There was death on the wind, a faintly familiar scent of strewn entrails and freshly torn innards, crushed lungs daubed in clotting blood and hearts pumping out life onto the earth.

So the Incendiary followed it, his dog scouting out the path ahead of him like a good mongrel. They headed towards a cluster of trees, slim branches dragging on the earth, leaves a thousand hands fumbling on the rich grasses. Ricochet is reminded faintly of the Lush Oasis, except the earth does not squelch beneath his hooves and mud does not bubble up where he steps. The tickle of the branches brushing over his back, lightly scarred by the searing acidic rains so many weeks ago, whispered a warning to him, if only he had opened his ears. Alas, he did not, he ignored the cautions, and trudged through the branches.

Something wet drips onto his shoulder, splattering into a greasy crimson spot. For all his reckless arrogance, he starts, muscles locking beneath his buttermilk pelt.

Blood. He tips his head up. Another drop hits him, this time just above his teal eyes. Red drips down the right side of his face, tainting his vision scarlet, but it does not hide the gristly image above him. Intestines, mottled gray and ugly pink, swaying eerily in the breeze. How did guts get up there? Mystified, he watches the tubes move in the wind in morbid fascination. Who would waste time with putting the entrails of some horse in a tree? For a moment he puzzles over this, before shrugging and putting it aside. Lest it was a horse, he cared not for the fate of a skyrat or stickhead. Let them rot, and let the birds feast on their worthless bones.

The branches part, trailing desperate fingers down his flanks, fragile bird-bones clinging to him.

Guns barks, a short staccato of rapid-fire warning tearing through the thick silence. His teal eyes seek out the familiar figure of the black-and-white dog. If he were not the Incendiary, he would be unnerved, but he was the Incendiary, son of Gunslinger the Unbroken. "Guns, HEEL!" Ricochet shouts, pushing his way through the protective trees shielding a calm pool from the eyes of spectators and busybodies.

The collie comes trotting back, carrying a unicorn's horn in his slobbering jaws.

Surrounded by blood is the mare he met so long ago, all cracked smiles and wild eyes, one leg cocked easily beneath her despite the body parts strewn about her. Unicorn corpses, chests cracked open. Their hearts are missing.

God, was she this fucking insane when he first met her?

"Histe," Ricochet rumbles, stepping around the unseeing head of the unicorn body. A smile creases his lips, hesitant at first, but widening, a cruel grin. "Do tell me you did this yourself."

The last time he had seen the cougar of a mare, she had been stalking through the trees of the Threshold, testing him with her barbed words. He had responded as always had- with hot anger flushing his body, hooves stirring on the dry ground, teal eyes turning to daggers, his sentences clipped short. Once, he might have liked that- if it had been his father instead of him, just like Eva challenging his sire. Except Evangeline had never quite been like Histe with her acid rain; she had been diplomat, not a fighter.

Where’s her cougar now? Ricochet can’t see the lithe predator, not here and not over there. His nostrils flare, testing the air of the musk of damp fur and blood, but every scent is overpowered with the stench of released bowels and the hint of decay that comes with murder.

Her voice is a rasp closer to a stallion’s than a mare’s. For a moment he considers fighting her for it. It makes for a nice toy for his boy, and a warning to any other beasts having a horn on their head. Still, by rights it’s her, for she was the one to kill the lovers.

“My dog doesn’t go easy, just like me. You’ll find more than you bargained for.” The Incendiary’s ears slant back, the skin about his eyes going tight. “But… Guns, give.” The dog’s jaws open obediently enough, though he gives a whine of complaint. Ricochet knocks it forwards with a hoof insolently, never taking his eyes off Histe, not trusting her enough not to attack when his attention is diverted.

It wasn't worth picking a fight over, not when one day he would have all of the unicorns laying their heads at his feet.

“Do you often hunt unicorn?”