She kept her composure even on her back. He had to admire that. Her maneuver to keep herself from the icicles was apt, and he was grateful not to be the subject of frozen shrapnel. There was anger for him, but he could not have expected anything else. He smiled to the side, dryly, looking down at his enemy. "Nobody knows them anymore, winter girl." he pointed out. "They are both dead, without a full day of adulthood to their name." He was bloated with pride over that comment, and didn't think about her leg.<br/><br/>He grunted when her boot darted to put the print of her sole on his jacket. It forced him back, which freed both her blade and her body. The scissors, as they left her windpipe, snapped shut, hopeful to leave a thread of a wound there, on the otherwise untouched skin. He stood straight and held out his hand with fingers flared, like he wanted her to see his palm, the sheers open and ready. It was quite something that he'd manage so well with only garden trimming utensils.<br/><br/>The scene would quiet a bit, as much a a place can when two people let their slaying plans out in the air between them. He was a tower compared to her, but she'd managed to turn her certain death into a new set of opportunities. The branches were visited by a lonely gust, and it made the flowers and the vines say a prayer for them both. The myriad colors seemed to enjoy the skirmish, but the flowerheads were also expectant in their splendor, like their garden wasn't meant for any battles that played as anything less than a grand spectacle.<br/><br/>She had access to the fountain now, and he could see that was regrettable. His deep eyes narrowed and searched her for weaknesses. He moved his right foot back and cocked his cutting hand in her opposite direction, leading with the blade of his other set of fingers. It was a challenge for her initiative. While she waited the Veil spread on her face and down her neck. After her first attack, with the rapier or the fountain water, he would activate the nerves he'd infected, and draw her strength out.<br/><br/>She was already dead. And she would know it with the fever pangs.<br/><br/>"Would you like to know how they felt, Lyra?" he asked as his free fist closed and sent the command to the spell to draw tighter around her throat with its burning net, radiating weakness and agony out into her chest and stomach. He wanted to see the blood cough on her. "Maybe it'll be a family tradition? What do you say?"