She turns the corner and you watch her cautiously, but not afraid, your brown eyes wandering over her body with the instinct of a warrior. Even in your somewhat altered state, you are still a fighter at heart. So your eyes take her in, noting the large height advantage you have over her, the jewelry that she wears in her left ear, her build, the glass horn that spirals out of her forehead. Automatically, you widen your stance as she heads toward you, the motion now almost ingrained within you, occurring without thought.

Her approach causes your ears flick in time with her hoof steps. The dampness around their base makes them itch, but it’s something you must ignore. What you don’t ignore is how close the woman tries to get to you. It’s far too close for your liking and you can’t help but take two steps back. She may be family, but you’ve already decided you don’t like her that much. Perhaps only the Phantom Seeker could get so close… if she wanted to.

Dear sir. A grumbling sound of disdain fills your throat and vibrates your chest as she carries on about not fighting, and intruding, and options. But your mind is wandering- seeing and hearing, but not understanding. Understanding takes consciousness that you’re having a terrible time hanging on to right now. You lower your ears to your head, tail flicking around your hocks in annoyance and teeth grinding together for good measure. In fact, you’re about to tell her to fuck off when she seems to have a sudden change of heart- she’s rearing.

The way her scream echoes through the cavern leaves you disoriented for a moment. Though you can see her in front of you, it seems like she’s all around you. The echoing is wild and hollow sounding, causing your eyes to roll from the chaos that suddenly seems to be everywhere. Of course, you should have expected the attack. A trick- the oldest trick in the book- and you hate that you missed it. At least you had the wherewithal to back up first, or you’d be in a lot more trouble right now. But then, maybe this isn’t so bad. You’ve always thought that rearing up right in front of somebody was a stupid decision. You lunge forward, holding your head out to the right so as to avoid her horn. Her hooves batter into your chest in response, leaving your muscles bruised in addition to their trembling, but you don’t stop.

You thrust your left shoulder forward, trying to press back against the mare to cause her to lose her balance. Never mind that she’s a herd mate, never mind that there’s a stone floor beneath the two of you, never mind that there’s a more important war being waged outside of this cavern. In this moment, you don’t care about any of it. Because your body needs reprieve from this shaking, your mind needs a rest from knowing how close you are to having no vines left. And even if this is only a temporary distraction, it’s still a distraction. One that Cashmere is going to be sorry to have wandered in to, you’re sure.

For good measure, while you’re shoving forward, you reach your head around her shoulder to try and bite at her withers, teeth clamping down soundly, though on what you’re not sure. Flesh, hair, the stagnant air? You’re distracted from knowing your answer. Those bruises on your chest have finally caught up with you and they strongly protest all the sudden motion, tightening down and restricting motion. It doesn’t help that you don’t like the way your horseshoes slip on the stone.

In your head, your boggart suddenly flashes you images of Gaucho and Archibald, of the sweeping blackness that has thrust you from your home, reminding you with these images that you should be above ground fighting monsters instead of below, fighting your family. But you don’t care. You’re being selfish, because you can’t stand this shaking and this sweating. You need this reprieve, you need this break. And something else in the back of your mind whispers as well. It’s not only you that needs this. Your warriors are woefully inadequate. If you’re supposed to be absconding with the general position it won’t look good if you just let them run around doing idiotic things like rearing the face of an opponent who doesn’t give one flying fuck about their safety. After all, you just tried to ram into the gray girl in front of you. Does she really think that the monsters above won’t take that chance to rip out her very intestines? No, you decide through your foggy mind, this is for her good as well as your own.

Post: 1/3
WC: 799