As soon as Isopia had landed, she felt an uncomfortable and sort of anxious itch begin to form beneath the layers of her skin. Absentmindedly she had itched her flank, but to no avail. The itch was inside of her bones, previously dormant but now squirming to get free.  Hubris chuckled to himself as he landed near his bonded, staring up at her with wide, blue eyes. He knew what it was she was feeling, and her lack of apprehension only increased his mirth at seeing her in such a state.

Play, her muttered into her mind, plucking a budding flower and throwing it at her shoulder. Isopia allowed the bloom to hit her and then watched it fall stupidly. "Play with what?" She responded, staring down at the happy draconian creature like he was an alien. Hubris only shook his head. Just play, he relied with a casual shrug, grabbing fistfuls of grass and tossing them into the air.

Isopia watched this display doubtfully. What was the point of plucking up the foliage that had worked so hard to grow? How was that meant to do achieve anything? However Hubris did looked pleased, and even though he was destroying the life that her Father had worked so hard to create, for some reason she didn't think the God would actually be mad.

"I don't understand you." Isopia murmured, lowering her head to sniff at the broken blades of grass. Hubris looked at her patiently - covered sporadically in green grass - and shrugged. Of course you don't, that shrug seemed to say. He reached out and hugged her muzzle with his bronzey body. Isopia bore this awkwardly, but neither she nor the dragon seemed to mind her stiffness.

Run the dragon said, pulling back from her slightly. But run happy. Before Isopia could ask how exactly she was supposed to 'run happy', Hubris was on the move. He pushed back on her muzzle hard enough to force her back a step, and then launched himself into the air. He zoomed around her, showering her in sparks, before flailing off into the afternoon sun.

As if knowing she was about to say something, the dragon's small voice bloomed in her mind. Run! Chase!

"Is that what we're doing?" The demigoddess mumbled to herself, but, perhaps uncharacteristically, she didn't argue.

Iso's long legs stretched out as she picked up an easy canter. She moved faster and faster, trailing behind the bronzey shape before her. Hubris would occasionally send a shower of sparks her way, which she would easily avoid. Though she hadn't realized it, she had grown into her massive body quite well. Her movements had become much more graceful and controlled, and she no longer looked like she was an imposter wearing someone else's skin.

The itching feeling grew beneath her glossy coat, causing Isopia to suddenly buck. The feeling both grew and abated. The girl realized that bucking felt good. Somewhere deep inside, something like happiness began to fester and squirm into her joints. She launched herself, allowing her wings to unfurl and increase the length of her long gliding steps, and then she bucked again. All the while Hubris flittered about her head, delight and mirth plastered on his draconian features.

Isopia, not the most observant mare, hardly heard Seanan coming. She was so raptured by the sound of her own hooves thundering across the ground - a sound she rarely ever heard - that the accompaniment of his own tandem beat hardly drew any response from the demigoddess. It was only once his voice called out to her that she actually started.

Her stride hitched as her death-marked face turned wildly in the wind to try and discern the issuer of the sound. Cold surprise screamed through her veins, and for a moment her flight or fight instincts were evenly matched. She continued moving forward - jerkily, more out of instinct than anything else - until Hubris' voice calmly sang in her mind.

He play too, the dragon silently said, trying to reassure Isopia. He come to play too. Isopia relaxed only a fraction. Playing was foreign enough, much less playing with someone else? Couldn't she just be alone? What drove this pale stallion across the fields towards her? The idea was so foreign and repulsive that she could barely wrap her mind around it. For someone like Isopia, the thought of seeking someone out for fun seemed nonsensical, hence her hesitation to accept Hubris' assessment of the situation.

Suddenly there was no more time to ponder. The stallion drew near, and Isopia felt herself breathe in sharply. Her mind divided between thoughts of Zero and Volterra, for those were the two who had ever really touched her. Thoughts of Zero's comforting embraces were wrapped with bloody memories of Volterra, and the association of disgust and regret that now accompanied thoughts of the ruby-eyed stallion now transferred onto Seanan as he edged closer.

