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The snow continued to swirl about, a thick vacuum of white between the enraged stallion and the confused sorceress. Circe snorted hard, backpedalling hastily as his teeth lunged for her, rage etched into every line of his face and the curve of his neck. Now that he was close, the desperation shone clear in his eye; his passion was surely a threat to the shadowmere. And yet Circe didn’t even bat an eyelash in response to his attack; the indication of violence did nothing to shake the warrior mare from her perch of resolve and irate poise.
No. It was his words that rattled her so.
*"Where were you when I fought on the front lines? And how quick were you to call this land your home, as if you'd fought for that right?"
Circe’s nostrils flared, her eyes lighting with a mad twist of a spark. Her ears glued themselves to her poll; her neck arching in an exaggerated fashion, the sorceress reared slightly, her head tossed, her mane weaving through the snow as her tail wove wildly and stuck quickly freezing ground. His words touched the rawest of nerves—the knife in her wounds was twisted ever more, and once again the shame and burning restlessness awoke within Circe’s breast. Where were you when I fought? It was the very question that ran through her mind, day after day, in the twilight of waking in those moments of solitude. It was what fueled the bitter edge and the foul taste in the back of her tongue—the idea of being a useless blade to bring to battle.
You were a new recruit. You are a stranger to them, the voice of reason struggled to bring to light, but Circe’s humiliation would not be stifled, not now. Not when one of her very own shield-brothers voiced her own guilt—with his voice, he had made her worst fears very much tangible. There was no turning back from it. Circe was a inadequate warrior.
*"I fell fighting! I may not have stood tall at the battle's end, but at the very least I was a part of it. You have no right to call me a coward,"*
The shadowmere gnashed her teeth; a growl was beginning to rumble in the back of her throat. It was rare that Circe would ever lose her composure in this fashion—but the swirling blizzard around them was a secret room, a vault of hidden indignity that was unearthed and brought to light. This strange stallion had his skeletons, but it was Circe’s own transgressions that threatened to rattle in the closet. “I have every right,” she hissed, her tail still thrashing about, whistling in the air with its weight and the power of Circe’s self-hate, “Yes, you fought! You probably fought your hardest! And yes, you may have fallen—but you fell fighting, as you said!” There was no way in knowing if his words boded truth, but Circe trusted his word, the word of a disgraced warrior…and the disgrace was etched into the bark of the ridiculous tree that rode upon his back.
“I did not fight…I was too new,” came the painful confession; Circe dropped her gaze for a span of heartbeats, before returning her blazing eyes back upon her quarry, “And yes, I call this land my home with less of a right than you have. You bled for this earth. You shed your sweat for it—you properly earned it.” She then stamped her hoof, the fire behind her words springing forth as though splashed with methane. “Why, then, did you hide yourself from me in the winds of a damnable snowstorm? Why do you meet me with shame? You should hold your head high, higher than myself! You should act as a warrior who earned his keep instead of some sheepish beta male with his tail between his legs, hiding from his own infamy and showing unprovoked hostility from his own herd mates! Shake of the pain of your injuries and fight instead of lashing out against those who’ve done you no harm, you pathetic, socially-awkward bastard!”
She sniffed, her mouth curving in a sneer of contempt. “And that is why I call you a coward. I do not take the right—you give it to me yourself on a silver platter.”
[Sorry for the wait! D:]
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