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Circe was surely sailing through the night, carrying herself on the thinnest of air, the crispness of the darkness in no shape to stop the bulk of the shadowmere flying to meet the bulk of the Dauntless. Her passion, her battle-rage, her desire caused her legs to fly; there was no slowing her charge into the Dauntless, for the ground was too soft, the air was too weak, and she needed him much too severely.

And so, when the Dauntless shifted and prepared for her attack, intending to meet her and lock horns in response to her request, a spark of panic erupted in the pit of her breast. She could not stop herself without risking the snap of her shins; the ground would not help her make an agile escape from Archibald’s clutches. No, there was no escape from him, from the teeth that flashed and the bulk that rammed toward her; there was nothing to do but meet it, and the spark of panic morphed into something else entirely. Strange as it was, Circe felt it mold into a blossom of excitement, an anticipation of what would surely come. There would be pain.

Oh yes. Pain. Circe was not a masochist; when she met pain, she hated it and avoided it. But she wanted Archibald’s strength; she wanted him to attack her, show her why his name was the Dauntless and not the Mindless Rutting Bull. She wanted a fight—no matter how agitated, how antsy and raunchy she may have been in her thickest skin, the shadowmere truly wanted to fight him, test herself and him, do some damage and learn how to do more in the making. Sharpen her blade. Show me something. Well, he damn well showed her, did he not?

And he would bring pain.

His teeth grasped the skin of her cheek, and a tear was pulled from her eye; the sorceress felt the skin of her face pull and strain, and while his teeth had left in the moments following, she could feel her cheek broken and open to the cool air, stung by the frost that reached for her. Had there been time, Circe might have cried out from the pain of it—but then Archibald rammed into her once more, this time much more forceful, much more passionate than before. His chest slammed into her with the force of a great typhoon; Circe could feel the blow reverberate all through her body, a sharp and dull agony rolled all into one, echoing through every joint, radiating from the sunburst that was her chest. Oh, there will be a bruise, a huge, angry bruise on the entire right side of her chest—Circe halfway expected her shoulder to be dislocated. She was certainly vocal about it—her voice gasping out of her throat, not quite full enough to be a shout and packed with her shock, her suffering, and her satisfaction with is attack. Show me something.

However, Circe could not stop moving forward. Though the Dauntless’s attack was great, she had been moving too fast to stop her forward movement with such a sudden obstacle; as such, Circe shoved passed Archibald, her shoulder not dislocated after all but still sending jolts of dull, creeping pain with every fall of her hoof. More tears fell from her right eye, travelling to the place on her cheek that throbbed the loudest with hurt. She continued to travel past the Dauntless, her gait slowing ever so gradually, her feet finding a way to navigate through the dew-laden ground without risk of falling to her defeat. And then, suddenly, she was stopped. Standing stock still, her neck arched with rigid exaggeration, the shadowmere only panted into the dark night, her breath coming out in a silken, silvery fog.

Her tail thrown upwards and backwards, curled into the curve of her back.

Circe’s mind was gone now. She had gotten from Archibald what she so desperately wanted—he had certainly shown her something worthwhile. She was satisfied with their fight. And now she craved a different type of satisfaction from him.

The last conscious thought the shadowmere had been that all the children were supposed to have been in bed by now. And that, if some adult or warrior happened upon them at this late, intimate hour—well, then.

They would understand the urgency of these important matters.


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[ W/C: 721

P/C: 3/3, 1/1

Summary: Is moving too fast to avoid Archibald's bite and shove, and receives both. Shoves past him, slows down and stops. Clearly wants the D. ]

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