Darkness hid fear.

When at last Ashamin was found by another, it was not any sort of company he could have expected. Before him was an obscene and grotesque figure, a monster by all definitions. It didn't occur to the haruspex that he looked like a demon himself, with his skull-masked face and his hollow, endless gaze.

Were it not for the lightning still flashing its memory in his vision and making it difficult to make out the perfect detail of the dark magic, he would have feared the other more concretely. But as it were he considered the other to be only an illusion. He feared wolves but he had been scolded for fighting ghosts before, back when he had tried to defend Lochan's egg from a snake that was nothing but air. What good would it be to fight back or run in fear when he could simply move past? He had fought the Wolf God and overcome his terror then because it was worth it--because he was protecting someone, fighting for his herd and his home. This wasn't a fight to bother with, though. This was just a ghost in a storm.

It was a test of his own courage and confidence, but one that he could not afford to fail. He turned his body away from the spectre, telling himself all the while it wasn't real--couldn't be real. Not in this darkness and terrible storm, not when his mind was susceptible. He started slow at first, trotting to his left cautiously while the fangs glinted and the fur matted down with the torrent from above. He would not be frozen in fear, he would be careful. No sudden movements, no sudden...

Wait.

The haruspex's black eyes widened as whatever magic had made the vision faded slowly and the true stranger--along with a dark and nearly invisible fox--were revealed. Ashamin could barely make them out, not with raindrops dripping from the edges of the bear skull and into his eyes, not with the wind whipping branches in between them. But the stallion wasn't just a ghost, and he couldn't ignore them or their companion. These two were fools fighting in shadows, and Ashamin would catch them.

The painted buck sped up, his trot turning into a canter and his leftward trajectory turning back to the right once he had cleared the other stallion's now, from Ashamin's perspective, right-swinging front. Slowly the haruspex turned and slowed, approaching the other figure's right side in the dark. He feared for Lochan's safety, especially now, but this was a threat that had to be neutralized first. Whomever this dark warlock was, he had to be subdued.

With certainty he moved faster, body tilting forward and head angled to try and avoid the rain's bitter sting in his eyes. Thunder from old flashes rumbled belatedly, deafening the seer. Cold overtook him as water splashed from the labyrinth's pools and up his legs, but he would not be numbed into weakness. All he had in him was strength.

When Ashamin estimated that the distance between them might be smaller, when he had aimed to try and face the stranger's right side at a 60 degree angle from behind, he reared and rose above whatever fool had sought to light his fire tonight. The assault was wordless, tireless, and merciless. You could try and scare him all you want, but you couldn't take the haruspex down so easily.

His forehooves, sharp and cleft, aimed for the spine of the shade with persistence. First he lowered his head just to avoid the first spidery limbs that heralded another flash of lightning, but the moment that it flashed and he could see his enemy more clearly he let his lips part and clamp down, hopefully on a tender part of the neck on the taller stallion's left. If all went as planned Ashamin would strike down with fury in his dagger-like hooves and use the bite to not only steady himself so he could land (hopefully pulling the attacker down with his body-weight as he did so) and do some extra damage, as well.

Maybe Ashamin was shooting before asking questions, but he hadn't been able to filter out the fear of the wolf that had first affected him, or the emptiness that Lochan's absence had impressed upon his being. Darkness hid fear, perhaps, but the dim persistence of the moon and the sharp pangs of the storm's strikes would always reveal it. Nothing could be hidden forever.