The metal, it rings and buzzes to the fringes of Ru’s limbs as it hits. It’s not the damage she was looking for, but it sends an almost desperate charge into her system. The gilded stallion’s yelp is easily lost, to the ping – pang a clacking of a successful hit that feeds the lilting fire within her.

Grunting and gasping through the pain that – while it throbs – pricks and shudders with each ushered movement in her strides. In the twists and turns that eventually lead her from swinging a wing, to the loss of feathery hair. A growing, physical need groans for Ru to stop.

But I can’t – not when the slight high of pain goads her struggling spirit. Or perhaps it was simply a second wind that led her body with a permanent grimace. Whatever it was, it was beaming beyond the refuse of submission. It was set aglow in her eyes, hollow and hungry for success.

She is unable to catch Rikyn’s abysmal hops, when she means to put some distance between them. There is only the constant push of cool air that rolls off the ocean tops, the rage that crashes against the beach – a sound that carries a sense of carelessness that Ru bottles up for the final push. It comes with the furious sweep of her wing as it tucks beside her, and the charging stallion that heralds the last leg of their awful dance.

The mare coils her legs underneath, tucks her feathered tail close as she attempts to release and turn her rump to him when he begins to turn. Ru braces for the buck that scrapes across her right hindquarters, most likely sporting a bruise – but she bears the pain keeping in mind that the cut to her shoulder sings more loudly than the rest. And it can be tolerated, for the time being… underneath the gritting of teeth and the clenching of jaws.

Ru casts her eyes back to Rikyn. Grimacing as she takes the weight of her body in a means to buck back. An attack she doesn’t think twice about – it just feels ‘natural’ in that moment. To seize a quick opportunity before he might pull away. A muffled cry leaves her pressed lips as her hind legs kick out, aiming for Rikyn’s nearest flank. Hopefully he wouldn’t escape the range of her limbs just yet.

For a moment the fire in her soul wavers a second time. Especially as her shoulders and forelimbs take on the weight. Ru is reacquainted with a stabbing pain in her right shoulder, shaking in that brief moment. A gasp of relief washes over the feathered mare when her limbs return to the earth - unloading. It is a momentary, deceptive release that doesn’t necessarily bolster her confidence when the pain lessens.

Because it hurts regardless, all of it, her whole body aches.

The girl manages to breathe out. Expecting Rikyn to meet her once more in the fog of creeping fatigue, and turns to face leading with her left shoulder. Realizing now that he was favoring her battered right side. The feathered mare had every intention of charging ahead to meet him, every thought and fiber to deliver a final blow.

High intentions end poorly however. The magic is cast against her left side, seizes up her right fore – tickles and numbs the adjoining right hind leg. It adds to the stupid droop on her face – the right, as she intends to close the distance. Even if it means limping with a limb that nearly fumbles with the first stride.

Perhaps it’s asking too much, perhaps she’s standing against her limit – uncertain if she’ll make it through the other side. Merely in the terms of her known capabilities. That this was as good as she could get, without the careful ministrations of a mentor or teacher.

With one last hurrah, she rears up and kicks out with her left fore. Aiming for the dark stallion’s face.

A groan escapes her lips as she teeters briefly. But her hindquarters hold, and the sensation of numbness dissolves and moves up her right side when she lands. Confusion finally breaks through her thoughts, unawares of how these odd and new sensations have come about. She settles with a non-functioning right foreleg, and limps with her left side to face the stallion. Casting her gaze once more for his position, alleviated by the return of sensation that comes with the bitter cold of Frostfall, the weak twitching of muscle function.

Ru shifts her gaze back to the deer-like creature. Wondering what use it was standing there at the fringes. With heavy breath and sweat patching her winter fur into dark, resentful clumps.