A jolt rattles from my flank down to the tip my golden hooves, racing like lightning up my ass to my shoulders as my cloven daggers dig into his chest; as bad as it hurts, a grunt of pained excursion expelled from my lungs upon impact, it’s also satisfying, and while my face surely reads of pain, it also displays a smile. I would snicker, except for a recollection of how very, very mad a man can get when his opponent laughs at him.

My ribs almost ache in memory of that guy’s frustration (I don’t remember his name) as I move, trying to not let pain, wind, biting snow, and poor footing mire me down more than it has to. It’s not the best time to be reminiscing, of which I am reminded as my strike towards his side with my horn misses, the surprised black hellion having stepped forward and away as I approached, head full of other faces and places…

Dumbass, I cuss myself, the ear that had been lifted to listen for dragons forfeiting its post (I can’t hear them in this maelstrom, anyway) to lay flat on my crown. I don’t have time to be missing when there is all this snow under hoof, and my left leg is almost useless as a hobbling tool. Trying to keep my weight pitched forward, the motion of my pivot is clockwise as I try to pull my body to be more behind his, with one( ow), two, (aiee) steps; this motion, and any pain in my left stifle region, will forever be associated with what comes next.

Something is wrong…

And it’s not just that my left hind leg tried to give out on me with the second step at all.

"The fuck?!" is a white cloud exploding from my lips, because where my hindquarters had just been is the ugliest and most insipient thing I’ve ever encountered in a battle – The Fuck is actually quite accurate a name for the smoldering, magma dribbling monstrosity which erupts up from the earth, and I find that I must take a second to stand and blink at the horridly awesome creation.

Seconds stretch into eternity, revealing the mistake of being so caught off guard by the stone titan bursting from the permafrost, as the confused structure moves into motion. It’s not very fast, but awfully effective, the first blow of its massive fist forcing me to rear upwards to avoid the impact of the molten stone with my face. The motion is impulsive, the urgency for spatial evacuation making me forget how very stupid a move it is to put my weight on my bite-and-kick damaged hind end. Panting in the pain that sweeps across me, unable to do anything but find all four hooves on the ground again, to stand shaking like a wet eared babe with rage welling against the approach of the strange, swatting motion that the creature makes with its equally peculiar appendages.

I realize and decide these things at once: I cannot avoid this attack entirely, but I can grab hold of the big idiot while he’s still in the last throes of his spell weaving, distracted; unlike the last time, he won’t get any warning that I’m coming.

Feeling the strange, stomach sweeping sensation of my electrical currents racing towards the equine as my body becomes a distant notion, I steel my will against the far away knowledge that several of the right ribs of the unicorn behind us are very well broken, perhaps even carrying that ache with me as I attempt to force my hold on him, attempting to direct my currents (before I’m thrown back into my own body) into his hind leg, requesting it to lash upwards, violently, in a self inflicted kick to his underbelly.

Even worse than going in is coming back, the incredibly fast backwards spiraling sensation that makes my belly feel as if its falling while being strangled. While normally I’m left moderately dazed after the transition from one being to another, there is a factor that has not been present in my past tests - pain, quite sobering – and within a second I am fully aware of my leg, the cold ache of the bruises I’ve acquired, and the strange, pulsing notion of something not quite right in my side.

I’ve never broken a bone before. The pain is subtle, hidden almost, until I hop forward (keeping the weight of my left leg), attempting to strike at him with my horn as soon as I can will my muscles to move again, and then it hits me like daggers, like tiny explosions, like fire within my blood, the small shout of pain biting through the blizzard as I attack one I cannot restrain.

3/3 | 800 words