Hooves meeting flesh are your drug for a moment, one very fulfilling moment, but as your hooves fall back to the earth and your shoulder is tweaked, you are not given any peace. The beast's rump crashes into you and it's all you can do to keep your hooves underneath you. Your body tumbles to the side ungracefully, your feet clamoring to find purchase on the snowy ground. Finally, your opponent has been able to use your weakness against you and you're all but powerful to stop it.

Your eyes roll wildly as you tumble to the side, your head bobbing flailing with all the drama you can muster. It doesn't help you stay balanced, by any means, but you can't really help your dramatic outbursts when you're so high. But you're going to need to, because apparently this spar has turned from friendly to deadly. The glint of a horn in the ever-lowering sun catches your eye and you gasp your breath in because you fear that your drug habit may finally have gotten the best of you.

It almost seems like slow motion as you fall, the horn trained so expertly on your chest that you can't help but know that it is about to pierce your heart. The feeling of helplessness is so profound that you bellow out, a cry to the heavens to save you. For the first time in your life, you pray. You pray that you will gain your footing, you pray that you will be able to back away from his horn. And when your prayers don't seem to work you turn to begging, your imagined reverence of the gods turning to hatred as you realize they're ignoring you're please. You'll be nicer, you'll stop doing drugs, you'll make amends for all the wrongs you have committed. But it doesn't matter how many lies you tell, the gods will not listen and you keep falling.

In the end, it is only the mercy of your opponent that saves you. The horn tilts upward just as it should have punctured your chest wall. It rips through flesh and muscle, tearing down to the very ribs that protect your body. A gash several inches long is opened up, the white of bone visible for an instant before blood begins to spill over. It is only a matter of millimeters that have kept your lungs from becoming punctured as well. In the end, all that has happened is retribution. Your too-skinny body has been assaulted, giving you some punishment for all the evils you have committed, but at least you are alive.

In that moment, that cathartic moment, you find your footing and stop your falling. You are ashamed of yourself for turning to religion in face of your impending death and it has killed your lust for battle. Besides, you have a wound that is begging to be infected if it isn't cleaned and flushed. With throbbing shoulders and barrel, and eyes that are almost watery with fear, you cannot afford to continue. “Enough,” you grunt to the beast who would have taken your life. You should call him friend for stopping himself, respect him for pulling back when he could have pushed forward, but you do not. You hate him because he could have killed you and, in an effort to justify your rage, you tell yourself that he is weak because he chose not to take a life when he had it within his grasp.

No, he is not one you will ever call friend, but at least you live this day to walk away.

WC|603
Post| Closing Defense