For some reason, when he sees her - standing atop the sand dunes, Gaucho is reminded of the cold, and without thinking, he paws at the sands to ensure his footing. Subconsciously, her blue and white coat reminds him of a spar with another unicorn, which took place in a twisted cave of ice. That unicorn had used her experience moving on ice to try and defeat him - and it had almost worked, for the stallion's massive hooves had skidded and slid all about in his pursuit. In his primitively conscious mind however, he is not aware of this connection, and he brushes it off as no more than a cool breeze which has created this feeling of unsteadiness, and cold. The idea does not simply leave him though, for as she calls down to him, Gaucho's simple mind begins to formulate a plan, even before she takes her first step in his direction.

She is new to the Throat, and although the distance between them masks the majority of the features of her body from his stormy gaze, he still wonders just how used to the sand and the heat she is. Gaucho recalls his first few spars in the Throat, during the heat of TallSun, and how moving in the sands tore and tested his muscles like nothing he had previously experienced. True - he was much larger than She, and his bulk required more energy to stop and start, yet how much propulsion could hooves so small possibly give her? Would her muscles be able to endure the ever present heat and the tiring footing? Even though Orangemoon had brought clouds to the skies, the Throat remained stagnant and hot.

Tossing his antlered head, Gaucho returned her cry with a blood-curdling one of his own - his voice was rich and powerful as he bellowed in response. Mentally he warned Mara to remove herself from him, lest she end up skewered, or worse, poisoning his herdmate. With a hiss, the white snake circled down his powerful foreleg and disappeared underneath a rock. While he wanted to ensure that members of his herd were prepared for anything that they might see during battle, the bite of a snake such as Mara, would have last consequences that did not simply go away, once the spar was over.

As he waits, Gaucho spreads his massive black wings in an attempt to intimidate the smaller mare, as she gallops down the dune towards him. Come, come, he beckons, fanning his wings at her, but refraining from taking a single step in her direction. Tired. ....Heat. He thinks as she runs - his muscles and body were acclimatized to the Throat's temperature and landscape; were her's? Or would that icy coat of hers simply melt away?

As she neared - a few strides out, the bay snapped his left wing to his side, lest it be punctured as she charged by, and aimed his antlered brow in her direction. Listening and watching her rhythm as she moved, Gaucho meant to knock the left side of his antlers into her horn, protecting himself from a gash on his left side, and continue the thrust to hit her left cheek or neck with the right side of his antlers, as his neck is forced to turn with her movements. He has used this move on unicorns in the past, and relies on that confidence now. When he deems that her strides are carrying her just past his flank, Gaucho bucks towards her left thigh, kicking with the flat of his hooves, rather than the edges, to charlie-horse the muscle, rather than open a wound; this was simply a spar, after all.

As his hind-end returns to the ground, Gaucho begins to turn into the left, his stormy gaze searching for her. Large moose-like ears listen carefully, to detect the sound of her hooves upon the harder ground here. Although he is turning to where he believes she might be, he keeps his head low, and does not fully open his eyes. Thus, he protects both his vision from being blurred by sand and sun, and places himself in a defensive position, as he rotates to the left towards where he presumes she will be .

[WC: 721. Gaucho is using buffs SWIFT and DANCE]

Although he can feel that his antlers have connected against her, he is momentarily surprised by the lack of resistance he feels. But no - that isn't it. It isn't a lack of resistance; her neck seems to be moving with his antlers. In that instant, he recalls that she is quite a bit shorter than he, and of a much more slender lineage - is it possible that her neck has snapped? Could that account for why it seems her body is suddenly perpendicular to his, rather than continuing on parallel, as he would have assumed? But no - for she continues to twirl as if unconstrained by physics, and suddenly her rump is positioned directly before him. Wrongly assuming that her momentum from galloping towards him would carry her forward, Gaucho has lowered his head, bucking now at empty air, as she attempts to buck at him. Luckily, given that the distance between them was almost nothing due to her spin, and that his muscular neck is far higher than back, her buck landed against his chest muscles causing only slight discomfort, rather than pain, as his neck snaps up and out of his own misguided buck (and consequently, out of the way). His mind let slip the dazzling way she was able to spin so suddenly to attack (though perhaps he would ponder it again later), and instead focuses on the task at hand. As her hooves pull away, Gaucho wonders if she has pierced one of them on the sharpened-bone spikes which hang from his neck.

As she uses her lineage to her advantage - moving from a standstill into a gallop-like stride length - Gaucho lunges after her, mentally noting that she must have avoided his spiked-collar during her buck, for she shows no signs of injury. Although his is not as delicate and lithe as her thoroughbred body, he is none the less powerful, with battle-practiced speed. His tall frame is able to cover the ground with a wider spread, as he tries to eliminate the few strides of distance between them. His antlered brow was already lowered from his failed buck, and now it hurtles towards her like a bulldozer. 17.3 hands of solid Gaucho-meat threatened to meet her outstretched jaws, as she turned to bite at him. If her teeth connected against the bone in the center of his antlers, he cannot feel it, but she has surely missed his chest. That is both the strength, and the downfall of his magical appendages; while they have protected him from her toothy-attack, they have also failed to provide any insight as to whether she has hit against them hard, or if she has bit one of his boney-tines.

He continues to keep his antlered brow low to avoid a horn-attack retaliation, as he tosses his head to shake her muzzle out of it, should she still be caught there. Given their close proximity, Gaucho tries to use his brute strength to his advantage. Lunging forward and directly at her, he aims to scrape the left side of his antlers against her left shoulder. As his momentum and large stride propel him by her, he throws his weight into his left shoulder, hopefully knocking against her flank and shoving her lithe body to the right, but also scraping her with his spiked bone collar.

Rather than bucking at her, as he did before, he tries a different tactic: one closer to home. Literally. Digging his hooves deep into the sand as he moves away from her, he crow-hops, aiming to kick sand into her eyes, should she be trying to follow. He has lived in this desert oasis long enough to learn its secrets, as well as its lessons. His body has learned how to retain heat, and not sweat so profusely even under the Throat's harsh sun, and how to move gracefully across the sands, without overly exerting his muscles. He had also learned, how to use the desert to his advantage - much like kicking sand up at an opponent. And although she is now his herd-sister and family, no matter how new to the Throat she is, he will still see to it that she endures the Throat's every hidden weapon, as well as its secrets.

[WC: 719. Gaucho is using buffs SWIFT and DANCE]