"One Day, I Shall Live By the Code of Honor."
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Given up? No. If it were up to the ebony filly, she would still be scrapping, still be throwing her hooves and lashing out with bared fangs toward the ivory spectre who dared cross her herdlands. Alas, it was not the lack of will that kept Laila from acting on pure, blinding, rage-filled impulse; her body shook with its failure, because it was done, and no amount of willpower would get it to move with a warrior’s grace and precision. To attack now would mean a flurry of meaningless, sloppy maneuvers that would tire the filly even further with no apparent reward.
And so, the acolyte learned the wisdom of cease-fire.
Her limbs shook, the most violent of which came from her rear right leg; she could apply weight, but every time she did her cut screamed in protest, and every movement sent sticky blood further into her feathers. It didn’t feel as though she bled too much, from either her two cuts or her poor massacred ear—in fact, she wasn’t even sure if her ear bled at all, such was the gentle pinpricks that tentatively breached the surface. No, it wasn’t bloodloss that caused Laila’s head to swim. The pain in her quarters, her chest, her ear pounded so hard, her sight shattered before her; she closed her eyes against the debilitating agony, against the kaleidoscope of images and the hot tears of frustration that began to well inside her lids. She wanted to fight, not sit here stewing in the pain of her own foolish injuries!
*"You fought well, little warrior."*
Laila’s eyes remained closed, but she sucked in her breath, tail lashing in irritation at such false words of admiration from her enemy. Laila didn’t want to be met with any sort of respect from her adversary—she wanted to hate her. “Not well enough,” she murmured, trying her right hind leg once more and wincing at the buzzing sting that issued from her wound yet again, “You’re still here.”
Sharing in the quiet of her enemy, Laila stood there flooded in the noise of the battles around them—somewhere her father must be protecting their herd just as she had attempted to herself. Both warriors, filly and mare, were peaceful in those moments, sentinels carved from marble and obsidian, erected in the mists to witness the chaos that was mindless conquest. However, while the ivory pillar may look on with regretful confliction, Laila’s own boiling emotions had solidified into a cold, hard ore of certainty. She may have not been looking into the visage of her enemy at that moment, but her closed, tear-soaked eyes were beset with images of a blood-red V, the warpaint that screamed for her attack, that mocked her childish weakness, that beckoned the ebony filly forth into the flames of vengeance.
She would remember that V.
[W/C: 499
4/4, 1/1]
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[O] No dawn, no day [Judge] [INVASION]
