He couldn’t understand. Against all his desires, his body sang like an old, dusty instrument. It called him to battle like the drums of war that had so often pulled on him as a child. Memories of his father’s form, swallowed up by the distant sands, his fate unknown until the blood had already been shed, pulled at him. Cera had always wanted to be like Midas. His heart screamed in unyielding agony, taking up harmony with the slow burning pain of Hototo’s death. What had he done so wrong? Why did Midas hate him, when it was Midas who had abandoned his son, who wasn’t even two years old, for the sake of a God? It made him want to throw himself at Ampere, with that same dark face and battle-blazed eyes. He wanted to curse her for the soul of his father he could see in her stout form, and instead of Ampere he saw Life in her. It taunted him, daring him to fight back. And instead of passive apathy, instead of wanting to cross to the other side and be free of the world that hated him, Cera felt first anger, and then something…new. Beneath the new roaring flame of his fury, there came a hard, resounding echo. Much like the metal he bent to his whims and wiles. Something like steel, like perseverance.

Sand stung his chest, but all Cera could feel was the exhilaration of the new discovery.

His left shoulder was already sore and smarting from clashing with the compact mare, his frame meant for speed rather than such harsh collisions. Her flesh tasted like sweat, and victory over that cackling visage of Life that he saw in her wild face, and he grinned, manic and bloody. He could prove he wasn’t weak, that Midas was wrong about him being weak, a failed prodigy. He would prove them all wrong.

Already shy about their closeness in regards to his shoulder, the movement that he barely caught due to his closed left eye startled him away. Cera jerked just out of range of her flying kick, using his height and agility to his advantage. He couldn’t afford her hitting one of his joints, especially his left hock with their height difference. They were both born for speed, Cera couldn’t allow her any more advantage than her experience and title already brought her. Tapered ears pinned down as she stirred the air near his shoulder with how close it had been - a kiss of possibility. Though it had been fear for his shoulder that had prompted the initial jerk away, Cera was thankful that it spared his hind legs the same fate. It would have forced him to depend almost entirely on his right side.

They seemed to turn to face each other, in the end. There was nothing he felt he could say to her sharp words and poisonous tone; he didn’t know what she was asking or how he could possibly answer it. Instead, he answered with bared teeth and pinned ears. “I don’t know how!” was what he managed to scream back at her, frustrated beyond belief even as his blood sang with salvation. He’d finally found that light, that brink, but he was teetering. And instead of waiting for Ampere to rush him, for her to bring the fight to him, Cera seized that beautiful new feeling of survival and determination and he took the choice into his own hands.

Ampere seemed to have the same idea, the two of them arcing towards each other like winged snakes with fangs poised and dripping poison. For a moment the young forger was taken back to see the sparks that shifted and held form at her side, shying to the right on his uninjured side as it swooped down towards him from behind. He couldn’t see it, and his heart thundered with fear, with life. Cera swung his head far to the right where his good eye could see the bird, instinctive. Swinging back was too late; his limbs hadn’t even bothered to stop moving as they’d raced towards Ampere across the deep granules of their battleground. Of Cera’s renewal. Before he could swing back to meet her, teeth were pinching on the left side of his neck, right into the meat of it. Simultaneously the eagle landed, straight on the expanse of his haunches, where it sizzled and died in a painful burn. Cera howled, throwing his neck hard towards Ampere’s face, not wanting to tear her teeth free. His own snapped down from taller frame towards the left side of her spine, just behind her left shoulder in retaliation. Fine, if he couldn’t use his speed, then he’d have to suffer through losing this fight in her arena – close combat.

---
Notes: None
Tag: Ampere

Word Count: 800/800
Attack: 2/3