Flapping wings force the scent of your own miserable failures, burnt flesh and missing hairs, to your nostrils. How did this fire explosion not set the ground on fire, the dry nettles, the bark of the trees? Magic. You don’t understand it- you doubt you ever will. Yours works well enough, but it’s subtle. You briefly try to imagine the calamities you’d be the cause of if your magic radiated from you in balls of fire and heat, tendrils of flame whose only desire is to consume and destroy, to annihilate anything that crosses its path. Mindless, but terrible- a metaphor for your friend, perhaps? Nah. Your friend might sound simple, but you’re pretty sure there’s a genius brain in there somewhere, just waiting to reveal itself. Or maybe you made that part up.

As your flailing hooves meet the Wildfire, who has rather inconveniently turned to face you instead of staying where he was, you can do little to avoid his hooves headed back your way except hope that the warrior’s thrown back head prevents him from being accurate. You suppose it’s not so bad, though. After all, this is training, isn’t it? And the Golden Pegasus and the Glass Horn aren’t going to just stand there while you maul them, right? Although, that would be preferable. At any rate, at least you know Gaucho will be a worthy ally in this game of war you’re proposing. Maybe you should give him Midas to take on- takeover. This was your idea, right? So why should you have to do all the hard work? Yeah, you’ll definitely give him Midas. Seele will be a cake walk compared to the wing-laden Czar.

Somehow, the warrior beast’s hooves avoid your chest. Maybe it’s because you’re too skinny from all the drugs? Whatever the cause, your chest is saved any new bruises and only once or twice do your legs knock against Gaucho’s during the childish slap battle. At least you seem to have hit something of his. But you still need to work on a new strategy and you’ve unfortunately got no ideas. To date, your boggart never has said a word but an emotion akin to ’kind of late in the game to figure out a new strategy, isn’t it?’ floats through your bond. Stupid boggart. As if even your body is betraying you, the damp and oozing burn on your ass begins to throb more violently thanks to all the motion. Of course.

Luckily, part of the new strategy you’ve slowly been working on involves not getting bitten by snakes. So while you’re pleased with your own bite to Gaucho’s withers, you don’t plan on letting the Mamba return the favor. You can almost feel her fangs brush against your fur as you pull your head back so hard you actually stumble backwards again. At least your companion seems to be here for you, when you need her. Using the magic she has rather come to enjoy as of late, she lifts several rocks from the ground and begins flinging them in the general direction of Gaucho’s antlers, or at least trying to. He keeps moving, which she finds just as frustrating as you do.

But she can’t save you from everything- especially not magic fire bears. Again, with the fire? Squealing is about all you have time to do as the two bears descend upon you. Pushing off of your right limbs, to ease some of the pressure on your two injured lefts, you throw your body to the left. Too slow, too slow- you avoid one bear, but the one that Gaucho has directed to give you a mohawk does his job well enough. A flame-formed claw swipes at you, passing over your right eye and trailing down the right side of your neck as you dive out of the way. The burns that swiftly follow are not necessarily deep, but they are extensive enough to cause consistent pain and another significant round of burnt hair smell.

“Curse the fire god,” you spit out, thoroughly annoyed with all of the flames. Diving around the tree that you crashed into earlier, you try to give your companion enough time to create a distraction. She attempts to flit around to the front of Gaucho, quickly morphing into her interpretation of a very mauled and damaged, though still recognizable, Mara. The image lingers just a moment before she disappears and strains to flit off again, as concerned about the return of the fire bears as you are. Hoping that the distraction will be enough, you barrel out from behind the tree and attempt to ram your chest, head held high, into Gaucho’s right side. You’re already burned, how much worse could the fire on his wing make things?


WC| 798
Post| 3/4
@[Gaucho]