He promised her a spar.

A spar she will have.

She could hardly have chosen a more repulsive day to take the handsome blood-bay up on his promise. The sky is a mass of roiling grey clouds, so black as to be almost opaque - although it is midday, it is as dark as night time. Rain hammers down from the heavens like miniature bullets, and the wind is so strong that the mare has to bow her head against it and brace her limbs against the ground to keep her balance. A sudden growl of thunder snatches her attention, and she looks to the sky with a grim smile. A storm? How fitting.  An arc of lightning illuminates the world around her and she feels her skin sizzle with frenzied anticipation, her flesh quivering with delight. To lock horns with Déodat in her favourite weather condition?! The Gods have smiled on her today, giving her a storm to dance to!

As she moves to the Heavenly Fields, she sees countless animals sheltering from the weather. A speckled doe crouches beneath a bush with her fawn nestled beside her, a blackbird huddles closer down onto her hatchlings to keep them warm, and Nyx feels her heart ache with the familiar pains of spring. It is rare for her not to have a foal at foot during this time of year, and the craving is there - it is only natural, and not something she can help. As with all mares, spring bids her to carry her tail that bit higher, arch her neck that bit more, bounce on her tiptoes with more gusto than usual, and her lecherous gazes towards stallions contain more heat than what is perhaps socially acceptable. But that is most certainly nothing to do with the man she is about to face in battle, or so she tells herself. It is simply nature, the turn of the world that gives mares their fertility at this time of year, and even the steel soldier is victim to it.

But those thoughts are pushed away as she finds a suitable clearing to use as a battlefield. She is no weak-kneed woman, to go googly eyed at a man and let her guard down as a result; she has always prided herself as being stronger than that, immune to the pleasures of the flesh. Alas, she is a living, breathing creature, and is not made of steel, despite what she might think and hope. The place she's chosen has short grass, coated by moisture from the rain and with mud showing beneath the shoots - it will be slippy, for sure. Behind her, trudging miserably through the mire with his mane flattened by the rain, is Dominus; his mouth is set into a hard line and his muscles are tense with displeasure. He hates being wet, and is less than pleased with Nyx for dragging him out in such dreadful weather. But his love of bloodshed outweighs that, and the silver is sure he will liven up once the fight begins.

With a huff of cool air from her nostrils, Nyx turns her back on the rain and throws back her head, whinnying for Déodat so they may begin their battle. ""

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0/3 - words

Summary: Set in the Heavenly Fields during a storm, companions and magic are fine with me c:

Or would she?

His dog greets her, and Dominus gives a hearty growl of jealousy from beside her. "You make cubs with him, but I am not making cubs with her," he tells her firmly. She snorts her amusement. "Fine weather for it, eh?" she remarks to the stallion, shaking droplets from her mane. Wet tendrils fly into her eyes, and she jerks her head up and down to flip her forelock backwards and out of her vision. Ladies first, he says - ah, what a gent! She flashes him a sideways smile, then switches off everything in her mind except the battle ahead. Like against Mauja, she knows she fights better when she is fully focused to the exclusion of everything else. She cannot concentrate on those thoughts that trickle into her head about what could possibly happen after this fight if he wins, because she does not want herself to want to lose.

But a part of her does, despite how unacceptable that is for a soldier. She can't help it; it's only nature, and it's happened before, loathe as she is to admit it. After all, every foal she has ever had has been sired by a man who bested her in battle. Survival of the fittest - she does not breed with weak stallions. Several times, she's pulled her punches in order to give her opponent a chance of forcing her into submission because her hormones have already decided she wants to bear their child, and she knows that is a bad habit to get into. What sort of warrior is she that she will take it easy in a fight just because she fancies her opponent? No, she needs to get out of that mindset. This is a fight like any other, and she is determined to win.

She hates the weakness that comes with the memories of her past experiences, the knowledge that her steely determination to win can be tempered by the hungers of her flesh. It is unacceptable. She is more than a woman, dammit. She is ice and storm and iron, not flesh and blood and lust.

If she keeps telling herself that, it might become true.

With a dip of her head towards her foe, she shuts off her face, her expressions, her mind; she becomes the soldier. Her ears flatten and she throws up her skull as she dives forwards into a gallop, feeling her muscles rejoice in their freedom. Her hooves slip on the sodden ground, so she slows her stride to a more collected, controlled canter, one that is not likely to cause her to break a leg should she stumble on the deadly layer of rainwater that glistens against the grass. He is bigger than her by a hand or so, and she hopes that means he will be even more unstable on the slimy mud. The bigger they are the harder they fall, after all.

Thunder screams above her and her eyes flash with delight; this is what she was born to do. Duel with the storm crashing above her, against a man who will no doubt test her to her limits. She can't possibly know that she came into existence under these very conditions. She can't know that her penchant for testing her mates comes from her hated mother, who challenged her father to battle beneath rolling thunder and flashing lightning, with the sanctum between the LightningQueen's thighs the prize. Her dam lost, and Nyx was thrust into her womb. Now the daughter of the storm dances as her mother did, beneath the weather that created her.

She aims to approach Déodat in a T-shape, facing towards his left side. Thrusting out her chest, she seeks to slam it into his left ribcage, to try and make him stumble away to the right where Dominus has retreated to a nearby bush; it is a favoured move of theirs, the ambush. She is smaller than him so it is unlikely she will knock him over, but she can certainly pray for a rain-aided stumble. Simultaneously her jaws gape and snap towards the withers on his left side, aiming to plant a sharp nip on the tip of his shoulder, to bruise and hurt.
   

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1/3 - 798 words
   

Summary: So excited about this fight!! Nyx charges him, aiming for his left ribcage, and tries to slam her chest into it whilst trying to nip his withers.