Devour. Teeth-first he drew another step closer, every inch of his body longing to caress her skin, to touch every bit of her.. to shred her veins and lay her open with the ice. It was a hunger, an itch in his teeth, as hot as the air which steamed from his nostrils—his throat was trembling, breathing jagged. White lined his blue irises, a rim of insanity around his eyes; the black pupils seemed fathomless, lightless, and his face contorted into a snarling mask. More and more his hesitancy, withholding the fury, seemed strange, foolish, alien. He wanted this.. he wanted to let loose the beast and feel the ground explode with the fervor of his power. He wanted to see her kneel before him, pride crushed and driven so deep into the ground.

There was no reason not to. Even her wings were meaningless, forgotten; the only thing which mattered was the clawing, trembling anger inside. The cold, cold darkness. And somehow, he went from wanting to regain control, to wanting to lose control. His teeth hungered for the warmth of her skin, his ears to lay against her neck and hear the sound of her frantic heartbeat—to listen to her shivering breath until they both grew silent and dark, laid to waste and empty.

He wanted to pull the ice from the ground, to hear the grinding whir of their quick ascent, the thud as they strained against their limits; to watch the faint wash of orange firelight lick their sharp, cold edges.

He wanted to, but he couldn't take that final step. The rush of anger was losing momentum, the fury cooling and the urgency disappearing; the beast had begun to sigh and lower its head again. The convincing justification had slipped from his grasp, and as he stared at the terrified, broken mare rationality began to whisper what did she do? what right do you have?

You are not so heartless.

Then everything changed.

The wounded mare yelled, a roar which split his ears and split the night—charred feathers fell miserably from her injured wings, their decrepit scent washing against him as she flapped them. "SHUT UP!" he yelled at her, halfway between himself and that other state of mind; his world was rocking, tilting sideways. She charged and he felt as if someone had grabbed him by the withers and rattled him violently, shaking everything in his mind loose. With a growl he threw himself off the ground, a pale monolith in the dark night; her teeth snapped shut on cold air and, to his own surprise, he didn't lash out. He simply rose to tower above her, forelegs tucked neatly against his chest, eyes blazing with frigid rage. The air he breathed in was cold and tasted of iron and blood—but the ground had calmed.

Gravity tugged him down, but he was no less confused about what he wanted to do with her. The burst of insanity-like anger had faded, left him feeling as hollow as ever, if a bit peeved with himself. Those moments of blood-lust never lasted long enough to fill the vacant space left by everything else—and in the face of feeling nothing, even the irrationality of anger was better. It tasted more of life, and less of.. this. Of broken, empty spaces.

The lines of his face were set, unforgiving and hard, as he gazed down upon her with his head high and ears flat against his neck. Perhaps there was nothing left inside, but it felt better to pretend behind his icy wall.

Maybe if he tried hard enough, he'd remember how to feel.

He knows that is a lie.