ashamin

Alone

The collision was silent but there was an air of mortality to it. Ashamin did'nt know how devastating an attack to the wing could be, but he did know he felt anger and took offense to the warden's former words--the ones uttered in the midst of chaos. But now that they were alone together the whole world seemed to go silent. They exchanged no words because there was nothing to be said.

Ashamin had noted their differences upon approach, and now that they clashed they came to clear and harsh light. Ashamin's weaker body slammed against Einarr's tough, dark hide. The pain recoiled instantly, sending sharp aches into the young buck's shoulder that slowed him. What was the winged badger's body filled with, stones? Were those muscles or metal bones expanding outward, threatening to burst?

The quad-colored paint understood that Einarr's strength and training was vastly superior,  but had not thought of the consequences of crashing headlong into such perfectly toned bulk. Perhaps Einarr wasn't that much stronger than Ashamin, but he was certainly larger and the firm anatomy of his wing--so well joined with his body--had been unexpected. Ashamin's bite only made brief purchase, slipping from Einarr's stiff cannon when he reared away from the weaker haruspex's grip. Ashamin gritted his now freed teeth beneath the safety of his mask, just barely managing to duck and avoid Einarr's kicks to his face. Perhaps the mask would have saved him, but he was not going to take the risk when he still had the energy left to avoid the warden's strike.

Something about those wild, flinging hooves so close to Ashamin's vital jaw felt like an insult. They only fueled the fire, only sparked further disappointment. Ashamin had attacked the wings with lack of understanding, but Einarr surely knew that a hit to the face could mean starvation. All the creatures in this land, regardless of species, were born or raised with that knowledge; it was instinct. There were certain parts of the body that had to be protected, and not simply for vanity's sake.

Ashamin could have cared less about how he looked. He'd been born ugly, he'd learned to live with deformity persistently cloaking his brow. He'd worked around an awkward tail and poorly formed frame. He lived now with scars that painted him in awkward bright hues, unnatural disturbances not meant to mar the figure. He had made it in spite of all that, and now he was fighting with a creature built beautifully for war. All that mattered was fighting back, preserving one's own strength and form. So no, Ashamin couldn't care less how he looked. He hid from those kicks for survival alone.

The same beating of Einarr's wings that would have been a distraction on its own sent a rush of air down, whipping the haruspex's sarong from its tenuous place wrapped beneath his mask and wrapping it clumsily about his forelegs. He tripped, cursing, and found all speed and grace leaving him as the dark pegasus began to rise up and away from Ashamin's grounded form. So this was what it was, then, to be left behind, abandoned again, not even given the respect to complete a sp--

fuck.

Ashamin would have cursed at the inconvenience of finding cloth hindering his motion, but he had more composure than that. What he didn't have enough composure to handle with utter calm was the pain that tumbled along his neck--the carefully aimed attack and the impact of Einarr's hooves upon his crest. The curse came louder in his thoughts than in his voice; in the air, the expletive sounded only like an unintelligible and pained hiss.

So this was how Einarr wanted to fight, was it?

Ashamin kicked haphazardly and let the sarong flutter away in the breeze; he would find it later. He noted the pain in his left shoulder from striking Einarr's side earlier and how it seemed to grow as the heavy bruise now undoubtedly forming on his crest seemed to join with it, creating a bold hurt that seemed to weaken his entire front left.

There was no way he could move quickly enough to catch up completely with the warden now, not with such an aching side, but Ashamin knew he had to try. He squinted to see through the holes in his mask and make sense of the scene through the blistering wind. He had to try.

Pushing as best as he could through his pain, Ashamin pressed forward and reared, desperately biting at what he hoped was Einarr's right flank. Though every turn of his neck brought him new pain he persevered, hoping to angle his features so he could also maybe scrape the crystalline teeth of the skull across flesh. He had to try.
""