Яikyn

Her pace as she dances across the rainbow water is almost leisurely, not one I would use in the midst of battle, but to each their own; the steady rhythm of her hooves is lost to the uproar caused by my own, the wind billowing from behind me sending the wild tangles of my mane in a seeming mad dash from my figure, tiny droplets of water propelled forward at an uncanny speed by the ushering of winter’s cold touch. The poet within me thinks of the water misting against her as we meet, her water, because it had been ice until she bid it to flow. Her shoulder is much closer than I thought it would be (had she moved?) as my blade strikes a clean, weeping line into her ebony flesh.

The smell of her blood on the frigid gusts is delightful, like suddenly chilled, heat warmed metal, the smells of being a boy watching his father work his craft among the shadowed feet of mountains in winter, dancing on the salt flavored air of this land so near the sea. Her gasp mirrors the perfection that rings in the seconds after contact, and while she does not groan, or whimper…

I know that it hurts, and the knowledge makes me smile. Grunting with what could be taken as delight as our chests impact one another, noticing only now how perfectly even our shoulders rise to the other, I prepare for what I expect to be an attack to the closest thing to her mouth and fore hooves – my shoulders. I can almost hear the praise of my battle teachers as I give her no time to think while so close to my striking range, my muscles bundling for a counter to whatever is going to happen next, my broken ribs from the fight with Volterra remembering what happened to them as they often do when stretched. Hopping up into a quarter rear, her teeth bluntly smack against my raised shoulder (barely grasping it in a pinch, dimpling the skin and causing a staggering amount of discomfort for the minor nature of the damn thing), I attempt to drive my horn down and at her hip or barrel, aiming more for a glancing blow than a piercing, crippling wound.

She is a lady, however hornless she is, after all, and I do have the decorum to not try and kill her for offering me a chance to vent some steam.

Thus, the sensation of something grasping at the lines of my face with agonizing pressure as I attempt to counter her bite with my own attack is largely unexpected, as if something is inside my skull, and is dragging its horrible little steel nail tipped fingers down the lining of it all. In a matter of seconds it’s not just her blood blooming in the water below us, fading into a dim pink tincture as the salt water swallows its colorful kin. Within equal time the world is entirely tinted with the color of it, the smell perforates each deep breath, stains my tongue…

What the hell?! blooms with the surreal bend of fear as the realization that its my blood dawns on me; the splitting agony accompanied with it, that, even when the nails stop dragging, leaves a sadistic echo of the sensation that forces me onto my hooves with rough force. My crown shakes savagely as I try to pull away from her in a counterclockwise motion, the salt water concoction beneath us become a mud and blood soup, my hind hooves kicking out viciously to force distance between us while I try to get a hold of myself, more so than to inflict damage.

Red droplets fleck the air, are caught by the wind and splatter with horrible clarity, my flight instincts heightened (mostly out of shock, I tell myself, she surprised me is all this is, I’m not scared, I’m never scared) and the accompanying disgust that rises at feeling this way is all directed towards her with a harsh swiftness. Whatever room was left between my ears and skull to listen for her stupid dragon vanishes, feeling the loathing towards her well and simmer as I continue in a counterclockwise motion, coming at her left side with a ferocity that had previously been withheld.

Girl or not, here I come, bitch!


2/3 | 728 words

in every heart a hole