Paralyzed by fear, the grey raised no defense and the stallion met his mark with bone crushing force. The full velocity of his charge transferred to the mare’s smaller body on impact and hurled her away while the roan was jarred to a violent halt.

He staggered, unbalanced by the sudden cessation of forward movement. Muscles coiled along his back and haunches, straining to bring his weight back off the forehand and lighten his shoulders for greater mobility. The adjustment took only a moment, but as he righted himself a piercing shriek split across the stallion’s eardrums, breaking off all thought of the next attack.

The grey’s shadow bird circled overhead, buffeting the roan’s ears with shrill waves of rage no matter how tightly he folded them. He ground his teeth in irritation, struggling to forcibly dismiss the creature from thought. He remembered how it had bristled and flashed that same hateful glare the first time they met and how quickly it had retreated when faced with the stallion’s own bugle of challenge. The bird was nothing more than a distraction, a mother hen squawking in helpless agitation as the snake devoured her brood, but the thing had prodigious lungs. It was only through sheer willpower that the roan turned his full attention back to the grey, though too late to avoid her backward kick.

Two matching hooves landed square in the stallion’s chest and shoved him backward. The kick forced a surprised grunt from deep in his lungs, but it quickly morphed into a rumble of renewed laughter as the softness of the grey’s attack registered. She would be lucky to leave a few broken blood vessels beneath his mottled skin; the perfect legacy of her weak and short lived struggle.

Again the stallion sank low over his hocks, this time lifting his sternum and bending his forelegs against it to hold himself in levade. He was eager to lunge forward and his muscles quivered with the strain of denying himself, but he knew the mare would fall to her own inadequacies and the hunger to witness her total despair was greater. His heart pounded relentlessly as he watched the grey’s front end begin to crumple beneath her, but in the moment that her broken body should have met the ground she vanished, seemingly in an instant. The stallion froze, a mixture of confusion and curiosity pulling his ears forward.

A flutter of grey snatched his attention and some small, grey bird flapped its wings this way and that, struggling to vacate the space the grey mare had occupied only a second earlier. The stallion watched, dumbfounded. His front hooves touched ground so that he stood square, but still immobile. Another fraction of a second passed and the grey bird collapsed, expanding back into the form of the broken grey mare. She laid in a heap just a few steps away, seemingly even worse off than before. Understanding clanged through the roan’s mind, dragging a sad and ironic mirth with it.

“The gods give you two fully functional wings and still you cannot fly.”

He didn’t wait to see the hurt of his words well up in the grey mare’s eyes. Her failure was undeniable. Her magic could not help her, her shadow bird would not help her, and she was utterly incapable of helping herself. The only value left to her name was what could be gleaned through her death. The stallion cocked his head and traced his eyes from dappled cheek to sweat soaked chest, following the visible indentation of the mare’s jugular groove. He could see it pulsing against her skin and his own blood quickened in his veins in response.

Confident in his success, the roan let loose his excitement and hopped forward in a spontaneous surge of power, his neck arched and his back rounded to bring his front end down on top of the mare’s sprawled form. His thoughts raced ahead of his actions as excitement neared frenzy, conjuring up a picture of himself kneeled down on the mare, his forelegs tucked beneath his sternum and her prone body pinned beneath his pressing weight. In the vision his upper lip stretched forward and his mouth hung open to grasp the flickering crest of her neck in a primordial show of dominance and aggression, though the force of his bite and the thrashing of his head and neck to follow it would lend the real aggression to his actions.


Word Count: 745
Attack: 2/3

OOC: He’ll have minor bruising of the pectoral muscles from Africa’s kick, but it won’t cause any particular discomfort unless something physically presses against his chest. For his attack he jumped forward and tried to pin Africa beneath his front legs and sternum and hold her there with the weight of his body. Physically pinning her down isn’t intended to be an attack, though it could probably cause some harm from his enthusiasm. He more just wants her trapped in this position so he can shred her face and neck like a jealous cat shreds your boyfriends furniture ravage her with kisses? xD Just kidding. He wants to bite down on the crest of her neck and thrash around a bit.
@[Africa]