illynx,

The sheer speed of the pair was dazzling, the brindled unicorn taking in deep breaths of the forest air, sweat beginning to build in the crevices of her dark brown flesh, the smell blending ever so sweetly with the odor of blood and overturned earth. She knew that her good luck at managing to keep up with the similarly aged but far more mentally mature mare was running low, the sapphire dragon still loitering about in the overhanging branches, his claws gleaming in Illynx's mind every time she heard his unseen movements from ears that struggled to tag the winged lizard's precise location during the fast paced melee match between Smoke and herself.

Her horn breezed right on by the side of the healer by all of a couple of inches, the grulla having driven hard to the left around the tree rather than continuing straight forward as Illynx had anticipated, and instead of skin, the Gilded Blade's teeth were met with the thick, black mass of Smoke's tail as the muscular bundle of equine slipped behind the rough trunk of the tree. Golden eyes pressed shut momentarily to avoid getting any hair in them, reopening as the lithely built unicorn slid to a sudden halt, her front end lowering and hooves gripping the earth as her hindquarters swung about behind her, her angle adjusted to allow her to react to the reappearance of the grulla from the other side of the tree; she was not daft enough to follow her into the woods, where the resident wench would surely have a decided upper hoof. "Quit running, you coward!" she called out in frustration, her slight disapproval at the lack of honor seen as the healer ran away from her, much as one would from a hornet protecting its nest, was chased away quickly and replaced with a keen sense of danger.

While she turned to greet Smoke's re-appearance, the dragon she had tried so hard to keep tabs on had been lost in her arrogant annoyance at having been smacked with a tail while her opponent fled had come into play. Zaffre's assault from above caught her in mid-bend, a savage cry of outrage and pain escaping from her as his razor sharp claws bit into her neck and back, lacerating the soft flesh as if it was merely water. His tail came down on top of her hinds as the turn was completed, the golden gaze of the former corporal wide with the sharp agony that raced across her upper body, the blood running in bright lines down her chocolate pelt as she rocked her weight forward and back in a series of savage bucks, attempting to dislodge the vicious grip of the wyvern while also scooting herself forward, allowing her right side to regain cover alongside the tree as she attempted to deal with the rather urgent matter of the dragon on her back.

That the similarly aged mare had matured far more than Illynx was becoming more and more obvious with every successful trick that was played upon her, the proof of having dealt with naivety in her own children clear and precise in how she used the youthful arrogance that the unicorn had managed to cling to through her adult life against her in this forest. That she could not provide herself a means to assault the foal-spitting rat with her creature upon her back broiled within her, made the agony of the war ground upon her top-line much less permeating than it should have been. An ear was kept on the other mare as Illynx raced against time to dislodge the scaled creature before the grulla cleared her path around the tree, attempting in all her desperation to keep her right side as near to the cover of the broad oak as she could.

[ 3/4 :: 640 words; Illynx pivots to redirect her line of vision to the other side of the tree where she feels Smoke will emerge from; as she turns, Zaffre lands upon her back and digs large cuts into her neck and along her spine, as well as ripping the area just above her dock open with his barbed tail. She attempts to buck him off while regaining the cover of the tree on her right side, keeping a "heads up" for Smoke. ]

[ EDIT: To adjust word count cause I'm a derp. :3 ]

intending to burn - pretending to fight it
everyone learns faster on fire