his face awkwardly in front of the Dragon's right eye which dilated, and turned to look straight at him. Henrik did a mocking wave with his hand, his other arm attached to the leather belt now wrapped firmly in place between the Dragon's horns, while he could swear the Dragon's eye was practically screaming "Really dude?".
The Dragon immediately responded by again going rodeo, but this time with its head. Henrik quickly grabbed with both hands, trying to hold on for the dear life of him, as he had no feet to secure anywhere, and his body was being slapped about like a ragdoll. Numerous times on his way down, his body crashed into the side of the Dragon's head, scraping his arms past the jagged edges of his horns and scales, scratching and bashing as he went, with an audible "ouch" or "argh" each time he went down. A few dozen feet away, Tristan just stood silently and perturbed at the whole scene, how the duel that he had both been looking forwards to, and not wanting to do because it felt like a final judgement, had turned into some sort of joke. He tapped the tip of his sword on the ground a couple of times, contemplating what the best course of action was, or whether he should even give up on the fight altogether. Eventually, with a deep inhale and exhale, he steeled his resolve to be the only person who was serious in the ring, charging forward again, this time intent on ending whatever the Dragon and Henrik were doing with some skill to showcase to the Imperial assessors.
As he reached the rodeo, with all his might and brainpower that he could muster to anticipate the timing, he sent his sword flying with a great roar, it swinging through the air like a throwing axe, swinging just over Henrik and cutting his leather strap in half, the sword then clattering against the scales and falling down again. Tristan then, on account of his height and strenght, managed to catch Henrik on the way with with a single arm, while equally bending down to pick up the sword again, turning to Henrik again and yelling at him: "Take this fight seriously, there's more resting on you than just your entertainment!" Henrik looked at him with an offended and incredulous expression, not over the fact of what Tristan had just said, but rather over the fact that Tristan could have just as well sliced his head off with that move. He tried to respond as Tristan put him down, his posture leaning in to give some sort of snide commentary, cut short as Tristan wrapped his meaty hand around Henrik's neck, shook his whole body around a bit and then yelled in his face, practically with a spittle: "No, you be quiet, and you take this seriously. My job depends on this and you're taking a piss on me". He then let him go, Henrik offering no verbal response, but his shoulders dropping and his combative stance retreating. The Dragon was aware of this exchange, though had seemingly been too busy clawing at part of the leather strap still wrapped around its horn, before the proper fight started.
The proper fight being a lengthy back and forth between Henrik and Tristan on one side, and the Dragon on the other. Henrik had taken the fight considerably more seriously, and chased after his secondary objective of drawing blood on his sword. He had tried sliding under the Dragon only to find the bottom was not soft, he had tried to pierce the scaled, but each time found the Dragon moved too constantly for it to really stick. Tristan pushed the Dragon's claws back a number of times, even forcing it once to take to the skies and give both of the fighters a moment to recuperate while it did some showcase moves in the sky. The Dragon had seemingly gained a better control over its flight capacity, soaring through the skies and landing without collapsing on the floor, for once.
Eventually the battle was done with the Dragon shifting back to Cedric's humanoid form after a solid thirty minutes of dancing back and forth, his stance holding some sort of serious undertone and prideful glare, but his whole being looking more like a comical aftertone, as the cut off belt that had previously been lodged against his horns, was now simply dangling from his right ear. Henrik silently reached over to grab the cut off belt, his arm slowly raising, but Cedric quickly whipping out his own hand, grabbing the belt, slapping Henrik's hand with said belt, and then throwing it into his face with a chuckle. He finally then let out a "well done to both of you" and walked away, while the Imperial assessors seemed pleased with what Tristan had performed, approving his re-entry as an Imperial Guard recruit. With the battle over, everyone started leaving the spectacle behind, except for Norrvakt, who went looking through the grass to find the sword he had lost somewhere after the 15 minute mark of the fight, finding it some time later when he was the last one left in the arena, just as the sun was properly setting on the horizon.