Isopia flinched and her mind recoiled. In other spars - where she knew she was sparring - she might have allowed herself to collide with him, to try and do damage as he came at her. However his interruption of her playing, combined with the overlay of Volterra-feelings that she improperly allowed her mind to ascribe to him, caused all of her hard-won battle training to simply vanish.

"Nnn-" She began to say, meaning to tell him that she didn't want to play with him, but her cries were abruptly cut off. Seanan's shoulder collided with her own, even as she tried to awkwardly shuffle away. Her long legs - so elegant only moments before - now twisted beneath her, catching on one another. Iso's front hooves knocked against one another, causing an audible click as well as sending pain rushing in tingling waves up her legs, and then continued to scrape up and down her cannon bones as she tried to right herself. Perhaps it was because Seanan was so tall and slender, but where their shoulders had collided Isopia could already feel a bruise forming, due perhaps to the boniness of his shoulder. But that wasn't the worst of it. When his shoulder touched hers, her mind recoiled instantly thinking of Volterra. It made her feel dirty, and guilty, and discarded.

A whine of pain rose in her throat, but the demigoddess forced her jaw to remain tightly locked. She was nothing, if not in control of her body's outward reactions.

The demigoddess stumbled once again before she found her balance. Her shoulder bawled in pain as the lower portion of her front legs began to accompany the sensation with their own painful wails. She forced her mind to clear - forced herself to see Seanan, and not the Volterra overlay.

Hubris only chuckled from the air and whistled down towards Isopia. Play, he encouraged silently, doing a showy flip. Play will help.

Isopia turned awkwardly. The front section of her body did not want to support this movement, but did anyways. A ball of water formed behind Isopia. It took the rough form of a dragon, though it was entirely see-through and clearly just composed of liquid. With a snort, the water-dragon was thrust forward by unseen magical hands, directed right towards Seanan's face.

Am I doing it right? Isopia thought with uncharacteristic sarcasm, directed towards her dragon.

Because the air around them was so warm, the water-attack likely wouldn't be too cold. Shocking? Perhaps. It was always a little surprising when someone randomly threw water in your face, wasn't it?

Briefly Iso considered rushing at the stallion to try and have her other shoulder hit his, but decided against it. Although she had temporarily banished the 'Volterra-overlay' (as she had now come to think of it), she wasn't quite ready to willingly place herself so close to him.

For now, ranged attacks would do.

It had never occurred to Isopia that her water attacks might actually choke someone. She'd thrown water many times before (ice water most often), and it had almost always clogged eyes and airways, and yet, she'd never thought about it. Watching Seanan first appear to be winded, and then appear to cough up the last remnants of her attack made her pause.

But then there waslaughter on his lips, and her confusion doubled. Her only thought in that moment was that he must be a masochist (or possibly crazy), for it never occurred to her that this was just all part of the playing they were engaged in. Isopia cast a confused glance towards Hubris, who only shook his head in disbelief. PLAY the dragon trilled with fake annoyance in her mind.

The demigoddess's golden gaze revolved back to the pale stallion as he moved towards her again. This time, thoughts of Volterra did not cross her mind. No, Volterra never laughed like that (had she ever heard him laugh at all?). Seanan's laughter made it easier to see him for what he was, and although Isopia moved to evade his attack, it was no longer out of some traumatized fear. She was actually trying to play.

Isopia's long legs were still battered from where she had tripped over them moments ago, and so despite their normal agility, Seanan was too quick. She felt the softness of his nose brush against her flank, pressing with an uncomfortable weight between her ribs. The pressure didn't necessarily hurt, but her body did blare out warning signals that such things should be avoided. Had that been a unicorn horn rather than his nose, she would have been in trouble. 

