magnus

[magnus]

When they fought, Magnus locked down.

He did not think about the fact that she was a young girl and that he was a now-immortal stallion, that she had a handful of years of experience and he had decades, centuries. He did not think about the fact that she was still growing and he was at the peak of physical fitness, forever locked there. He did not think about the difference in their size, in their mass. If he had, he would have been a terrible mentor for her.

Instead, he quietly locked that part of him up and, in return, opened the cage door for something else entirely. Something darker, something that stalked at the edge of his mind, growling beneath its breath. Something that hungered for the snap of bones and thuds of impact, for the soft cries. It made him cold, calculating, vicious; it made him more than just a fighter in these situations. It made him dangerous.

He did not tell Raeg’n about this beast that snapped its jaws.

He did not tell Raeg’n about the iron grip he had to keep upon his collar.

He did not tell Raeg’n how difficult it was to wrestle him back into the cage when they were through.

No. He just fought. He focused on how much he had missed it, his mind buzzing with electricity as he looked at her. As he lunged, she dove to the side, instinctual, as he would have done, and although the part of him that was still lucid was pleased with her progress, the other part of him growled in frustration. She snapped at his neck but if she made purchase, he did not feel it in the adrenaline and rush of the moment. He supposed that he would feel the pinched skin and sloughed off hair later. Cosmetic damage.

“Enough of the bullshit, Raeg’n,” he growled, low and deep. “Fight to win.”

He angled away as she had, taking one great lunge to the left before planting his feet solidly and then slingshotting his back legs outward and upward. Her kick grazed him in the process, but the fetlock was such a small target and he was not standing still. He grit his teeth, showing no outward sign of being hit and instead focused on the attack, his roughshod hooves aiming to make purchase on her side, her belly—all depending on how far away she had moved and her current positioning during the dance.

Magnus didn’t wait to see.

As soon as the kick was done, he brought his feet back underneath him and then spun around on his haunches, lunging for her left side again. This time, he used his size to his advantage, coming down upon her with teeth. He aimed for her relatively thin neck and pulled back, hoping to off-set her balance or, if he was lucky, catch her enough off guard that he could pull her to the ground. That’s when the fun began.

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