illynx,

There was something coming from in front of her; the newly risen Lady deepened her focus on the forest before her, observing the tumult of motion in the branches with vehement eyes as her ears lifted to catch the sounds of many branches breaking. Whoever it was, they had a flying thing with them. The tops of the trees swayed too much for it to be anything else, unless by some chance Illynx's challenge had been met by another giant beast that had crawled out of the belly of the kingdom to prey upon the weakened state of the land. A tentative scenting of the air would supply her the answer as to what approached; she certainly hoped for a bird or something else small and easily swatted away, but the stench on the air warned her that the arrival was scaled and spewed fire. Lovely, a hornless, she maliciously grinned, her limbs spreading themselves out for balance and strength of stance as her golden gaze locked upon the misty view ahead of her, preparing for the assault of the arriving equine as she began to see the flashes of blue scales gleaming in the dimly lit, misty wood.

The attack, however, came from the completely wrong side.

Just as the azure dragon burst from his forest cover and Illynx began to realize that she had been duped, a heavy force impacted upon her right side; her body slid under the impact, her hooves ripping trails in the frozen ground as she was forced three feet to the right, her ears pinning to her head in savage displeasure at having been tricked by an inferior earth-bitch and her flying lizard. Illynx found her balance again as swiftly as she could, thankful for having steeled herself for impact as soon as she had noticed the false assault Zaffre had staged, saving her from being toppled over as the stocky horse plowed into her; her head swept down and around, a golden eye searching for the woman assaulting her just as the teeth closed on the top of her neck, though her attempts to see her assailant had slightly lessened the damage they inflicted. A grunt escaped from Illynx, the pain bright as it trailed up to her brain and back down her spine with the birth of a bite shaped bruise, though not grievous enough to cause the unicorn to miss the sight of Smoke's hooves coming for her front leg. She lifted the gold dipped appendage off the forest floor in just enough time, saving it from being broken by an ebony hoof. Instead, Smoke's attack butted against Illynx's ergot and pastern, ripping open a few of the mostly healed wounds and bruising the flesh around it - at least she didn't break it, the cheap, honor deficient wench, sourly thought the golden marked mynx as her weight came back upon it, wincing through her like a hot lance.

Ignoring the complaints of her ankle, Illynx pushed her weight onto her front legs and extended a hard buck behind her, hoping to strike true on Smoke's ribs or the soft patch of flesh just before the hip on the grulla's left side, while crossing figurative fingers that the shorter mare would be unable to strike at her hind end, an ear kept in the direction of the blue dragon that had initially landed her in such a sore position to begin with. Their current alignment was not doing the gilded lady any favors, either; Smoke lingered on the edges of her vision, forcing her to turn her head or be blind to where she was, and so Illynx made a quick adjustment to better her position as her hind-legs met the earth once more. Her sinewy rump spun about behind her in a forty-five degree clock-wise rotation, the GildedBlade using the momentum of the movement to send her most precious appendage upwards from it's lowered position, striking at the area where she hoped Smoke's face or neck would be, it's tip angled to potentially cause damage to the left half of the healer's features, though its range varied from her face to her neck, depending on how fast the burned mare was or if it even hit her at all.

[1/4 :: 716 words; Illynx is pushed several feet to the left and takes slight bruising to the crest of her neck, avoiding severe damage to her front leg by lifting it from the ground and taking slight bruises instead; she retaliates with a buck directed towards Smoke's mid-section and pivots around to aim her horn in the general direction of Smoke's face/neck, on the left side. ]

intending to burn - pretending to fight iteveryone learns faster on fire