EREBOS

She screamed, she shrieked, and the echoing triumph burned through his ears. His horn had met flesh, and that meant success, a sentiment he hadn’t discerned in ages. However slight, however miniscule, however minute, he’d been able to strike. He didn’t think of the consequences, of the merciless ambitions thrust upon his opponent, his herd mate, and only took the avaricious plunge for one distinct value: the opportunity for victory.
 
Perhaps that was enough to bolster him onward. While the lad still wheezed, while he still hacked, while he still felt the residual pain aching through his chest, he could forgo their bitter armaments for just a few moments to relish and savor the notion that he’d landed an attack.
 
His confidence heightened, his heart leapt, and his mind blew a steady bellow of conviction, a drumming, a cacophony, a trumpet of war and might. Maybe he wasn’t fragile, maybe he wasn’t pathetic, maybe he’d grown into something, or someone, since his nightmarish skirmish with the Haruspex. The boy could have faith in himself: could dream, aspire, could do something other than fumble or stumble. He wasn’t completely unskilled or incapable, and he wasn’t going to be tossed aside for a more Spartan son. He could do this. He could win.
 
Orsino rolled his eyes and shook his head amidst the brush, as if his bonded was the most foolish of all cretins, too vulnerable, too easily misled. Due to his own youth, the kitsune couldn’t provide any more of the fog, the mist, the labyrinthine design, and tucked the illusions away, watching the abyss roll away from the gardens, sucked back into the surrounding blossoms and trees as if nothing had happened at all.
 
The reveal of the scenery again had Erebos twisting his sights back upon the golden mare. Now neither could hide in the billowing smoke, and as she attempted to counter his measures, he noted her flailing hooves, her rising daggers, aiming directly for his chest.
 
Not again, he thought, because he had no yearning, no desire, to flail back onto the ground or the stone like a fish out of water, struggling and gasping for air. Erebos maneuvered to the left, grateful for strong, durable, and lanky limbs, and only felt the edge of her hoof catch on the fringe of his right shoulder, grazing a fine bit of hair from his pelt. It was not a great loss, unlike Ashamin’s powerful, agonizing, tormenting assailments; just a touch, a weakened bout of pain, and he could venture forwards without an overwhelming, numbing ache annihilating his senses.
 
He continued in his movements, attempting to draw closer to her left side, scrutinizing stare catching the nearby rise of stone and pillars, pondering if he’d be large enough to shove her into the hard, rigid columns. Did he have sufficient strength, puissant power? Do it! Orsino grunted through his mind, and as though the little demonic fox had possessed his body and soul, the boy dug hard into the fertile earth, and thrust the right side of his body towards hers, hoping his weight, his stature, could knock her into the Rotunda’s outer walls. 



[2/3. 526 words.
First of all I have to apologize for being a moron, because in my prior post I had said Erebos was aiming for her left hind, but in my summary I said right, and that’s just stupid. :D
 
For this post:
- Due to Orsino’s youth and inability to completely control his magic for a long length of time, the fog dissipates and the Ancient Rotunda is cleared of mist all over again.
- As Rexanna’s buck comes closer to him, Erebos pushes towards the left, and her hooves only graze the edge of his right shoulder, taking some pieces of hair with it.
- He attempts to move forward and draw alongside Rexanna’s left side. I presumed they were still somewhere in the midst of the stone walls of the Rotunda, so he tries to shove his larger frame into hers, hopefully knocking her towards the wall.]