Clouds and Currents - VoK & HW 2021 Event Prompts

   Tamaya breathed deeply as another stone creature fell. "What's- What's that make?" she asked between uncaught breaths. "Eighteen or so?"
   "Nineteen," Nahia corrected, grinning. "You're better at this than I thought you would be, the way you were acting at first. You oughta give yourself more credit, you're not a half-bad fighter!"
   The solid blue lion smiled awkwardly. The compliments were a little weird, if she was being honest. Even being able to do this didn't mean much - These were just small fry, as Nahia had expressed earlier. She still wasn't exactly hero material. But... it was sort of nice, in its own weird way. "Thanks," she said.
   She had to admit, this whole affair of hunting down the enemies they knew they were strong enough to handle had its benefits. She still wasn't feeling confident in her abilities as a whole, but... well, she had proven herself capable of this much, if nothing else. And not just in theory, but in practice, even! And she was starting to genuinely feel more steady on her feet, despite the solidity of the land. It wasn't her preference, of course, and she doubted it ever would be, but she was adjusting quickly like this. Granted, she didn't have much choice in the matter - Small or not, these rock beings still packed a solid punch if they managed to land a hit on you, and not being able to keep your balance and stay upright was a surefire way to get hit, and even beyond that, their enemies weren't quite numerous enough yet for them to just wait for all of the ones nearby to come to them - but it was still helpful in its own right.
   That all didn't mitigate the fact that she wasn't a hero, mind you. But it was progress, at least! And even if she wasn't a hero, not really... she was able to do something now.
   It helped, of course, that she wasn't going it alone. Even without any powers, Nahia was a strong fighter, especially with these new weapons. But more than that, having her around was something of a morale boost, with her banter about their enemies or how cool they were fighting like this or what have you. It wasn't exactly the best for focusing... but for the moment, it didn't seem like that was the biggest issue. It would come up in the future, surely, but for right now, as long as they paid enough attention to not get hit, it worked.
   And for what it's worth, her brain hadn't completely turned off during all of this - Why, she'd even figured out some sort of strategy for fighting these guys. It wasn't as if scratching at them was going to do much, even with their steel weapons enhancing their claws, after all. No, instead, the trick was to use the weapons to stagger them, knock them over, and apply pressure... not in the mental department, but physically. If you managed to do that in a point, or in a line, even lightweight weapons like these could do some serious damage, cracking the rocks apart. Like pressure points when fighting another animal, almost.
   Actually, the more she thought about it, the more she felt like maybe, she could do this. Not as a hero, still, but if she had to fight, she might just manage it.