Had Kahlua bothered to look back to the stallion as she cantered away, she would have almost been pleased with herself to find the wound she had left on his left flank. She was not one for violence, generally happy to live a happy and peaceful life so long as she was given the power she desired. Unfortunately, in this situation, she had no choice but to defend herself. Besides, the stallion was ruining the perfectly unscathed coat she wore and tainting the bleached white portions a sickly red. If that didn't call for retaliation, Kahlua couldn't think of something that would.

After hitting his flank so squarely, Kahlua had heard the sounds of the stallion moving away from her as she had moved forward. A slight smirk lit her lips then, as she turned, glad that her plan to distance herself from the stallion had worked. With her hooves dug into the ground now, she could watch as he turned toward her and pulled his ears back. Her smile quickly faded as he lunged toward her. Clearly he had not understood what she had said to him. Where instinct had been guiding her before, she felt a familiar fear creeping into her bones. The dancing of the moonlight in the trees did nothing to ease her troubled mind.

As the stallion ran across the field toward her, Kahlua found that she had plenty of time to prepare. It was both a blessing and a curse. Although she would have time to react to the stallion, the idle time gave the wound on her left thigh plenty of time to start aching. A dull throb began pulsing and she gritted her teeth against the pain. Her ears rapidly flicked several times from facing the stallion to down on her head. Indecision clouded her judgment and kept her almost frozen in place. She should have run, except the confusion took so much of her limited brain power to process that she could do little else.

“I'm not here to be part of the tournament,” she finished her words through gritted teeth as the stallion drew nearer. Her speech was fast and high-pitched, fear evident in the way the words fell from her lips. Still, Farenjer showed no signs of stopping. Wide eyes watched him fearfully, a thin line of blue iris visible between her open pupils and white sclera. She was lucky he had not tried to pierce her heart this time around, for surely she would have fallen.

As the stallion came upon her left side and halted to rear, Kahlua suddenly realized she needed to move, frightened or not. She bounded forward, moving along his left side, but before she could get too far the stallion's hooves landed hard on the left side of her rump. The extra weight, if only present for a moment, left her straining to keep her back end standing. She screamed in anger and pain as bruising began to settle in where he had hit. The extra motion in the area also caused additional damage to the tear his horn had previously inflicted. His bite reached her croup and provided a second wave of pain that augmented the first and caused her to shudder.

Wanting to run and hide, but also wanting to punish the stallion, Kahlua wasted no time in attacking the first thing she saw- his gaskin. She reared lowly, attempting to smash her hooves into his gaskin or hock joint. Really, anything on his leg would do. While lashing out with her hooves, Kahlua also attempted to bite her teeth into his croup. As soon as she felt her feet touch mossy earth again, Kahlua raced off. On her first step out, she bucked quickly again. If she did not hit him, at least it might have acted as a preventative measure to keep him from following her immediately.

As she moved out, she cantered on her left lead to try and prevent excess strain on her bruising and torn left hind limb. After about three paces, back near the center of the open area, Kahlua halted. This time, instead of turning her whole body to face where she thought the stallion might be, she just turned her head to the left to look back. Somewhere underneath the fear was a glimmer of hope that he would finally understand she wasn't here for the tournament. Some small part of her hoped that he would stop his attacks and let her be, let her run off into the distance to tend to her few but painful wounds. She would likely not be so lucky.

[Post: 2/4, 772 words]