A spot of guilt colours my cheeks the split second after I spit his name. The image of a sweet young girl splashing in a pool of innocence fades quickly after my words, and I wonder if I ought to have interrupted something so intimate in nature. I didn't recognize the girl from my quick glance of her: but the stallion I do know, and as I force myself to follow through with my next phrase, his head slowly turns to face me.
Father.
Well, shit. That's not what I was going for.
A chill runs down my spine upon witnessing the glitter of the stallion's unusually green eyes, and the sensation burrows straight to my bones upon seeing the fangs that trace the outline of his lips. But the chill turns to heat as I receive what I'd come to, adrenaline sparking across the nerve endings of my skin in heated anticipation. It doesn't matter who he thinks I look like - the fact is that we will settle things between our nation now, one way or another.
I've been waiting to kill you.
"Give it your fucking best."
The now-red-striped stallion raises his wings and, in a devastatingly powerful movement, launches himself toward me. A war cry pierces the veil of silence around us as I throw my weight back on to my hind legs, chin tucked to present my antlers to the Loessian king's forelegs, chest, and neck. I dream them to be made of metal and stone, for he approaches with such speed that their regular bone would be subject to snapping.
There's a sound of tearing and I realize that I'm breathlessly strewn along the floor of nothingness, the wind knocked out of me from Wolfbane's tackle. I taste blood in my mouth where I'd bitten my tongue, but with a grit of my teeth I surge back to my hooves, and in the next moment, two bird-feather wings of my own send me skyward.
It's my turn to charge him now - and in a show of aerial battle, I attempt to fly above the Fjord's broad back, hooves - dreamt as talons now - striking out and attempting to leave bleeding rivers in their wakes.