R i c o c h e t,

The mare kneels, on her knees before the unicorns, dust on her joints. Ricochet’s eyes flick upwards, away from the mousey mare towards Cinnoru’s followers, with their frozen faces: but the stickheaded stallion is small and insignificant beside the statuesque mare, who is pale as dry bones with a face cut of heartless moonlight. Miniscule plumes of dust puff up beneath her cleft hooves as she turns to stare at him with her bitter blue eyes, mocking eyes. The dunskin glances back towards the grullo girl, her golden band glistening.

His mouth tastes of ash and dust, like something’s bedded down and died on his tongue, nestled between his yellow teeth.

A drawl, lazy and drawn out, addresses him with the casual disdain, and the buttermilk boy’s ears slant back. She doesn’t have the right to speak to him with her apathetic scorn when she is nothing but skin and bones, a slender pale water nymph so easily extinguished by an angry exhale of scorching flame. The skin about his hard teal eyes tighten, subtle warning, and his lips contort into malignant sneer; doesn’t she realize that the burns and the scars are prizes of his victories, while she with her pretty white coat can boast of none? He, of course, doesn’t know she defeated a narwhal king. Neither would he care, for that matter. Ricochet is blistering fire and volatile gunpowder, whereas she is a white ghost.

It was endlessly bothersome. Helovians always thought they were equal- the world was not made that way. There were Nieque’s followers, and there was everyone else at their solid, uncloven hooves.
“I don’t see you offering up your name, girl.” Ricochet answers, condescending and heated, with all the grace of a blundering axe. “And I’m not the idiot who gives his name to any stick-headed bitch who comes along.” The dunskin arches his neck, one of his forehooves scratching at the earth almost idly, testing it. Yes, it was dusty enough if their conversation came to it… which it seemed to be. His teal eyes, sharp as knives, cut up towards the mare’s pale face. Can she feel his glare, shattering her horns, gouging her cheeks, slicing her soft pasty skin, hacking away at her snowy hide? The Incendiary steps forward, engaging his hindquarters beneath him, ears coming, slowly but surely, closer towards his tangled black mane. He wonders if she likes all that ugly moving towards her.

Her voice is broken glass, slicing at his ears, and there is a wetness on his dark lips. Tension runs electric beneath his creamy coat. It’s not adrenaline- once he had felt such nervous energy, but too many times he had fought, too many times had he been inflicted pain, whether by himself or his father or by his enemy, for him to care about being injured. The dust shifts beneath his hooves, a comforting presence, and Guns creeps forward, paws scuffing the dirt, lips drawn back in soundless snarl. Ricochet’s tail swishes, stinging over his haunches.

“Don’t move.” His voice is deadly soft; he directs the command towards the bowing girl, though he never turns to look at her; even as the white nereid turns away, calling out in her diamond voice to the grullo. Does the unicorn truly think she’ll rid herself of him so easily?

There was fire pumping through his veins. It was always surged just below the surface of his scars, flickering heat that warmed him on cold winter nights, kept him going through the darkness where Nieque did not rule. Now, it was hotter, bubbling. It scorched him black on the inside, and it glowed in the depths of his hard teal eyes. He was itching, as if he were outgrowing his skin. Dirt popped around his hooves, turning to red embers, miniscule explosions that snapped their warnings.

The dunskin watched her retreating ass. Coward, he thought to himself. She was something crusty he found on the side of his boot, and now it was time to scrape it off.

“That’s right, just fuck off!” Ricochet calls after her, contempt written on his burnt face. If it were someone else, his words might sound shy and soft, a mutter of dissent. Yet it isn’t someone else. The Incendiary shouts it loud, a challenge ringing through the Threshold. “But you aren’t allowed to take that girl with you anywhere, hornhead whore!”