'Playfully', (for Isopia anyways), the Mountain thrust her left wing downwards, hoping to hit some receding part of the pale stallion with it as the two passed each other. Her tail lifted rather prettily (though the aesthetical appeal of this never even occurred to her), and her quad-horned skull rose with something close to excitement. She then spun as quickly as she could on her long limbs to try and trail after him. Isopia was larger than Seanan was, and would have thought that the length of her legs would have made her faster than him, since hers covered more ground. But where Isopia's strides allowed her to flow across the field, Seanan's allowed him to fly.

The demigoddess didn't think she'd be able to catch him, despite the fertile ground beneath her, so instead she tried to slow him down. Another magic-dragon appeared, though this time it was composed of earth. Isopia tried to make it appear just in front of Seanan's swift strides, hoping that he'd be forced to balk and go around. Then again, even if he crashed through, surely that would slow him down as well?

Isopia moved to her right (wanted to keep her bruised shoulder far away from him, for it still throbbed painfully), hoping that if he reacted to her magic the way she thought he might, that she could overtake him on his right side. She didn't plan anything more than nudging her body next to his, and throwing her weight against his shoulder if she got close enough. She had seen foals push each other and shove, surely that was playing. Right?

In the air, Hubris whistled his approval. The dragon could feel thoughts of Volterra receding from her mind, and though he was the only one currently aware of it, it did both their souls a world of good.

Play, he chuckled to himself. Knew it would work.

But Isopia didn't hear the dragon's words, for she too was now laughing.

Although Isopia couldn't see Seanan crash through her earthen-dragon, she did see him buffeted by something, and watched his speed dramatically slow. Her quad-horned skull bobbed up and down as she raced forward, feeling as though she was moving much faster now. That was only an illusion of course, caused by Seanan's suddenly drop in speed. But nevertheless, it caused a wellspring of excitement to bubble in the back of her throat. 

See? Play is fun Hubris laughed from somewhere above her, flying near her flank, but making no indication that he was planning on joining this spar. 

Because this wasn't Isopia's first spar, she saw the tell tale signs of a buck beginning to write themselves on Seanan's features. The way his head dipped, how his knees locked and how his weight shifted. But because she still wasn't particularly good at sparring, she couldn't avoid his outstretched legs completely. Her intent had been to bump herself against him, and there just wasn't time to move her massive frame out of the way. She felt his hooves press against the left side of her haunches, causing her hips to swing painfully to the right. Her forelegs grappled with the ground beneath her, trying to regain her balance. But her body was large, and her haunches had been forced to swing so far out, that it put her nearly perpendicular to where Seanan had previously been.

Isopia could feel two bright circles of pain forming and her body was likely already in the process of creating two matching bruises there. Even so, she found that she didn't mind. His kick had been light, likely not meant to actually hurt her, and she had run right into it.  Why should that be a reason for her smile to falter?

Isopia lunged forward one more time, still fixed on achieving the shove that she had just been robbed of. Given her new angle, it would be more likely that her chest and left shoulder would strike his, but Isopia knew what a speedy creature he had proved to be, and so it wouldn't surprise her if she ended up thrusting herself towards his flank or hindquarters.

After what she hoped was a successful attack, Isopia swerved hard to the right, trying to place distance between the two. She was in better shape than she had been for a while, but even so, all of that running had left her quite winded. Her quad-horned skull lowered slightly and she took several deep breaths, keeping her golden gaze trained on the pale (though considerably dirtier now) stallion. 

Hubris trilled a happy sound towards the stallion, as his bronzey body flit back towards Isopia. He landed on her wither, careful not to touch the bruise on her right shoulder, and patted her gently. Good play. He whispered into her mind. Now say thank-you.

Isopia balked slightly. Thank you? For what?

For play The dragon insisted, patting her neck again as if to suggest that she should just do what he said. 

"Thank you." She said out loud, her voice awkward in its academic coldness. Isopia hadn't intended to sound so stiff, but then again, offering appreciation was not something she normally did often.