Falling backwards off a cliff is actually kind of fun. Your heart jumps into your chest, adrenaline drowns out any thoughts in your head, and for a moment, you feel like you’re moving in slow motion. Your legs, freed from the limitations of steady ground, can spin like pinwheels, while your arms do a backstroke, forwards, through the air. It’s like a roller-coaster without the coaster, or the roller. It’s like a bungee jump, without a bungee cord, and you never jumped. You don’t even have to worry about vertigo because you can’t see how far up you are! A truly, exhilarating experience. I never want to experience it again.

I leaned back and parabola-ed back into the cliff wall at near terminal velocity. I somehow timed my balance magic to push back down at a controlled angle. I ended up leaping back several dozens of feet, slowing down after each kick. Eventually, I was slow enough to use balance magic to stand on top of some sturdy footholds, to catch my breath.

I leapt back up from foothold to foothold, practically flying up the mountainside. I came up at an angle from my previous ascent, and appeared over the edge several feet away from where I’d gone down. As I came back up, I used a magic hand to grab a large rock from the still crumbling edge where I’d fallen, and slung it back towards where I thought Noel would be.

She wasn’t there. The rock went flying into the distance. A ball of fire rushed towards me, and I rolled away as soon as I hit the soft grass. I steadied myself and surveyed my surroundings. These meadows were way too pretty to be the site of our battle, but I didn’t have the time to lament the endangered natural landscape, because a volley of rocks were rushing towards me.

I immediately dropped to the floor with balance magic, and let the dangerous projectiles fly overhead. From my position on the floor, I saw Noel dashing out from behind a large rock. Before she could fire more magic at me, I lit the grass in front of me on fire. A line of fire arced towards Noel, shooting up from the ground. She stopped approaching me, and I used the time I’d gained to stand up and fix my stance.

I was expecting Noel to run around the line of fire, but she stood in front of it instead. She stood still, inhaled, and then held her breath. She exhaled while stretching out her hands, and a burst of wind flew over the line of fire, sending embers and smoke in my direction. I used my own wind magic to blow the smoke out of my face, but also ran to the side at the same time.

The smoke was parted by a large rock. I sent my own volley of rocks, all gathered through elemental earth magic. I ran up to a large boulder, and used balance magic to jump on its surface. I pushed off the face of the boulder and cast a volley of small fireballs in Noel’s general direction. None of them hit, and I wasn’t expecting them to do so, but now Noel was the one with her back to the edge of the mountain.

The sun was shining brightly by now, and Noel was hidden behind a wall of smoke. I sensed an opportunity and used light magic to refract the light in clever ways, and turn myself effectively invisible. I prayed the day wouldn’t suddenly become overcast, and began silently flanking towards Noel’s position. A bunch of fire and rocks pelted the place where Noel had last seen me, and a burst of wind cleared out the smoke once again. She even used some water to put out some of the fires closest to her.

I crouched and approached silently. Since I’d been standing near the boulder, I was hoping she’d think I was hiding behind it. Noel frowned and approached cautiously. She had a couple of spells on the tips of her hands, and was walking very slowly, keeping any eye on the rest of her surroundings as well. I had to be careful to stay away from the smoke, since it might block my light and ruin my magic.

As she neared the boulder, I was within striking distance. I decided to wait a little longer, since I was sure she’d throw some preemptive magic behind the boulder or near the edges of the boulder, and that would be the perfect opportunity to strike her in the back. Hitting people in the back was the best way to win a fight!

Noel grabbed a tuft of grass and lit it on fire. She approached the edge of the boulder, steadied herself against the hard surface, and turned on her heels to launch the burning pile of fire straight towards me! I cursed, but used some quick water and air magic to dampen the flaming grass, although it still fell on top of me in an ashy, hot, smoldering mess.

“But I didn’t even make a sound!” I complained as I used my magic hands to prepare a rock slingshot.

“I have a hunter’s nose,” said Noel as she tapped her nose and took cover behind the boulder.

“There’s smoke everywhere, how could you have smelled me through all that?” I said, letting my rock fire futilely on the boulder.

“I don’t know, maybe you should wash up better,” said Noel as she sent out a fireball from behind the boulder.

Great. I’d let her take cover, and I was closer to the edge again. Still, our fight had traveled progressively closer and closer to the imposing walls of rock that surrounded the idyllic meadows. As I dodged Noel’s spells, I wondered if this place would have made for a nice camping spot on our way back from the roof of the world. In a different world, I could have been resting on the soft grass, staring up at a star studded night sky.

Things weren’t going great for me right now. Noel had tired me out immensely my somehow destroying the ground underneath my feet and forcing me to use a ton of energy on balance magic to soften my fall and climb back up. I was more tired and had the worse position. I was not going to win a battle of attrition, even though I suspected I had the larger magic energy pool. I had to come up with a plan, and it needed to be a good one.

‘Still life’ magic was out of the question. It would tire me out, while only keeping Noel in place for a few moments. The entire point of the spell was to let my allies take down my enemies while I held them in place, but I was alone up here, with my usual ally trying to fry my hair off with burning tufts of grass. Using light magic for disguises or invisibility was apparently useless. If I stuck to elemental magic or my chemical fire magic, I’d tire out before Noel did, and calling up a rainstorm would take time, energy, and not be very useful either.

That meant there I had only one choice. I cast a fireball in front of my body and raced right behind it. Noel saw the fireball and took cover behind her boulder. I wasn’t sure if she’d noticed that I was following the fireball, but it wasn’t like I could run that fast anyway. She’d look over the boulder in a moment, see me running towards her defenseless, and send something towards me.

I threw a rock on the ground on the other side of the boulder. With some luck, it would catch Noel’s attention for a second. I also cast invisibility on myself using the bright sunlight, hoping the fire would mask my scent. I was also downwind, so maybe that would help.

The fireball hit the boulder and dissipated. My rock hit the ground. Noel didn’t peek. I kept running. By the time her silver hair appeared from behind the boulder, I was right up next to her. Her eyes widened as I brought a cold, hard knuckle sandwich towards her face.