Яikyn

I’ve run into most of my tiffs with the mindset that I would win, but for the few against opponents who so obviously outclassed me that I couldn’t pretend to be better than they were. This girl’s the sort of person that I approach with determination, victory already flooding my heart, even though the fight had just begun. So, when my horn drives into her wing and rips through the flimsy, feathery flesh, my prideful smirk curves into a even cockier smile, and Duir’s distant heart clenches tight with pity for her pain.

So I think, anyway. As the sound of her cry of pain at the rough impact of my hooves meets my back turned ears, I find myself lost in the youthful mistake of thinking myself already the winner, despite the occasional ringing in my head when I plant my hooves too hard from the impact of her formerly draconic tail. It’s that trail of thought that, as I pull back around upon realizing she’s not pursuing me, puts me in the horrible position I find myself in next.

As the water had before, the sand beneath me comes to life. Unlike the water dragon, I do see the beast rising out of the beach, and it, unlike its salty comrade, earns a frightened shout. Though my legs begin to run harder than I’ve ever asked them to before, it’s not fast enough.

Had Duir felt pity for me, knowing that she’d not take kindly to her wing being hurt?

He certainly does, now. All the breath is my body is rudely shoved out of my lungs with the direct impact of the sand dragon’s body and head against my gut and right lower ribs. The impact is so ferocious, and unexpected, that it launches me off my hooves, and tosses me leftward. Managing to find humor while mid-air, I think to myself how she must be making up for all her lost flights by providing me my own temporary one. Remembering how sore I’d been after Gaucho’d sent me spiraling into oblivion in a similar fashion, I tuck my legs against my barrel defensively, mere moments before my body strikes the sand in a dramatic wave of grit, and handsome unicorn.

Using the momentum of the fall to roll onto my hooves, I find myself standing, but still quite breathless. Wheezing in an anticlimactic way in comparison to my rather slick recovery, I stumble towards her warily, in eager anticipation of my breath’s return. When my lungs do decide to pull in a breath again, it is as wonderful as it is agonizing. Hot blades rise in my side, a few of my bruised ribs hinting at being spider-webbed with fractures, and, for the first time since I’d charged down the golden dragon (who was actually this hybrid mare with earthen devils rising at her will), I feel the trickle of fear begin to drip within me.

Like black oil it spreads over the wild oceans of my conscious. My near-death in the desert of the Heart, and the touch of Deimos’ magic and arsenal flood to my mind, flashing images that juxtaposition themselves between reality. I’ve come close enough to dying that I know I don’t want it to happen to me, and the pain along my side, and the ease with which her minion had cast me aside, trigger a never before experienced urge to run.

I’m far too stubborn for that though.

Growling to clear my head, I call on my magic, knowing that falling down means she’s probably taking the opportunity coming at me with the same wrathful, and confusing, vengeance she began the fight with. Reaching inside myself for the simpler, and faster, of my powers, I hurl it towards where I think she is, hoping it stills whatever assault she’s concocted long enough for me to get myself together.

Pivoting enough to face her, I grit my teeth against the piteous whimper that sounds as I bid my body towards her again. Hoping she’d been struck by my magic, and hoping she doesn’t notice the difference in my pace, I come at her with much less agility than I’d had before. Eager to even the score, however, I stab downward at her immensely long, left front leg with my left fore when I think she’s close enough. The weight on my right side is gingerly balanced, but still quite painful, and I grunt roughly despite my best efforts to be the epitome of masculinity. When I attempt to pull left and away, not daring to buck out at her as I should to defend my side, the terse grunt becomes a full fledged groan, the tears that had begun to well in my eyes streaking down my cheeks in heavy beads.

2/3 | 800 Words
[ OOC: cackling ]

in every heart a hole