I was going to town, man. You should’ve seen it. My hooves were flying things, almost blurry as I struck again and again and again at the writhing appendage. I didn’t honestly know where I got all this…this desire to hurt this thing. I didn’t know it, I couldn’t possibly have predicted that it was a malevolent creature crawled from the depths of the earth having emerged to fuck shit up. I only knew it felt wrong here, on this planet, on my doorstep—and as more people entered the fray and threw their own punches, nothing but blurry smudges in my peripheral, I nonetheless felt an obsessive compulsion for protection. At least, I think so. It was doing something, and maybe it was the right thing to do and the right thing to feel, so. Maybe I was doing something right.

I was distracted, though; my furious onslaught was disrupted as the whisper of warm words washed over me more forcefully than the heat of this place and the fire of the ginormous lizard I was trying to beat the crap out of. With a spike of shock and a rumble of horror, I watched as Ma—Ma!—my own Ma ran up the tail of the monster, some sort of pale feline walking the trip-line of the fire-lizard’s spine. My heart was gone somewhere in my throat, or maybe it was stuck in a fetlock, or something, and I was a whirl of panic, but this was different, because it wasn’t centered on me for once—Ma! Ma, get down from there, get away, what are you trying to prove, this isn’t your battle, this isn’t—

There was nothing for me to do at that point; there was no following her, as much as I ached to do. Some yahoo had sprung up out of nowhere, somehow finding the nerve to chide me about my actions, and it sidetracked me from Ma and the swing of the tail and there were a few moments where I lost track of it, which was a mistake.

*"It's not safe!"*

“A-PPARENTLY,” I screamed in a voice layered with sarcasm and a hint of hysteria with my worry for Ma; maybe it was rude of me, but with the fear and the worry about the world and everything and Ma and Bro who wasn’t a bro and whether or not I had my shit together and knowing I didn’t have my shit together—well. With all that buzzing around my head, it seemed damn foolish for someone to be calling me “young”. “Get out of here!!” I snapped, gritting my teeth as my eyes left the monster for mere moments to gaze upon this stranger, “Go, get cover, this isn’t your problem, this ain’t yoOAUURRRGGH!!!”

I hadn’t been watching the tail. As distracted as I had been, I didn’t notice it writhing and leaping and finally rising with a furious flick, slamming straight into my stomach and chest, and suddenly I was in the air, all for legs flailing helplessly, my entire torso on fire with the pain of it, the wind knocked out of me even though I was somehow finding a way to scream my head off.

The funny thing was, I wasn’t scared. There was no fear for my health and safety, no fear of my imminent death in the slightest. No, the only thing I was feeling was pure hatred, a hatred that boiled for the beast and the sideshow Bobette that had afforded me this painful dilemma. This hatred could’ve scared me, but I was consumed by it; I was gripped with a frightening sense of focus, a rabid desire to hurt this thing, and a pinpoint of absolute clarity that decided I wanted to be on the ground.

I wanted to be on the ground.

And with a smack-flash, I was there.

It was the very first time I had utilized the shock in my bones and body, the very first time I had wielded the magic inherited from Daddy-dearest, and it could’ve confused me and shaken me if I let it. But I was too caught in the fury and the focus, and even though I was flailing in the air one minute and laying on my side on the ground the next, it was exactly as I wanted, and it was right. I rolled to my feet with a snort and a catch in my throat, because pain was radiating through all four corners of my ass and body, but I had a plan. I remembered what I saw from Ma; I had glimpsed what she had tried to do, sending her horn into the back of the beast, and I knew she had failed in the doing—so I was gonna finish what she started. I charged like a bolt back to the tail, and leapt upon it once more, moving too swiftly to worry about balancing myself on such a wild thing. In a split second, I decided that I didn’t want to be there, but up further, closer to the lumpy hips on ridged lower back of the fire monster. The all-consuming desire engulfed me again—there was another spark and a flash, and this time I was actually aware of the sensation of movement, the gritty transportation of my entire being through….time? Shock? I wasn’t worried about the mechanics—there was lizard ass right below me, bucking and unsteady under my feet, and all I wanted to do what kneel and ram my horn straight into its scaly oblivion.

And that’s what I tried to do.


[Is thrown into the air by the tail, and warps back to the ground. Runs onto the tail, warps once more to the monster’s hips, and attempts to imitate Ophelia’s earlier attack of striking the monster in his vertebrae with her horn]