The day started normal enough.
Rain dribbled down scalding flesh, cooling, calming, across avian feathers and promising a downpour later. Messy mane windblown, pressed flush and sticky against damp, clammy flesh, steam rising and billowing into the air as the heavy wings worked to avoid dropping her as a stone from the depths of the ashen skies, vision obscured as her skyward journey led her through a misty abyss of cloud and rain, dampening the already soaked woman further. This was not the first time she had flown in the deluge, she had been subjected to it on her first journey into the land of Helovia, albeit with much more violence. In comparison, placed side by side, this rainstorm was saccharine, passive, and lethargic. Regardless, the Princess could not deny the stormy skies would most certainly result in that of a face meeting stony cliffs if she did not land soon, and so with a great shudder of strength from the appendages that held her wings upright, she angled her primary and secondary feathers downward in a gradual fall from grace.

Even the sight was gorgeous, and the Princess was not impressed so freely, nor was she impressed so readily. The sight below eagle's pearls was the darkest of emeralds, damp leaves and gnarled trees, umber trunks of oaks that stretched on for what seemed like miles. It reminded her of Elysia, the comfortable landscape of her homeland, and the Princess appreciated it with ease. If she could find a opening within the cracks of the thickened canopy, the rest of the forest would welcome her with outstretched branches beneath sheltering limbs. It would shield her from most of the onslaught of the rain, perhaps even protect her from the imbeciles of her homeland. She had traveled quite far enough, had she not? The Princess had run into few of her herdland with wings, besides the pretty girl that ruled over her as Queen - It still disgusts her to even think of the word - and she doubted her majesty would dare ruin her sparkling rump by traveling through a storm. Curse even the idea that she would get her dazzling coat with damp Earth.
At least, it would have been gorgeous.

If the scream that shattered the peaceful morning air had not threatened to rip her eardrums out of her damned skull. Slamming down into tendrils of damp mane as fast as they could, the woman almost faltered to flap in her surprise of the sudden call.
She did not know when the shriek tapered to a end, did not recognize it had, for it echoed within her harks as if it had been the drums of war.

It was not the agony that filtered through to her mind, not the all-consuming misery, for the Princess was used to that.
It was the terror, the horror, the dread that pierced the stone heart, caused her bones to tremor and overall sense of helplessness that filled her afterword that shot off alarm bells within her mind, caused bronze pearls to gaze down into green depths, green depths that cracked and shuttered, green depths that caught the vermilion stained, black frame of a Pegasus within them as they barreled forwards, the sickening strange flash of a limp wing dragging behind as if it was a chunk of dead flesh, the idea that the shape was likely not supposed to be stained red.

Water dribbled down into her gaze. She didn't blink.

No, the Princess kept flying for a few moments, moving forward with a steadfast determination.
Stained red.
She had no reason to investigate.
As if it was a chunk of dead flesh.
She had already done her good deed for the month.
Pain. Fear. In danger.
Can't go. Can't go. Can't go. Can't go -

A scream retaliated through the air, deep and bellowing, harsh and so, so, infuriated, so maddened, the blood within her own veins seemed to boil.
And then the woman dropped from the sky, wings pressed flat against a hardened frame, bronze gaze on fire.

She doesn't flinch when her wings are yanked up and out to cease her fall. She doesn't flinch when branches and twigs stab into feathers. She doesn't flinch when blood dribbles down from a small branch that has lodged itself into the flesh of her right wing.
She doesn't flinch when hooves hit the ground hard enough to cause her entire frame to shudder.

A wild gaze sees buttermilk and mahogany, alabaster and charcoal.
She sees blood. She sees a black frame of a Pegasus that smells like a female. She smells panic and fear that ricochet off the girl in shock waves as they race together. She sees red. She also smells stallions.
Her mind replaces the image of the black woman with the image of her youngest sister.

She chokes.

And with a roar worthy of the army of Elysia, she barrels after the closest figure to her, with all the grace and subtility of a train wreck, and all the unstoppable force of a train.
It just so happens to be the short, stocky equine, with a burnt maw and equine, equine, equine, EQUINE.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER."
Rage and resentment mix with centuries of taught racism, lifetimes of built in hatred for the male race, decades of
taught warfare. Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate.

And somewhere, within the back of the woman's mind, the ink blinds everything away, except for the dual men.
She would crush his damned skull and place it in a fucking basket.

Just to think. The day started out so normal.





Brighid</style>
PUT ON YOUR WAR PAINT</style>