The putrid scent of burnt hair wafted across the bloody pond to Gaucho's dark nostrils. The smell had a tangible acrid taste, which the dun promptly tried to eradicate by snorting several times. Snot and other fluids flew from his nose; much of which coated the bone which rested on his velvety skin. The coloured-bird's beauty was not diminished though - not by Gaucho's standards. The pain which laced her movements and yet failed to hinder them, spoke of the coloured's character. The two surely shared the same soul, and in that moment of recognition, the coloured's beauty shone even more brightly than it had when the glisten of her coat was unhindered by burns. As she took to the air, holding herself against the insistent pull of gravity above the crimson ripples, Gaucho was briefly phased by a sensation of jealousy. That her body hurt and warred against her perpetual effort, while his stood untethered by injury and not even out of breath, might be applauded by some. Perhaps Sohalia might be such a candidate - for surely she would not want to see him hurt (or in such close quarters with another mare...), but Gaucho did not share that same sentiment (on either accord). His was a soul meant to be tested and tried, encapsulated in a body that cried out for pain to endure.

But jealousy was not the feeling that would stay imprinted in his primal thoughts. For while Gaucho was a foreigner to the common tongue of Helovia, he was not to the ancient language which the coloured now spoke. Back before the lands had separated, the hot rocky shores of his homeland had shared a waterway with a tribe who spoke the language now rolling off of Bellona's sapphire lips. While it might not have been her tribe, enough of the language had been passed down to Gaucho's clan, such that even after the sea became swollen, separating the lands, there were some (mostly the shamans) who spoke that ancient tongue.

"Gaucho no momauhtiani, inavva." He snarled, black ears pinning against his antlered skull. To call one such as he a coward, even in jest (were that her intention), was unacceptable. His addition of inavva, sister, was to emphasize that this mistake was one that she should have realized.

Her coiled barred knees posed no barricade to the fury that he felt broiling within his rib cage. Momauhtiani! Because she was too stupid and slow to hit him, he was a coward? He would now reconcile the pain that he should have experience sooner, had her childish stupidity not gotten the best of her.

With a loud bellow, Gaucho's dark hooves pranced neatly into place beneath himself. Tucking his own barred legs to his chest, he launched himself upwards. His black wings snapped to his flanks as flames erupted downwards. They were the same flames which had arched against the coloured earlier, but now they merely shot downwards into the crimson pool to provide lift to Gaucho's massive frame. Rising on artificial thermals, Gaucho aimed directly for Bellona's pretty red breast. His jaw was angled inwards, so that his antlers might make her disrespectful lips bleed for their crimes. And while the spiked collar around his chest might have deterred her in some way, it was possible that her own anger caused her to ignore it, just as his allowed him to ignore her chocolatey daggers.

Well. For the moment anyways.

Gaucho felt the sharp pinch of hooves as they scraped down his neck (possibly both sides - symmetrical pain is always so hard to differentiate). While he doubted blood had been spilled, the pain was so immediate that it might as well have. Track marks of throbbing heat subsequently shot to the surface of his dark neck, suggesting immediate bruising was to follow. Grunting, Gaucho thrashed his skull as his wings beat heavily at his sides. He tried to force his spikes into and against any bit of colourful skin he could see to try and bring her down with him, as his altitude began to decrease.

Having lunged himself at Bellona, even with his artificial boost there was no chance of Gaucho remaining stationary as she was. And so, as his frame began to descend, Gaucho both felt and heard a sharp cracked - the sound of hooves on bone. Bellona had indeed found her target, and her hooves sent Gaucho's head downwards as his body was called into the pool by gravity.

Ungracefully, Gaucho's hind-end sunk into the liquid first, followed by the thwack of his large wings hitting the surface. Immediately, the dun tried to rear into the air - thrashing with his forelegs to prevent another potential knock from Bellona.