He had fled from Cirrus and her biting, stinging blows with panicked excuses and demons in his eyes. Cera was never the type to disregard societal conventions, preferred to linger and draw out the union of minds like molasses dripping off his lips. He couldn’t. He had stared into her old, nostalgically familiar eyes, and all he saw was a cracked and vacant smile staring back at him. Peering from the depths of his nightmares, a reminder of a blood bath that had stained his skin - out, out damned spot! - and he had never been able to wash it away. And so maybe he copes by refusing to grow up, by turning his face faithfully to the sun if only to keep from having to face the ever-growing length of his blackened shadow behind him.
 
Once upon a time he had vowed to Midas - Father, Father, why can’t I ever call you Father in my head anymore? - that he would be a fighter. That he would follow gilded footsteps to a mantle he’d been born to fill. No, not born, you were never his blood. You were never anything more than a project, an outsider gazing pitifully through the window. His breaths are going shallow and Ilaria is a dim, buzzing voice that he can’t quite discern, doesn’t care to. Cera hadn’t anticipated such a reaction from something so…friendly, so simplistic. An exchange of cheerful blows for the sake of growth. He hadn’t expected it, because it had taken him so long to admit to himself that he needed to be more than a forger. Now here he was, wings aching with how hard he beats them against the wind whistling in his ears to drown out the maniacal cackling of a dead foe. Dead, you’re dead, I killed you! And the darkness he wouldn’t accept in himself laughs, the twisted copycat that had never surfaced in Helovia and yet seemed to have been born when Cera had killed his father’s. Yes, you did Cera. You killed him.
 
There is a figure standing across the strip of water where the land bridge once stood.
 
It’s such a random notion that it breaks through Cera’s frantic thoughts, and the Prince folds his wings carelessly, letting his pathetically slim weight cast him from the sky like Icarus falling disgraced back down to earth. Ilaria is screaming in his head, clinging tightly to the knotted and braided base of his mane, but he can’t hear her past the voices in his head and the pounding of blood in his ears. He hits the shore hard, freezing water splashing against his heaving belly, and it shocks him momentarily from the storm of his thoughts. Wild green eyes center upon the stallion – friend, not foe, but he was looking for one, now wasn’t he? So Cera would give him one. The Golden Prince strides harshly across the sands, locking his jaw. Ilaria throws herself from his back to the sands, but Cera doesn’t register her departure, too focused on his opponent’s stance. There was no mistaking his desires, and even if he did…well, Cera would find an excuse for his infraction later if need be.
 
He needed this. He needed to drown the voices, he needed to know he could beat this. I’m not a colt. I can fight without losing myself. I can. Cera didn’t care that he’d just failed against Cirrus, it wouldn’t happen this time. It couldn’t.
 
Cera had lived too long as a boy, he couldn’t afford to any longer.
 
Fiercely Cera surveys his opponent, the odd colors striking beneath the moon, a technicolor target. His wings ache, a reminder of his advantage and dominance over this unknown herd-brother. Stalking pace never slows even as his delicate limbs sink into the sand, and he is thankful for Ilaria always braiding his hair, allowing a clear view of his target in this biting wind.
 
“I accept,” is all he says, voice like a whip cracking through the silence between them. He sprints forward, trying to force his mind blank as he approaches swiftly. Wide wings, glowing white beneath the moon, shake out and surge down to lift him higher as he kicks hard into the sky to try and make up the height difference. Cera aims his hooves towards the thick bulge of muscular right shoulder as he crests the leap, tucking his wings in tight as soon as he achieves liftoff, hoping to bring the entirety of his weight down to scrape his hooves along the length of the striped stallion’s right foreleg. Disable the limb, make him even slower. If he could just keep this technical, maybe his demons wouldn’t win. 

Words: {785/800}
Attack: {1/3}