He cannot see the tracker, the soldier - the killer, who lurks supremely beyond their perception; he cannot fathom the danger, their vulnerability and ignorance. He is bold, but his experience lacks. A snake waits coiled, electrified and anticipating, and they stand by idly like dumb game. The hot breeze blows the prowler’s fragrance away; his plot is meticulous, flawless. Birds watch, stunned, confused by this new banded predator in their realm of pine and rot, shuffling inaudibly upon the boughs up above. What does he want? Why is he here? The cicadae have stilled their transparent wings, their shrillness has become nothing; the great green hoppers have long since vanished.

The tiny girl, her trauma runs deeply – inaccessible, like the pure-water veins of the mountain. It is brazen to believe that her fear will yield to his benevolence, his innocently fanciful idea. Though naivety trolled him forward, the young steed learns swiftly; they recoil together, and teal eyes beg forgiveness for the boundary encroached – but so briefly! Colour, noise, excitement; it triggers and bursts suddenly, startlingly, from the undergrowth and he stands amazed, breathless. Incredulous eyes behold the marvel that is the predator attacking, but the terrorized tone of the girl reels him back. In a split second he moves blindly to defend her – he knows not the threat of this kind.

Thighs coil tightly down, yet release right after with a power-packed surge; the stallion, with amply feathered wings ajar, hurtles into the dimming space between predator and prey (he is oblivious, he is the aim). He screams from depths yet unknown and snarls with the unbridled savageness of a stranger, a foe; ears are lost beneath wild, whirling tendrils and eyes flash belligerence as he defies this white-fanged face of death. Like two boulders they collide, one with cunning precision and the other with all of the martial quality of rock. Knives drive gruesomely into flesh, into the unblemished shoulder of the sun-kissed Warrior; he screams again, though its sound now is blood-curdling, suffering – this agony is nothing he has known.    

Heat fills his face, flying feathers blur his eyes, and he thrashes like a fish caught in talons. Teeth snap madly as his jaws lash, trying for any purchase he can manage, but the murderous feline is stuck fast upon him; vain are his struggles, mere helpless ambitions. He is stumbling sidewards, into the doe he defends. But he recalls those eyes once again, his kin watching brightly, and for them resolve sets back in. With a roar, a frenzied plunge of vast wings, the stallion defies the lull of gravity and lunges left around the place he’d left his charge. Like a beam in the arm, that props him up, and claws tear south from their hold; blood spews, hot, crimson, mingling with fear in the putrid, humid atmosphere.

A plan is forming – unfolding, and he unfurls burly hindquarters with every inch of strength he can find (adrenaline boils in his veins, anger writhes in his heart). The monster is huge, powerful; but perhaps it has lost some momentum. He aims the kick backwards, huge airborne hooves, while frantic eyes gambol forward in effort to move the dove – if still she stands frozen in place. The gaping wound upon him throbs, pounds and pulses, and dizziness toys with his balance; he stumbles, crashes to his knees, but scrambles desperately back up. This is a matter of survival.