Maybe their differences could be traced to their foundation. Where Gaucho saw it unforgivable to ever leave a herd, Ampere found it bizarre to even be part of one, much less one as fortified and unforgiving as the one he dictated. Had she any notion of just how strong a grip he held on the herd, she might even have considered walking away from it all in this moment. There'd be no denying the awkwardness of their continued life forced together, expected not only to routinely look and speak to one another in civil, detached manner, but to frequently work alongside one another. Luckily Gaucho was not the only string tying Ampere to the Throat, else she would have.

Instead she stood strong and rigid beneath the blows of his words, unafraid to face the challenges he provided - his were not her first. Yet, it was not easy. Never had an opponent in this been him, and with each word she felt a part of her inwardly crumple, wounded by the ease with which he tossed it all around, like it was so inconsequential and she was crazy. "You think it was easy?!" she demanded of him, incredulous. Her wings flared with visible outrage, the thorn of his tongue sharpened by the dry delivery as he listed off only a fraction of the bonds she had to suffer through daily. "Why do you think I broke apart in those damn caves? It was the first time I saw your bond." She grit her teeth at the memory, tearing her gaze away from him in an effort to make the survival of reliving it easier.

"There are so many bonded in this, place, that I had to learn to accept it. Otherwise I couldn't survive, couldn't help." She shook, her anger rising as he dug from her all the suppressed (even if poorly) feelings she'd been holding onto for a year or more. It was like living in a den of wolves, trying to pretend it was fine as they tore into horseflesh while she watched with a mouthful of grass. "I even left because of it (among other things), but I couldn't just pretend it wasn't here just because I wasn't." She talked about it like a disease; for her that's precisely what it was. It rotted the soul and infected the heart, and everyone was of the mindset that it was okay.

She turned back to him, her eyes almost glowing they were such a vibrant blue, the intensity of it all pouring out of her features which gradually wrinkled with fury. "Yet now you, you have TWO! For fuck's sake Gaucho what do you need with TWO lives?!" For her, it was unforgivable.

Unable to contain herself any longer she burst, much in the way he felt he would. She lunged towards him, the gap short, though it had grown the more they bantered. Needing to take hold of something realm something she could feel and crush beneath her rather than this ambiguous idea of wrong she aimed a bold bite towards his nose, careless of his antlers, unyielding to his height as she reached up with the strength of her haunches. Her forelimbs were lifted in the act, sand flung by her sudden movement, and she beat them out towards his chest, even if her strength paled compared to his, the speed of it all might be enough to surprise him and send him away. It would be a small, brief victory, but one she was eager to claim in a long list of defeats.

She screamed as she moved, the violent keening of a warrior's sorrow. Ampere wept for what they had become in the only way she knew how, blood. She loved this man, dearly, deeply, singularly. For that reasons he wondered when she would start to love herself. That she could still feel for him after everything he had done, everything that had been said, everything that was, she simply couldn't understand why she couldn't just hate him.

"I will do more than watch," she promised with a low growl as her hooves descended to the sand, dark wings flaring at her sides to hold her balance. She had reacted so forcefully she was barely able to keep up with herself, but she waded into that storm willingly, happy to lose herself in its throes. Around her the sand she kicked up sparked into the light of her righteousness, while a darkness was sent towards him and the bonds he kept. Something had happened before, could she do it again? Could she silence him, them?

@[Gaucho]

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A: 1/3
D: 0/1
W: 799

Regular timeline. End of birdsong, midday at the Dragon's Throat. Magic and companions permitted. 3 attack posts each.

Continuation of this thread.