Oh...Silas... "Silas!"

The sound breached parting lips as nothing but a panicked whimper, a desperate cry for help. She remembered all too well the ruthless snarl of his voice. The cutting remark once made seemed to echo sardonically throughout her mind, even as she scrambled now, once again, to be rid of him.

A lopsided frown, riddled with resentment and fear, furrowed through her gentle-natured expression and a sentiment similar seemed to spread through her like foul odour in a cave -she could do nothing to mask it from his sight. Africa felt like a foal again, tripping over herself in vain bid to escape looming shadows – but this was more serious than a child’s phobia. This was life, or death.

The roan turned with all of the subtlety of a frog’s song to the rain. Sinister laughter rolled from his cruel lips before they peeled from stained teeth in a most unpleasant, intimidating fashion. She could hardly believe it. The one-winged felt like a magnet for strife, it hounded her relentlessly, snapped constantly at her heels. All at once the blood seemed to drain from her skull and pool like lead-weights in her scuffling hooves. Move! she urged fretfully, but fear had numbed her, stunned her and she dithered uselessly like a possum framed by lightening.

He lunged doggedly towards her – a wolf upon his prey – and Africa cried out ridiculously as terror reigned supreme above logic through her mind. Perhaps a wiser creature might have turned at that point to flee, bristled at least, or moved forward to lessen the power of his barge; but instead light-golden eyes rolled back as she shied, rocking hard against taut thighs.

The thunder of calculated steps echoed like war-drums all around, trapped it seemed (like warmth beneath cloud-cover), by the canopy overhead. It was an ominous sound that overwhelmed her throbbing, frantically turning ears. The stallion came at her far more quickly than expected, and a strident scream from her swooping bonded forced small clarity through the dappled mare’s mind.

Focus, he urged – she was wasting valuable seconds and he had not enough time left to save her.

Sooty ear swivelled to note the steady presence of her companion, and his instruction filtered through the onslaught of irrationality in her spinning mind. Ok... she answered, preparing mentally (visibly) to follow any further coaching he might offer. But as she turned her daft attention to their bond for only a split second, the brute swung wide to her left and collided brutally into her naked, scarred shoulder. Breath was knocked from her chest with a hearty whoop, as the intended impact of his body sent her catapulting right, and lone wing extended impulsively into the rising forest-litter to attempt to right her sprawling balance.

Ligaments and tendons around slim, strong wing-bones were drawn to their limit, but as her weight teetered upon the splayed feathers below, joints began to hyper-flex. Agony prickled like crimson stars behind her wincing eyelids – no doubt it would hang weakly as a result, ineffective...

Though the scar-tissue canvassing the left, empty wing-socket had long been numb to sensation (shallow nerves damaged when the appendage had been so gruesomely torn away), the fiend’s attack ricocheted violently along every bone in her sternum, forcing joints upon each other unnaturally – jarring them – provoking pain through her fore-quarters enough to draw a flood of burning tears from her eyes. The slope of her hit shoulder (the vicinity of the socket), throbbed as blood rushed blindly amid tides of adrenaline to scout for damage – it was all internal, muscular and bruising, though cataclysmic nonetheless. Sweat leaked to stain grey puddles black, and the sharp pheromone of fear cloaked her trembling, wounded body like glow around the moon.

Silas screamed with such rage, that the shrill, piercing tone turned even the skin of his beloved cold.

When Africa found stability at last, haunches gathered the hooves below to throw backwards a hefty double-barrel kick, and though the manoeuvre was achieved – reinforced too, with all of the strength she could muster – the aching forward-half of her began to collapse. Shoulders shuddered helplessly as she began to topple headlong, but Silas called hurriedly through thought, shift-shape! Do it now!

The Zephyr’s wings steadied the flow of time around them, working meticulously to slow it further and aid her escape. Though her bones warped and twisted painfully to execute the transformation in no rapid way, the gift given by her companion meant that potentially, from the stallion’s perspective, she could appear to morph instantly.

Twin wings, carried the stocky parrot only a small distance (two horse lengths at most with the residue of pain), and Silas spared her time enough again, to prepare herself.

---

Words: 800
Attack: 1/3
Notes:
*Silas used: Roc: a night-dark bird speckled with stars that is able to change the time of day and slow or speed time with its wing beats.
*Africa used :: [Magic: Earth | Able to transform into an African Grey Parrot.]
:: [Restrictions| Transformation is painful, can only transform once in battle.]

Africa