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Poison drips from her lips, sizzling acid that burns and foams in green-white bubbles, the familiar toxins that had been deprived nearly all-winter scalding her calloused lips, turning the old scars into lumpy blisters. On her lips she can taste the bitter salt of blood, and the chemicals blend, the white-green spotted with blots of crimson. The pain of her magic is unimaginable, a fire scorching her tongue, slipping over teeth and dripping to the earth, staining the jade green grass the sickly brown of a dying doe. She doesn’t mind the pain, welcoming the familiar sensation, and watches on, waiting for the one who will approach her, fight her, challenge her.
As with many animals, her yellow eye sweeping back and forth over the land the color of the moon’s blood is caught by motion, rather than any blur of color. Darkness turns the unknown mare to the shade of soaked wood, snatched by a river unawares, with a faint touch of dragon-gold among the sleek line of the muscular back. She is a beast graced with a glistening instrument of death on her head, a proud crown of gold. Whoever she is, she streaks forward with ivories bared, and in return the predatory mare who dreams on indomitable world conquests snaps her own yellowed teeth, curls her cracked lips back in a feral smile, eye shining with delusional excitement. From the fluid way she runs, her grace and lithe beauty, the animalistic wolf is reminded of a slithering viper, and Lady Death recoils, muscles taut beneath deep coat, the scratch of a moon glittering above her skull-faced head.
Her will is iron, never-bending, but for a moment the beat of her blackened heart falters.
“Queen of Skulls,” Confutatis breathes, a reminder to her destiny, her words coarse and stringy, the sound of an old man’s phlegmatic cough. Suddenly, she whips around, tail streaming behind her, a taunting banner of faded gray that has no luscious promise of young beauty. Then, booking it as if a thousand demons chase her, as if a battle has already been fought, she ‘flees’ up the slope behind her. Grass turns to rock beneath her hooves, a slippery scree drenched in the melt of snow. Pebbles, rough-edged and jagged, tear at her ankles and knees as she sinks into the deep mounds of gravel. Each step becomes a frantic jump, and she lunges forward; two steps, three leaps, four bounds!
The boulders up on the slope groan, whispering protests that become louder, shouting complaints, tiny pieces of rocks slipping beneath their large size and weight, sliding in a churning avalanche downwards, and then the whole hill is disappearing, crumbling, falling into pieces.
Madness! The equine throws herself up the hill without worry, impatient for the hill to fall completely. I can bring down the mountains.
A boulder the size of a new-born foal catches her in the right fore shoulder, shearing off a thick flap of skin, and swarms of tiny gravel snare her ankles, tearing at the flesh, ripping in a voracious, never-ending tide. A few would not have hurt her- but there were so many! The massive boulders groan and moan, louder and louder, dust from shifting rocks silhouetted in the pale, flimsy light of the moon, sounding as if the whole mountain threatens to collapse upon them. Fearless, Confutatis halts, and then she is borne downwards by the swirling tide, flying at the earth madly without chance to stop, desperately collecting and extending her steps in an attempt to slow her crazed descent. Something hefty hits her in the left foreleg’s frog, bruising the sole badly. Yet she is not worried. The gods are on her side! They will bless her tonight!
Something catches her eye in the dust, a flicker of a shadow that appears vaguely equine. With the darkness and the chaos, it is difficult to tell what it truly is- but nonetheless, the black mare shifts her trajectory, aiming toward it, sped by the slope and rumbling stones, launching herself at it with a scream of desperate triumph.
Her teeth lunge and snap at what might be an ear- and if she’s facing head-on- that would be her opponent’s left ear. Should she manage to grab on, she hopes to hold, and drag the mare her as her momentum carries her past, allowing her magic to destroy the ear well and truly.
Ever since that day with the unicorn who blinded her, she’s disliked the unicorns. Yet they have their uses.
But Confutatis didn’t mind knocking one unicorn in a future army of many around. Besides, if she managed to utterly destroy that ear, the mare would likely be at a loss without her hearing- making the Queen of Skull’s chances for victory all the better.
Word Count: 800
Post: 1/4
Magic: 1/2
CONFUTATIS
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Breaking Laws and Challenging Unbreakables [Challenge - Illynx]