Henrik walked towards Tristan, his thumbs hooked through the leather straps on his chest harness, his teeth chewing on a toothpick as he shuffled his feet back and forth with a saunter. There was a bold self-confidence in his posture, his shoulders pushing forwards in turn with each step he took like he didn't actually want to be there, or like he knew he was going to win whatever it was he signed himself up for. He eventually reached Tristan, whom he looked at from head to toe. Tristan was dressed in some pretty heavy plate, which was to say, he was massive. Being the seven feet plus that Tristan was, Henrik looked horribly under-dressed with his leather belts, gladiator leather skirt and leather harnesses and shoulder pads. Tristan looked at him, or more specifically down at him, in a similar manner that he would always do to Cedric, since Henrik and him were the same height give or take. His stance was uncertain, not scared or intimidated, but nervous. Tristan kept fidgeting with the straps on his gauntlets, unsecuring them and re-securing them, and the shuffling of his feet in armor could be heard as the metal clinked together each time he shifted his knee.
Henrik looked at him for a moment as he was just about to open his mouth, until it dawned to him what he'd signed up for. A flurry of thoughts later, in what seemed like a mere few seconds, Tristan had suddenly thrown his visor on his helmet down, and raised his sword in position, pointing at something behind Henrik. Henrik didn't turn around to look, he had probably even anticipated what was behind him before Tristan even tried to draw his attention to it. There was a deep guttural growl behind him, the kind that one hears when one disturbs a nursing mother dog over her pups. A warning, but perhaps also a challenge of sorts, a challenge that would say "Try me, I dare you, and you will not live to regret it". It reminded him of the alligator he had once seen chained up during a country fair, the same vibrating hissing and growling that came from the depths of an animal's throat, but far deeper, and far louder. As he turned, his mouth fell half agape as the Dragon stood a mere few feet away from him, both eyes looking down on him at the height of an average northern House. He had seen parts of it from a distance, but it was a whole different story up close.
As his mouth fell agape, a muttered "Well fuck me" escaped him, the tooth pick that had earlier toyed around in his mouth falling to the floor and digging into the dirt. He snapped his mouth shut with a deep swallow, not one out of fear or regret, but perhaps one out of the sudden realization that not everything in life comes easy, and this was one of them. Whereas normally pride and self confidence would be an ally in the ring, this time, caution would be a shield and pragmatism the only brother in arms worth keeping. Over confidence would cause him to commit to mistakes, so like he was prone to in situations of stress during war, he purged himself mentally as he scanned over the Dragon. Tristan behind him had meanwhile gotten into a stance to deflect the first incoming attack, or try to wait for the opening move. Normally he would have acted first, struck first, or set the key-note for the battle to showcase his ferocity for that early intimidation. But Tristan knew that the Dragon was sizing up Henrik, and that Cedric was mocking him, so he let him do just that, as Henrik still stood there gawking at the Dragon.
He gawked at the feet, the claws of which were indeed the size of a crown person. He wagered they were capable of cutting someone in half like a hot knife on butter, the scale of a blue hue but predominantly gray with a light shimmer of the setting sun, and the vibrant purple and blue feathers in the crown, richer even than most of the noble dressage. Settling on those icy-blue eyes with the purple colorations, there was at first a sense of apprehension, it was after all, staring straight at him. But the longer he looked at those eyes, the more there was a sense of recognition. For those not familiar with the Dragon, they might frequently have a hard time connecting the Dragon with the Human person, but not Henrik in this situation. Whether it was the slight raising of the lower eyelids, or the expression of the brow on the eyes, or the emotion behind the movement of them, they were very familiar.
They had the same familiarity as Cedric's eyes whenever Henrik would show up to him, or when Cedric found him at the palace. The kind of beaming eyes that a child would have when it found a quarter Regal under a table, forgotten in the dust and dirt, or a hungry man about to consume a whole ribeye steak. Perhaps the latter thought was disconcerning given the size of the Dragon's jaw and razorteeth, but the sense of familiarity definitely came across to Henrik. This was a Dragon, but it was also unmistakably Cedric, and Cedric wouldn't eat him. After all, Henrik thought of himself as the life of the party. Without him, Cedric would be utterly bored out of his mind, and with that safety of familiarity, he allowed some sense of himself to return to him. The corners of his mouth pulled up as a wry grin almost formed, just barely suppressed, while he reached for his weapons and positioned himself in a stance that would befitting of the duel to come. There was immediate recognition of the fact that Henrik recognized him too in the Dragon. Nothing had been said or done, explicitly, but between them, the exchange could have been summarized as followed.
