The colt gently whickers back to his antlered half-sister, flickering his ears in greeting. It's good to be acknowledged by one of his other siblings, as he'd found the majority of them wanted nothing to do with him or Esinakh, perhaps out of jealousy that their father had bedded others rather than their mothers. Arakh holds no such spite; he's keen to get to know his family, which is a large part of the reason why he is contemplating moving to the Throat to be with them.

Nothing much seems to be happening, and the calf bleats over to Esinakh as though asking whether she's as bored as he is. Their boredom does not last long, however, because suddenly there's creatures bursting through the skies, winged and clawed and vicious. They bombard the foals like avenging angels, and there's nothing Arakh can do as the large female swoops down and rips at his neck with her beak. The force of the blow sends him sprawling to his knees, skinning those too; the agony is unbearable, a swathe of red marking the strip of flesh that has been torn from his neck, exposing pulsing muscle beneath, he's collapsing with the force of it, unable to breathe, unable to move....

Until, through his pain-blurred eyes, he sees the father griffin descending towards Esinakh. He sees those savage lion claws aiming to strike the filly, to harm the other part of Arakh's soul, and the despairing bleat that rises from his lips belies the sudden explosion of emotion inside him.

Because as quickly as it came, the pain in his neck is gone as papable, unshakeable rage fills him like a wildfire.

Up he staggers, rising from bruised knees with a banner of crimson dripping down his neck from the gaping smile engraved into it by the creature's claws. He feels nothing. There is no pain, there is only white-hot fury, ringing like a drumbeat in his ears as he stampedes towards the father griffin with his bull horns lowered. "NOT TOUCH ESI!" he roars, his voice a thunderous boom that quite belies his tender age, the whites of his eyes clearly visible as the blue orbs roll back into his head with the force of his anger. The father griffin has already moved on, to swoop up Oizys (Arakh feels no such attachment to his maternal half-sister - the griffin can peck the flesh from her bones all he likes as long as it keeps him from Esinakh) but the colt simply cannot allow him to get away without retribution. He's attacked Esi, and that is unforgivable. That is the fuel that feeds the fire of Arakh's wrath, the fury enough to unleash the passive magic he didn't know he possessed as he marches on without pain, without feeling.

The anger unleashes something else, too. Now the griffin has swooped upwards where he cannot be harmed by Arakh's horns, the colt instead taps into the tiniest nub of magic that lies dormant in his soul, which he'd been completely unaware of until now. The air beside the calf begins to crackle and burn and suddenly there's fire where there was nothing before; three roughly-formed birds made of flame, summoned and controlled by the unwitting hands of the boy. Through impulse, Arakh sends these fire-eagles upwards towards the male griffin, not caring if they accidentally hit Oizys, not caring if they help her in her quest to be released, only caring that the creature must suffer.