The rose's petals were ripped and stained, but the thorns still glinted with vicious points as they swelled with the blood of a King.

Her breathing was laborious and pain blurred the edges of her vision as she weaved slowly between tree trunks. The world was melding and separating before her as the agony of her mangled wing toyed with conscious thought. As her wing dragged uselessly over the uneven earth, it played the part of macabre paint brush, leaving wide swaths of blood in its wake. Orithia was sure that wandering about in the wilderness in such a state would only attract predators, but she wasn't quite sure that she cared.

She was too busy floating upon a tide of pain-laced adrenaline that bordered on ecstasy even as the blood from her battle dried and matted her fur. Throughout the skirmish, the pastel rose had quickly turned to a woman draped in a ruby gown; scarlet and rust soaked the ivory coat of her left side, chest, neck, face, and drenched the entirety of her now-useless left wing. Casting her gaze down, Orithia noted how the fragile bones of her wing were poking through her flesh at odd angles. The World's Edge monarch had sentenced her to the earth for the time being.

But the painful reality did nothing to deter the grin that was spread over her bloodied lips.

It was not pride that swelled her chest; it was joy. The desert rose could not remember the last time a spar had been so satisfying, could not recall a time when she had felt anything but rage and desperation as her body collided with another. Pastel eyes glinting with something foreign, something not unlike happiness, Orithia felt her heart flutter; she had battled her King, a single dove in the face of an elephant, and she had come out of the bout more alive than she had ever felt in her few years.

Another bout of dizziness hit her and the blushed mare stumbled, slamming her scraped right shoulder into the rough bark of a tree and reopening the shallow wound. It was all she could do not to laugh manically at the fresh ooze of blood that sprung forth; she would be a dry husk before she would make it back to the Edge's healers. Taking a moment to right herself, Orithia realized that her battle-drunk stroll had lead her into a meeting between a pair of strangers.

Gore-limned grin still gracing her features, the injured dove swayed as she inhaled, the soot spotted mare's scent identifying her as a fellow member of the Edge. Eyes sliding over to the newcomer, Orithia allowed herself a moment for her vision to clear before her word broke the thin silence, "Welcome to a heavenly Hell, boy." Her words were slurred as the blood loss took it's toll. Pinning the Edge-scented mare beneath her puppilless gaze, Orithia resisted the quaking in her legs and barked a laugh; she was bordering on delirious as she leaned her weight against a tree.

"Hello, herdmate. It seems I haven't met you as of yet, I'm Orithia and it seems that I am injured." She blinked her coral eyes hard, willing away the bleariness that was attempting to infest her mind before meeting the gaze of the stallion once more,

"Any advice?"