[OOC | Continuing from the battle post; I've just sort of assumed that she got out from under Shadow's feet and got kicked upside the head for her trouble. All the angst! Sorry this took so long. <3]

The spear stuck up from the sand, a stark reminder of all that had been lost.

The shadow-mare had been a disappointment from birth, really. She had been born plain and unmarked by the crimson that decorated - or tainted - the rest of her family. All of them had gotten something of Riekahn's - Giselle, Paladin, the lot of them, all beautifully adorned with red. But she - Psyche, the Dark Empress, who had risen higher than them all! - had alone been born without. Her saving grace had been her horn; that alone had marked her for the path that she had walked, for him, always for him, always aiming to please her father, even after he had gone, even after he had killed her mother, after all of the wrongs that he had done, she had followed in his footsteps, modeled herself after his work.

And now even that had been taken from her. Beneath the glorious fury that fell from her mouth in waves of howling laughter, there was nothing. She was numb. She had done all she could do to ensure the reign of her kind. She had done all that she was supposed to do, and yet she was always last. She was always the lesser one. She always worked the hardest, striving to be the best, to show the world - to show her memory of her father - that she could be all he'd ever wanted in a child and more. And she had done it, hadn't she? Didn't she lead the largest herd in Helovia, and all of them unicorns? Didn't she lead an invasion to take out the inferior species?

And yet here she was, maniacally falling to pieces in the dirt, the skyrat's blood on her tongue and her horn stuck in the sand, and she was losing.

She didn't want to lose anymore.

"I bet that hurt, didn't it, my darling?" she called, her vocals high and cackling. Perhaps she was part hyena, such was the nature of her laughter. She was beyond reason, beyond understanding of the situation, beyond caring that she was at war. Her horn was taunting her, sticking up in the sand; for once, that which had given her strength made her sick to look at. What had she done all of this for, if only to lose her identity? Who was she now? Her pupils were too large as she leered up at the pegasus, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around. Her tongue lolled out as she panted, the cackling never ceasing. Dim lights danced off her teeth, stained by the blood of her opponent. Her right ear throbbed, as though it had been kicked. When did that happen? Did it even matter? Did anything matter now?

"You've ruined me, my pet," she told the skyrat, and there was something particularly threatening about the mad giggle that accompanied the statement. "I will ruin you, too."

"Talk talk talk."

@[Shadow]