Sweat and fur combined on his tongue, the hair, still thick from the winter just passed, brushed in between his yellowed teeth, while the salty sweat fuelled the fire that continued to grow within him. His sister was a dragon, but Madyrn could only be described as the flame, uncontrolled and wild, free and unrestrained - where his brother was the shadow, reclusive, subtle, silent and just as deadly in his strikes. Where their sisters represented the flames and shadows combined in one barely stable concoction, they were the elements split, fire filling one and darkness filling the other, the instability of each elements unrestrained by that which would buffer them forcing the brothers to forever be by each others' side. But they had split now, and in the absence of his shadowy sibling, Madyrn's ability to control that fiery rage dissolved further. It was for them that he began fighting, but it was the rage that kept him fighting, his stamina lasting only as long as the fires were lit within his passionate breast.

Crash went his hoof into the bony ridge of Tolio's limb, though he did not feel the crunch he so desired, the action that would have crippled his opponent - the breaking of bones. However the fury and pain that echoed from the unicorn's maw was enough to trigger a grin to split his mouth, though Madyrn would have preferred to see the steed fall down in his muddy home as well. It must have been that mud which caused his hoof to slip off target, just as it had Tolio's hooves upon his chest. Eyes rolled in their sockets, as Madyrn's forelegs met the slippery earth once more, his crown retching away from the unicorn's side that he had so wished to taste blood upon. Curse this horned fiend, he was as slippery as the ground beneath them. But just as Madyrn's large hooves allowed him to get more of a grip on the earth beneath him, he would find his advantage over this opponent, and he would destroy him.

Distracted as he was with regaining his footing, the knight of flame did not notice that the other was towering above him until the critical moment. But Madyrn was not like others - his sense of self-preservation had left him the moment his control had slipped, the moment that raging wildfire that was his weapon had taken over. As Tolio rose above him, he did not see an attack to avoid - rather, he saw an opportunity to exploit. He was like a bulldozer set on full throttle, only stopping his forward momentum when he either ran out of fuel, or he hit something unmovable. His enemy was standing precariously upon his hind legs, one of them having suffered a bloody injury thanks to Madyrn himself. Madyrn was beneath him, bracing for impact - but also determined to plough into him, knock him to the ground, and pummel his horned skull into a million pieces. So he made to push into the brute, tucking his chin into his aching chest and launching himself to the left, towards the rearing unicorn.

Then the pain came.

Just as he made his motion, he felt the stallion's hooves come crashing down upon his own back. They landed over his lumbar region, one of them deflecting sideways over towards Madyrn's right flank due to the close proximity he was in to Tolio, the other landing squarely upon the region just left to his spine. It radiated throughout his entire back, even causing his hip to ache, and triggering his left hind limb to quaver in its resolve to keep pushing towards him, knock him flat, make him bleed, destroy. The bruise that would rise there would be large and hoof-shaped, the muscle beneath swollen and aching for weeks to come. Heat radiated from it shortly after the pain began, heat that was symbolic of the fire that fuelled this raging, out of control bulldozer, further towards his enemy, hoping to meet Tolio's unsteady hindend, primarily the left flank, with his own left shoulder, to take advantage of the precarious position Tolio was just in to lay his painful attack across Madyrn's broad back, and defeat him.


[ ooc :
708 words.
3/4 attack posts.
0/1 closing defence. ]