Were those tears? Mesec would have readily cast aside their agreement to spar so that he could move toward her instead of away, so that he could hold the mare that had been a second mother to him. The memories of their time together were not tarnished by her disappearance. He had told Roskuld recently that he wouldn’t trade the memories of their childhood for anything and he believed that with all of his heart. When he looked at Ophelia he didn’t feel the pang of abandonment poisoning his fondness for her. She had left, yes, but he had been more sad and worried than he had felt betrayed. Far easier to focus on the fact that he had been happy for a time rather than think about his terrible record at parental figures, his inability to hold onto a family. It was too easy of a slope from there to questions about what it was about him that seemed to make everyone feel the urge to leave.

He caught her murmur as he retreated, causing a smile once again. What did could he possibly have to teach Ophelia? In her company, it was easy to forget that he was fully grown. Easy to forget that he wasn’t a scrawny yearling, getting chased by his little sister. She made him feel like a child again, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was good or bad. Probably the latter, given their situation. She looked impossibly both incredibly delicate and incredibly fierce in her ornate armour as she readied herself for the first attack - closing the gap that had existed between them. But it was not for an embrace this time and he watched with awe as she changed from a smiling, tearful adoptive mother to a teacher, to an attacker.

Mesec flinched away from her hind-hoof, readying for an attack from there but finding that she was feigning so instead he felt the sting as her teeth pinched the skin in his shoulder, scraping off the surface of his skin. A sharp gasp escaped him at the pain and his wings flew out in reflex rather than with any intent behind the jerking motion, he had no conscious intentions of buffeting her with them. The gasp was followed by a dark chuckle, though: now both of his mothers had left scars on him. At least this one was only physical.

The chuckle eased some of the tension in him, wary and hesitant as he was about this next part, and allowed him to focus as best as he could on the task at hand. Mesec called on his magic, drawing the shadows around him from the night until not even the light of the full moon could penetrate the darkness around him. As the shadows came, he began to balance on his front legs - knowing he would have little time once he was in position - and he is gone from his spot beside her. How much time passed between when he disappeared and reappeared? A second? Shorter, the time it took to blink. It took so little time for him to move between the shadows, especially at night and over this short of a distance. For when Mesec reappeared, he was in front of Ophelia - just off her left shoulder, facing away from her. He completed the transfer of his weight onto his forelegs and kicked out with his rear - aiming for a strike to her shoulder.