Destrier

Like a runaway train, my chest had slammed into the painted lady's hip, managing to throw her lighter frame harshly to the side. My chest throbbed and stung from the impact itself, but it was the type of pain that was fleeting and would be gone soon enough, or become sore over the next few days. I had expected her to move and avoid the charge, to at least try to get away, but she had merely stood there and taken the full brunt of the attack. At least she had managed to keep upright and avoid my last kick, even if she hadn't entirely meant to.

Although it was an unpleasant feeling that made my teeth grit together behind closed mouth, that I had brought pain upon her, she did deserve it. A Queen needed to know how to fight, to be reminded that she must always keep her wits about her in the heat of battle, and that's why I was here; to teach her.

But I couldn't go easy on her, because a real threat would stop at nothing to kill her.

'Well you don't have to shout at me!'

Kahlua's sudden shout was both heart-wrenching and uplifting; the last thing I had wanted to do was to bring her harm and upset her, which I was doing without a doubt in my mind, and yet, those sudden words also meant I had gotten through to her, that my words had done something and finally provoked her to move, to act, to fight.

Peering briefly into my bonded's mind, who still perched in the pines with obvious discontent, I could see Kahlua regaining her footing and then, without so much as a second thought, she was after me, and the beating of her hooves catching up to me began to pound like war drums in my ears. She was coming up on my left, and my mind worked quickly to conjure all the possibilities she had laid before her in the moment we were side by side, and in that moment, I, too, acted.

My sheer size made it difficult to stop as quickly as most, and as I dropped my haunches and thus shifted the brunt of my weight to them, the pain in my hindquarters increased tenfold and caused my teeth to grind together, a violent snort ripping from flared nostrils. But my agony wasn't over yet, as barely a second later, two hard hooves came crashing into my chest, the pain radiating outwards across the width of it, the force enough to cause me to grunt and steal my breath away for a few moments. It would bruise, swell up in the shape of her hoof and cause a few days of lingering pain, but it burned most brightly here and now.

I'd come to a complete stop by then, and so when Kahlua shifted herself to the right, no longer was I there to crash into. Recomposing myself, I made haste after the painted Queen, but a turbulent roar from overhead ripped through my ears and nearly severed my concentration completely.

"Suli, stop!"

But the mental command fell on a blinded mind, and nothing could stop the dragoness as she dived for Kahlua's head, craning her neck to bite for her ears, intending to latch on before bringing her feet to the mare's head, using it to shove off of as she took to flight again.

I was torn; should I stop, because of Suli's intervention? To apologize to my Queen, my Queen for the emerald's interference, for attacking when she'd been told otherwise? Great God of the Sun, I wanted to, but this was the chance to show Kahlua that not all went as planned, that the numbers wouldn't always be fair, as terrible a feeling it caused in my already throbbing chest.

Charging forward, albeit slowed down a great deal from the pain that slowly leaked from my hindquarters and chest, I made to use Suli's distraction to my advantage. Coming up from behind Kahlua, assuming I was able to catch up to her at all, I came around to her right side with mouth agape, body raising in a rear as I bit for her crest and attempted to strike at her back with my left foreleg, all the while my back leg screamed in agony at having my weight shifted back upon it.

"bloop"

[ooc - 741 words
2/3 attacks

looking for heaven
found a devil in me