rise and rise again Posted on November 8, 2020 at 10:10:29 AM by Rade
to live and burn is
the most exquisite form of self destruction
In the all-consumed passions of his thoughts, the slender chestnut had existed for no more than the spawn of a dozen heartbeats, the duration of a few breaths. As soon as she had been censured, Rade forgot about the ‘Teke... and made the mistake of assuming that he would be forgotten as quickly. With eyes for nothing save the distant shore that curved ‘round towards the south - towards the Lagoon - there was nothing that could have swayed him from his chosen course. Not fear of the almost-certain death that awaited him, or passing thoughts of the young son whom he had abandoned without a farewell. Even these significant obstacles were no more than pebbles in the roan stallion’s path - by comparison, the fiery woman was nothing at all.
Until, suddenly, she was.
Though there was no force on this earth - magical or otherwise - that could reverse the effects of time, there still existed a key that allowed Rade to slip the shackles of his mortality. To forget about the fast-approaching inevitability of his end, and return to the glorious havoc of his youth. And in the moment that their bodies met with such violent force, the key turned, and the chains of the golden male’s inhibitions fell from him with a rattling clamor that all but drowned out her initial words.
Until that moment, he’d yielded readily to the force of the red woman’s charge, allowing himself to be pushed back a few strides. Now, he began to push back, the jagged edges of his hooves clawing deeply into the soil. But his adversary was not so easily moved. The desert-bred mare was equal in muscle mass to the lean stallion, but she held the advantage in height - an advantage that enabled her to close the slender gap in power that existed between their genders. But where she was flames incarnated - a thrall to the volatile passions of youth - Rade’s fury was ice, and incited aggression without consuming him. Even as he thrilled in the press of bodies and the irrepressible noises that escaped them both, the ex-bachelor was waiting - poised like a scorpion with its stinger curled - for the opportunity to strike.
You owe me an apology. The bronze palomino did not waste the precious resource of his breath on a response. Instead, he displayed his ire in the backward sweep of his ears, and in a sharp slash of his creamy tail. Arriving on the heels of his indignation was derision that the target of his rebuke should be so strongly affected by something that was, to Rade, little more than the swatting of an irksome fly. Nothing personal, and certainly nothing that would have provoked him into a childish fit of temper such as the one the chestnut ‘Teke was currently suffering. And - suspecting it would provoke her even further - the old stallion drew back to meet the stranger’s heated gaze..
And let an arrogant smile curve the corners of his lips upward.
She was quicker than he expected - lunging forward with a rapid uncoiling of tense muscles and sinew that were most comparable to a viper’s strike. There was a slender chance, perhaps, that Rade might have avoided the attack - but the roan male did not even try. Instead, he let her teeth close on the tender but otherwise-inconsequential patch of his flesh, offering nothing more than a soft hiss of rapidly-exhaled air to satisfy her. And then - with the calculation of one who has participated in so many battles that they bled together in the sieve of his mind - Rade turned with the impudent woman. Struck her shoulder-to-shoulder, like a battering ram, while the center of her gravity was shifted somewhat downward.
Then reached down, grasped a thick mouthful of her scarlet mane in his teeth, and yanked his head sharply upwards.
It was not, of course, an act intended to bring the nameless creature of flame and fury to heel. Ultimately, her blows mattered little than the bites of a particularly determined flea. Even the temptation of her scent held no sway over the aging stallion, who had long ago lost interest in matters as inane as the pleasures of flesh. This was his true pleasure - the burn of aching muscles and laboring lungs. The thunder of hooves and the hard impact of one body against another. That said, this brief scuffle was a trivial thing - a petty prize against his ultimate goal. And so when he released her, Rade sought to continue along his way in manner of waves that pummeled a stony shore. Implacable. Unyielding. A single boulder might stand in his path, but it could not hope to hold him back.
Like the death that he faced at his journey’s end, he was inevitable.