"Here I am, now you can see me."
"Yes you are, and yes I can. I know you are."
"I know you do."
The moment Henrik readied his weapons, the Dragon pushed off from the ground pouncing backwards, with its wings spread wide to cause momentary lift, adding to the distance of his leap. A flurry of grass blades flushed into the air washing over Tristan and Henrik, a loud set of thuds heard as the Dragons feet landed again, his tail smashing into the floor for added provocation to the two warriors. Tristan was being tested for the Imperial Guard, while Henrik was frankly just being entertained for the heck of it. His primary objective was obviously not getting crushed or cut in half, but his secondary objective, to try and impale the Kade with the weapons he had given Henrik himself. Black Steel was great and all, but Dragonsteel would be even better. Tristan charged first then, taking the lead as would be expected of the Imperial Guard who do not cower and hide behind others. He silently advanced, with a steady pace yet not a fully sprinting one, primarily aimed at closing the distance, which then also resulted in Norrvakt sprinting ahead. Not that Henrik was really planning to coordinate with Tristan, on the contrary, Tristan was doing something to prove himself, but in doing so disprove Henrik's courage, and he wasn't having any of it. Perhaps however, his earlier stance of flushing his mind of any ego and pride would have better suited him in this position. The Dragon reared its behind, just as quickly as Henrik had started a sprint, to whip its tail in his direction while he just passed by Tristan, who promptly dropped down to a slide which was too late for Henrik.
Henrik was hit in the chest by the short end of the tail, not only getting his face wacked with a large fluffy bundle of feathers and fur, but also getting smacked in the chest by something with the force equivalent of a wooden log. Henrik was propelled backwards a couple of feet, sliding and rolling on the floor as he went, losing his grip on at least one of his weapons and tasting a fair amount of grassy dirt in his mouth. Tristan meanwhile leapt out of his slide and started flinging his weapon at the Dragon, trying to break its defensive stance. Henrik tried to regain his sense as he watched Tristan just sort of awkwardly wave a sword around the size of a toothprick for the Dragon, it didn't particularly seem to affect his scales, the slashes. Henrik reasoned that Dragonscale could only really be pierced, not slashed through, unless it was the soft tissue on the stomach. Then again, this was just Henrik theorizing, he didn't know if Dragons actually had a soft belly, and he was well aware of just how wild this assumption could be.
Henrik got back to his feet, just as Tristan was being driven back by a leg swiping at him, Henrik grabbing his discarded sword and putting all of his clothing pieces back in place and tightly secured. With his weapons at the ready, he charged in again, intent on keeping his wits about him a bit more, and focus on his responses. Cedric was clearly playing, that tail did not swing at full speed otherwise it would have broken every bone in his ribcage, but the situation still demanded for caution. As anyone who owned a dog would know, even dogs who play can sometimes go too far and cause serious damage with tooth and nail. When he reached the Dragon, it was busy swiping at Tristan who was barely avoiding the hits, so he used the breathing space to grab the leather belt by his side, and leapt onto the Dragon's extended behind leg, using the heel joint as a jumping board to crawl onto the Dragon's back. Obviously, the Dragon didn't seem to like this one bit, or even expect it, as it even made a very audible surprised noise, one that caused both Henrik and Tristan to chuckle in amusement, despite the tenseness of the fight.
The Dragon immediately started galloping, trying to kick its behind up to push Henrik off, who tightly gripped onto the fur and feathers on its back that ran from the mane to the tail. There was scales all around him, he scanned them up and down, but all of them seemed a lot tougher than the ones on the side. The scales on the back in fact seemed thickest of all the scales on the Dragon's body for as far as he could see, so reaching the neck was a priority. Just how to get there however, was an interesting conundrum, since the Dragon was practically galloping through the arena, its weathers flipping erratically around while whipping up a dust storm to the annoyance of the small crowd that was watching. Henrik's grip was being pushed to the limits and beyond each time the Dragon kicked its behind legs up, his body being forced through intense pressure while his hands started slipping. On the final kick, Henrik's hands slipped, sending him flying into the air.
