The girl doesn’t stand for long. She is back to pacing, to stretching out her wings and smelling the air for any shifts in a scent. She spots him first, before she hears his voice. A pale figure that erupts from the forest floor, glowing in the sunlight, doted with crème imperfections. The roll of his voice quiets the dun-mare, her limbs settling to a stand as his purr permeates the silence.
 
She settles with her head cocked to the side. Ears pressed forward with a nervous twitch. He goes about the process of disrobing; finding the use of purely aesthetic trappings strange and alien, the girl grunts with mild amusement. There is a finesse in his movements nonetheless, a particular delicacy that lends to his person. He is less muscular than Ru’s previous opponents, sleek and perhaps thinner than her husky bodice. Though it’s hard to tell how he might excel on the battlefield. Ru’s thoughts lend to the radiance that encapsulates within her eyes. And although his scent isn’t quite the musk she expects from another male, it sends a fleeting thrill through her.
 
Though she’s had her eye on the sleuth before, watching the madness unfold in the distance from his recent challenge. She wonders if he’ll pull anything sly on his end, snap out his wicked teeth for a deeper purchase.
 
A soft, rumbling noise exits her dark lips.
 
She would simply have to explore those possibilities.
 
And without further adieu, he exhales harshly into the open; they begin with his bounding body. Energy precedes him, but her humming heart exclaims with a delighted chirp to her lips – perhaps pain will cease this strange exuberance within me. The tendrils of his hair wave after him like a plume of smoke. Ru snaps into action, and she speeds towards him with nearly the same intent as he. Those horns, glimmering gold against the jealous sky leer after her in the closing distance.
 
Ru unfurls her wings as her heart races the closer they get. She wonders if she can surprise him with her impromptu tactic, and craves for such an expression to mar his pleasantly crafted features. She jumps up several strides before meeting him, grasping the air with her wings and elevating beyond the natural footings of an equine. She has never attempted such an attack, given that she carries wings beside her – it almost seems absurd that she hasn’t yet. Although, Ru hasn’t quite accounted for his height yet, even though it appears he charges with the weight of those horns plowing forwards.
 
The bull nicks her forelimbs, for which she’s bunched up as a means to protect her soft belly. She intends to fly above him, trusting her wings to pull her upwards just enough and across. Simultaneously she kicks out her hind limbs below – attempting to leave a solid mark on his neck or shoulders. Almost as if she was pushing off his form, in the process of taking flight. The girl doesn’t carry herself all the way up however. She intends to land with a few feet between them, turning sharply to her left to face Toulouse. Ru hopes he has not plowed through her form - lending to a longer distance between their bodies -  and intends to face her without the speed to match his brazen horns again.
 
A displeased hiss escapes her breath as she grasps the earth, now that her lower forelimbs ache and throb with a more noticeable bruising. She shifts with their dull throb, but for the time being they do not impeded her movement. It is enough to wrestle with the feral thrill inhabiting her body – on the surface at least.
 
But the mare’s mind wanders ahead of her, underneath the penetrating glare of the sun and the slick purchase of earth underneath their hooves. Was his skin as fragile as his sleek countenance? Was it soft like the silk he adorned, as warm as he was pale in the light?
 
Ru inhaled his scent, eyes searching for his expression, his body. Curious if he found their bit of sport amusing – or merely infuriating.

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