The first thing Dorian noticed was Xaih's movements. To the uninformed, it could have looked like a simple dance, reinforced by her gypsy-like appearance. But he knew that she was about to use her ability, whatever it was, and that it was something she could feel and channel through her body. And when he saw the water rise out from the ground behind her; he knew right then that she was a water Elementalist. Well, that made things a little more difficult. The entire battleground was drenched with water, and the smell of rain in the distance meant she would soon have even more water at her disposal. He supposed that was Xaih's advantage then, he would just have to capitalize on his own ones if he was going to win.

From the motions she was making, he could tell that she was going for an attack, leaving little time for him to interrupt her. And since he had no idea what exactly was coming his way, he wasn't sure he could try to dodge either. So instead, he decided to go on the offensive as well. Just as she went to whip him with the water, he threw his knife at her at the same time, the blade flying beneath the flow of water and aiming to pierce into her lower abdomen. Though this left him unable to dodge in any way, and he ended up taking the whipping straight to the side of his face with enough impact to knock him back, though this hopefully would make it hard for her to dodge his own attack as well. The lashing stung like hell, and he was sure to bruise quickly enough, but he took the hit in stride and rolled back onto his feet before then running for cover behind a nearby tree.

"Timber! Flanking maneuvers!" Dorian called out to the wolf, who had become furious the moment he'd been struck, but nonetheless began to move immediately and sprinted off into nearby foliage.

[i]"You know the drill, girl. Move fast and stay hidden for now."[/i]

It was a simple ploy. His vocal commands would make Xaih think he needed to talk aloud in order to give Timber commands, when in reality his mental connection with her would allow him to give the true commands. This would also make Xaih think that she really was about to get flanked, and would likely be paranoid of getting attacked from behind at any time. Instead, Timber was to stay out of sight and simply inform Dorian of Xaih's whereabouts at all times whenever he couldn't see her himself.