The ground moved further and further away from him as his legs and arms splashed around trying to reach for anything solid to hold onto, until the Dragon seemed to overcompensate, still upset over having been turned into a rodeo show, that it kicked its front legs up and started standing on its hind legs. Just as the Dragon did so, and Henrik was about to reach the height where the upwards momentum would turn into a downwards fall, some quick thinking caused him to reach for his loop belt, and hooking it around the Dragon's right horn, the really big one, essentially hooking him on. As the Dragon came down, Henrik was slid along the horn like a zipline to the side of the Dragon's head, resting his face awkwardly in front of the Dragon's right eye which dilated, and turned to look straight at him. Henrik did a mocking wave with his hand, his other arm attached to the leather belt now wrapped firmly in place between the Dragon's horns, while he could swear the Dragon's eye was practically screaming "Really dude?".
The Dragon immediately responded by again going rodeo, but this time with its head. Henrik quickly grabbed with both hands, trying to hold on for the dear life of him, as he had no feet to secure anywhere, and his body was being slapped about like a ragdoll. Numerous times on his way down, his body crashed into the side of the Dragon's head, scraping his arms past the jagged edges of his horns and scales, scratching and bashing as he went, with an audible "ouch" or "argh" each time he went down. A few dozen feet away, Tristan just stood silently and perturbed at the whole scene, how the duel that he had both been looking forwards to, and not wanting to do because it felt like a final judgement, had turned into some sort of joke. He tapped the tip of his sword on the ground a couple of times, contemplating what the best course of action was, or whether he should even give up on the fight altogether. Eventually, with a deep inhale and exhale, he steeled his resolve to be the only person who was serious in the ring, charging forward again, this time intent on ending whatever the Dragon and Henrik were doing with some skill to showcase to the Imperial assessors.
As he reached the rodeo, with all his might and brainpower that he could muster to anticipate the timing, he sent his sword flying with a great roar, it swinging through the air like a throwing axe, swinging just over Henrik and cutting his leather strap in half, the sword then clattering against the scales and falling down again. Tristan then, on account of his height and strenght, managed to catch Henrik on the way with with a single arm, while equally bending down to pick up the sword again, turning to Henrik again and yelling at him: "Take this fight seriously, there's more resting on you than just your entertainment!" Henrik looked at him with an offended and incredulous expression, not over the fact of what Tristan had just said, but rather over the fact that Tristan could have just as well sliced his head off with that move. He tried to respond as Tristan put him down, his posture leaning in to give some sort of snide commentary, cut short as Tristan wrapped his meaty hand around Henrik's neck, shook his whole body around a bit and then yelled in his face, practically with a spittle: "No, you be quiet, and you take this seriously. My job depends on this and you're taking a piss on me". He then let him go, Henrik offering no verbal response, but his shoulders dropping and his combative stance retreating. The Dragon was aware of this exchange, though had seemingly been too busy clawing at part of the leather strap still wrapped around its horn, before the proper fight started.
The proper fight being a lengthy back and forth between Henrik and Tristan on one side, and the Dragon on the other. Henrik had taken the fight considerably more seriously, and chased after his secondary objective of drawing blood on his sword. He had tried sliding under the Dragon only to find the bottom was not soft, he had tried to pierce the scaled, but each time found the Dragon moved too constantly for it to really stick. Tristan pushed the Dragon's claws back a number of times, even forcing it once to take to the skies and give both of the fighters a moment to recuperate while it did some showcase moves in the sky. The Dragon had seemingly gained a better control over its flight capacity, soaring through the skies and landing without collapsing on the floor, for once.
Eventually the battle was done with the Dragon shifting back to Cedric's humanoid form after a solid thirty minutes of dancing back and forth, his stance holding some sort of serious undertone and prideful glare, but his whole being looking more like a comical aftertone, as the cut off belt that had previously been lodged against his horns, was now simply dangling from his right ear. Henrik silently reached over to grab the cut off belt, his arm slowly raising, but Cedric quickly whipping out his own hand, grabbing the belt, slapping Henrik's hand with said belt, and then throwing it into his face with a chuckle. He finally then let out a "well done to both of you" and walked away, while the Imperial assessors seemed pleased with what Tristan had performed, approving his re-entry as an Imperial Guard recruit. With the battle over, everyone started leaving the spectacle behind, except for Norrvakt, who went looking through the grass to find the sword he had lost somewhere after the 15 minute mark of the fight, finding it some time later when he was the last one left in the arena, just as the sun was properly setting on the horizon.
