[ I'm a slow tuuurd~ ]

The night air kissed his stinging wounds—there was no tremor through his hind legs to further test the skin's broken edges, no jar in his bones to tell of two primordial forces clashing (but it's all the wrong order, predators and prey don't mix, so why is he attacking—). It was just the air, all his power bleeding into its cold emptiness. The lion was gone, having left his gift of blood and seeping agony.

It was hardly surprising, though. He had lashed out with little aim, but it still left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth—as if he had been robbed of something, something that should've been his, some moment of.. unspeakable glory? Of testing his mettle against a fucking lion?

He should be glad the thing was off in the shadows again, slinking away as Nyx staggered upright in the face of Mauja's guilt: she hissed at him, and he shifted his weight to prepare.

There was an ache in his left hock that had nothing to do with lions.

(Must've slipped more than he thought at first, low enough to bang it against the ground.)

The facts were cataloged, stashed away, reducing the pain to dull echoes and brief pangs. He knew, and that had to be enough. (Had to, as if he had any say in what his nerves screamed about. Laughable.)

He could smell his own blood.

And for the first time in his life, he hated it.

I'm not who I used to be, am I?

"We're not finished."

"Okay," he said before he knew it, the blunt word slipping gracelessly into the quiet night. Can't we be? his heart asked, but he crushed that voice. He had felt the thrill of being hunted—of hunting—of hurting. He had felt the sickening blood-lust, the exhilaration in his blood, the need to cause more pain—

—he had felt the pain—

—and he was done. He didn't want this anymore. He didn't want violence and bloodshed and pain and gore, he didn't—

Fuck.

She was charging him, head-on, bravery plastered over the iron of her face.

(How do you do it, Nyx? How do you go on?)

They weren't done, but he wanted to stop.

Eyes closed. Ears flattened. Neck arched protectively, head angled to the right. (I don't want to hurt you again.) Still she came on—he could hear her. Feel her, like a shuddering breath in the ground, traveling up tired bones. Teasing his cuts to weep their red—his heart to keep on beating, so that more of it could fall like ruby stains in the night.

He didn't even think to move out of the way, locked up in the prison of his mind.

Stop—

Please, stop—

Irma cried out in the darkness, once, a mournful, questioning note.

And then there was contact: rock-hard, ice cold, shocking. For a split second the impact traveled without analysis, simply shifting the scales and the balance; the ripple went through nerves in every direction, pain and bitter blood mingling down his leg as he began to shift to the right.

Then everything else came. Little nubs of ice like a cruel hail grinding into the fine pelt of his shoulder, its touch like death's breath coming down his neck; the flaming, sudden bloom of pain where nerves were ground and blood vessels broke from the pressure—and at last, a jolt that strangled his breath into a gurgle and ended with his left hindleg shooting out. Behind his eyelids, his eyes had rolled back, but then there was space between them and the tip of her obsidian horn whispered past the curve of his barrel, leaving just a tingle and a fine red line.

He hadn't expected that.

Then again, he had let her charge him with his eyes closed.

Fucking idiot.

She had said they weren't done and he had been ready to beg her to be done. (I'm not strong enough to hold the pain at bay anymore—)

And it wasn't even that bad. He hadn't been burned, for fuck's sake. Everything was better than being on fire.

He threw a sour glance at her as two lonely birds of flame, elegant and thin, swallow-like, soared out from the thin air by his flank and towards her. It was petty, but maybe it would give her some fancy scars.

Maybe she would like that.

[ 3/3 || @Nyx || 738 words. ]
I don't want to look at the rolls for this *shakes fist* cursed fight

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .