magnus

[magnus]

It roared against the back of his mind, the warning, the danger. He could feel it snapping its jaws, the blood in his veins pulsing angrily. His vision almost blurred with it, but the longer they fought, the more difficult it was to remind himself that this was just training—this was faux. He wasn’t in the heat of the battle; he wasn’t trying to really maim her or end the fight with her limp and on the floor.

His breath came in short bursts, his mind sharp and calculating.

She lurched forward as he lunged and so he pivoted with it, feet landing and then pushing him forward again. He wasn’t about to sit still and let her take aim at him. He had a feeling that she was going to kick out but he didn’t push to the side; there wasn’t enough time for him to put that much distance between them—not enough to clear the attack at least. Instead, he did the opposite, throwing his weight to his right and into her. It ended up shortchanging the attack so while she hit him on the meaty part of his shoulder, she didn’t have the distance to fully extended and cause full damage. He would think of the ache later.

His eyes were sharp as they watched her, and he stopped his forward momentum abruptly, bringing his hocks to the ground in a sliding stop. As she swiveled back around, throwing herself in him, he pivoted on his back end, lifting his front legs and followed his shoulder to the left, head lifted high and away from her grasping, blunt teeth. Maybe the move would surprise her. If she threw herself against something that ended up not being fully there, it could have the opposite effect of making her lose her own balance.

He didn’t think on it too hard, instead relying on instinct, as he always had.

Once the move was complete, he worked quickly to find his center of balance again. He had never liked to retreat in the heat of battle. He had known other soldiers who preferred to fight from a distance, landing their attack and then falling back, pushing forward to only land another blow. It was exhaustive and long and although he knew there were advantages to it, he could never bring himself to try. He preferred to fight in the thick of it, the dust rising around them, the sting of sweat in his nostrils, the ache.

He wasn’t a sniper; he was a brawler.

And so he continued that dance, ignoring the ache in his shoulder, the sting in his neck where she had sloughed off the skin. They were still close enough and he kept that distance, rising up on his back legs and then raining down on her with the cracked, ragged edges of his hooves. He was aiming for her spine, for her withers, her haunches. It didn’t matter, as long as he felt the thrill of the impact.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll