A voice:

noise —

authority.

When Caneo turns, his mind conjures for an instant a gnarled horn upon the mahogany brow, eyes the color of storm clouds rather than those sharing the hue of old blood. Boy —

No one has called that name in a long time.

Maybe Caneo was boy once, but the blue-eyed creature turning slowly to face this intrusion is nothing of the sort. It's a collection of knives in the shape of a horse. It draws up, up, up at the sight and the sound and the smell of another stallion, and thin and pale over the water, Caneo looks terribly frail. He stands juxtaposed with comfortably kept perfection: pale against dark, knife against hammer, blue against red. Caneo's long face tilts to one side, and though he stands on edge he appraises in silence. Of course, he fails to stop the smirk crawling across his face like a snake.

Something hot and thick — like you?

He can't bite back amusement at the bizarre choice of words, like fighting is akin to other bloodsport — like he finds anything about the larger beast attractive. He almost explains, in polite terms, how much he'd rather teach himself to throw up. Instead Caneo just snorts, and finds the stranger charging him with only the briefest, crudest, warning. Were the silver creature still a boy, he would run. Unfortunately, maybe, for the both of them, Caneo is older and colder and a little more like that new part of his soul every day. In the back of his mind is the snake; in the back of his mind is the primal brain tracking movement, scenting the heat of breath, chanting along to the beat of his heart wait, wait, wait.

True enough, water fowl make poor sport.

Now, several things happen. First: the gap shrinks as the strange stallion's hooves pummel it into submission. Second: Caneo seeks to revive the gap by crawling backward, thrusting all his weight onto his haunches in a very quick dance. Water sucks around his fetlocks, cold and failing to be beautiful as violence overtakes any whimsical desire for artistry. Close, close, too close! Caneo's tall body draws taller, and his crown heaves itself up above the stranger's as all that mud-colored flesh hurls itself recklessly in Caneo's direction. The silver creature forgets everything playful it ever knew. In the back part of its brain, the part now choking off all others, is the trigger: Danger. Narrowly avoided and still coming.

The response: now!

His ears pin back and his lips purse and his face forgets mirth. It remembers rage; it remembers the scent of blood and the sound of bone breaking and it promises, without words, that no such thing will occur to this body today. Caneo flails down, his forehooves churning wildly in an attempt to slam some part of the enemy with a blow. The attack falls swift and uncontrolled from such a precarious position, and already the silver creature curses his lack of forthought — his lack of raw intelligence when it comes to such a fast-paced screaming brawl. Go die, snarls the sudden heat in his blood. He needs time to think and yet there is no time except what he can carve out of the other's flesh.

"Catch yourself," he hisses between breaths.

just to watch them falling