"Wait, you don't know where you're going!" The stark pitch of a strained baritone voice spilled through the crackling air. Africa’s ears tipped backwards, the suddenness of the sound causing her stride to stumble with hesitation. Heat radiated from the dancing mass of flames; her eyes burning and watering wildly in defence, squinted forward helplessly unable to force sense through the streaming panic in her mind. She would not fall prey to the likes of malicious-minded horses of the north again, and every flex of her sinewy body renewed that desire for self preservation. Africa couldn’t have known from where her pursuer hailed any more than his intention to prevent her injury; impulsive presumption fuelled her escape.
"You dumb bitch, where do you think you're going?!” The young voice called her again, and immediately she recalled the first time she was labelled as such. That painted creature, tarnished with a cruel and proven malevolent heart had wished her dead! (or so she still believed)... His snapping yellow teeth had tried to pluck the lovely lacework of feathers from her very wings.
Africa frowned, clenching her jaws tightly to fight the choking bubble of upset in her throat from flooding her eyes.
To her horror, when she opened them again seconds later, the horse (or colt as it became quickly apparent), was launching himself madly across her path. Africa drove her heels against the unforgiving hardened earth, balking with fear as he too came to a sliding halt in front of her. “Wh... what do you want w... with me!” She shouted at him, air heaving from her lungs into a quivering mess of anger and fear; broken shrill words. Immediately, a minute confidence formed through her eyes- he was younger than she, maybe fully grown, but still far from her own adult weight. A defensive shell enveloped her flailing mind as it fought to regain composure, and she found herself sizing the colt up, unconsciously arching her neck to portray strength and vigour. Never before had she considered aggression a means to an end, and the emotion flanking her bluff was like nothing she had encountered before in herself. It was boiling energy, cured still further by the licking torment of heat against her profusely sweating hide; panic and rage that she should find herself confronted by the prospect of harm with no alternative escape.
Africa’s eyes scowled with unchecked frustration, the horrid mask unbecoming and pinching muscles that were seldom exercised in such fashion- if they had been at all previously. “Who are you colt...” Opening her wings, she flared every variable inch of her body, forcing the impression that she was a far greater threat to him than she was to her. She glared across at him, noting the strange bloodied tinge of his nose, and the spiralling protrusion between his crimson eyes.
Internally though, Africa shrank away from the impending conflict, melting into a wet puddle on the parched earth below.
"Thinking. Speaking. Acting."
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[O] [Finished] A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.
![[Image: afri_zps12e4f1bf.png]](http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/SapphireTitanium/afri_zps12e4f1bf.png)