When Nymeria glanced upwards, there was a haunting gleam and glitter of gold-and-white scales—and then came a dual roar to overpower Lil’s bold cries. Her heart jerked in shock at the sound, before she pulled her attention back towards the autonomic crash of her hooves on the sand.

Except she was not afraid, not scared, not as she once would’ve been. The terror that raced through her veins, burning and coiling through to her adrenal glands to stimulate the release of adrenaline—it belonged to her companion, as he flew towards bloody sisters and wicked jaws. She should’ve been afraid—but all she could feel was a yearning, a traitorous instinct which whispered of foreplay and sex and her inheritance as a woman.

Lilomiel snarled his brazen rebellion, dipping just below Brienne’s claws. His wings rose, hesitated, and flapped down hard as he banked sharply to the right, his tail whipping to counter-balance the abrupt movement. Despite the quickness of his evasion, he could not quite avoid Brienne’s frozen flame. Searing pain crackled down his tail’s length, a blistering pain so intensely cold it felt hot. The black squawked, screeched, and flapped laboriously as ice formed instantaneously over the feathers integral to flight—and it was this awkwardness, the brief dip and dive as he fought to regain composure, that allowed him to avoid Brienne’s bite to the neck.

For a brief moment, Nymeria’s vision ghosted with an overlap of Lilomiel’s as he plummeted, his pain echoed in her own tail’s short, slender bones. It was an unholy, blistering agony, and when Lil’s mind cried out to hers, begging for help, she deafened her ears and cut their bond, putting his pain on the backseat.

She had her own problems to deal with.
Too fucking bad for him.

It registered but briefly that Abraham smiled—and that insidious curve, that glint of pale teeth, triggered a second pulsating wave of heat, and she burned with embarrassment, and shame, at her body’s hunger, her body’s needs. Nonetheless, instead of focusing upon it, she curled her lips in a dogged sneer, and fuelled her anger with her humiliation.

Confusion splintered her vision of victory as nothing visibly happened to Abraham, despite the insistence of her magical efforts. There was a momentary blast of light (which throbbed and began to change Abraham into a thick red shape rather than steel-and-bone)—and nothing.

It was too late to wonder over it.

When she touched Abraham’s flesh, it was the first time she had ever touched another man except for her brother, and it was the first time she slammed into said flesh with all her force hurled behind it. So close to the stallion (bold and black and big in all the places it counted), she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by his masculine musk—and she wanted to devour him, and be cloaked in his holy stench. And as her own bruise began to bloom on her right shoulder (an insistent and yet easily ignored ache) to mirror his, her teeth clipped the meat of his shoulder. It was unfortunate that he hardly tasted good; as soon as her teeth closed down, something burned on her tongue, all wrong and sour.

Her mind shuddered, convulsed, and Lilomiel’s pain came back in full force, making her step stutter.

As Abraham twisted his horns towards the right side of Nymeria, Nym hurriedly stepped her forequarters off to her left, aiming to position her hindquarters closer to his face. It was a small movement, and as she still carried her momentum, his dual horns cut along her rightmost loin rather than right side. Sensory receptors fired immediately, blood beginning to run within the newly-cut, moderate-depth furrows. The grulla snorted, a breathy exhalation both surprised and pained, and kicked out with her hind legs in reflex, attempting to crack her right hind hoof against his right knee or cannon, her injuries crying out in further protest.

Her attack was neither co-ordinated or graceful as her vision blurred and cracked, cold blue and red blurring together.

What the—

The taste of ash burned in her mouth as Lil released his flame, a final defiance to Abraham’s dragons.

Instinctively, Nymeria wrenched at her magic again, attempting to made blood drip from his every orifice.

And, almost instantly, she was forced to switch gears. A gleam of white on the water was her only warning—and she, with a whispered prayer, made a gamble. Swiftly, she gathered the water below her, twisting it up and over her body in a liquid shield. When Gwyneverre flamed, it hit the watery “shield”, turning it to a heavy steam. Drops of boiling water burst on her body, tiny pinpricks of pain, but she would take that over dragonfire any day.