He can hear her voice reaching out to him, but even so, it takes a moment for her words to sink in - allowing her to distance herself from him, and turn back around. However, as they do, and the meaning sinks in, a delighted child-like grin appears upon his dark lips. As a charmingly-white set of teeth reveal themselves, his dark ears pull back as he prepares. Mara, who was not so dumbfounded and forced into immobility, hisses angrily, her steel coloured body wavering, as she menacingly chews on a lock of Kri's blond mane. Holding onto Gaucho's antlers once again, the snake dropped herself down to his chest, pressing a button which releases the two-inch bone spikes from the leather collar. As she winds herself back up into her antlered-cage, her dark eyes seemed to glitter with a dangerous amusement - an intelligence that her bonded does not posses - as she stares at the chocolatey target who has evaded her.

Kri's body has already begun to bridge the distance between the two, and Gaucho is now eager to participate (now that he knows wtf is going on). Lunging forward towards his commander, Gaucho sweeps his dark wings to his side, for her knows as well as Kri, that regardless of the sturdiness of his primary wing-bone, that it would not hold againsther muscular chest. As her body is angled, a stance which would suggest that she means to kick at him as she passes by, Gaucho tries to remove the advantage that having her body at a distance from his, would create.

As she approaches on his right, he too angles his long-strided steps to try to bring her body closer to his, hopefully reducing the amount of force behind the attack he feels is coming. That she is so much shorter than he, makes him feel slightly awkward, and yet he knows that his Commander is a more than capable adversary, and so he refuses to let her child-like height interfere with his mindset. Thrusting himself to the right, and aiming to make them as parallel as possible, the mud-coloured stallion tries to knock into Kri's right shoulder as she passes, to scrape her with his now-protruding bone-spikes. Gaucho lets forth a gasp of air, as he feels his stomach clenching painfully. In judging Kri's height, he only considered it insofar as how it would affect him hitting her. What did not cross his mind, is where her attacks would hit. Given the realignment of their bodies, Kri's attack did not hit her intended target of his shoulder, for he had change the angle too much. What it did hit, was the relatively unprotected underside of his belly, just behind his right elbow.

Grunting with pain, Gaucho's hind legs dug into the dry desert ground, as he brought his front hooves around in as swift of a pivot as he could manage. Once he was facing the opposite direction, towards where Kri's retreating form had last been, he lunged forward, intending to follow. Coming from her behind, Gaucho was careful to avoid positioning himself in a place where Kri could easily kick at him. Being much more compact than He, he was sure his Commander could buck in his direction with much more dexterity than he was used to. His wings unfurled at his sides, cutting neatly through the air as he tried to bridge the distance between them, aiming to come up on Kri's right side, which would give his battered right side a moment's rest from her attacks. Lowering his mighty rack of antlers, Gaucho aimed to attack Kri's right shoulder, raising his left wing so that it would not interfere. All the while, his stormy gaze remained fixed first on his Commander's muscular brown ass, and then her flank, to catch and respond to any indication that she might take to the skies to evade him.

In a regular spar, Gaucho might have follow this attack up with a buck, or even encouraged Mara to try attacking again, however given his opponent, Gaucho refrained. This put the bay's simple mind, in a very peculiar place: On the one hand, Gaucho's desire to prove himself to his Commander, and to challenge her in a way befitting her title, was ingrained in nearly every fiber of his being. He was not intimidated, nor was he cocky - he was simply glad to have the opportunity to learn what he could, from so skilled a warrior. On the other hand, as his Commander, Kri's prowess was needed both on and off the battlefield: Their entire herd relied upon her strength and savvy, and Gaucho feared that one misstep from either of them, could cause the compact chocolate mare to be injured.

[Attack 2/3 1/2 MC

WC: 799 Gaucho is using buffs BULK and DANCE]


NOTE: Please do not default this spar. I would like them to finish this, regardless of how long it takes in Boom's absence :)