[Hayame has killed people. She has cut off their heads and displayed them in the marketplace of Venera. She has seen dead bodies, rotting on the side of the road. She has seen wild jinba brought into the stables with infection raging in what was left of their arms, and she has seen yearlings lashed to the flensing post to be made Armless in front of frightened stable-bred jinba who needed to learn who the masters truly were.
But there were things that could still affect her. Things that had nothing to do battle, with the violence necessary for victory and honor that she has trained herself all her life to ignore. Things like that spooky little black colt butchering humans in his hut and smiling as he offered her a freshly cut slice of human liver with blood smeared about his mouth. Things like the feel of ropes, binding, heats, burning, grooms jeering, a stallion pawing at the earth. Things like Liem swallowing hot, fresh blood gushing from a man's neck.
Hayame runs. She almost forgets how much it hurts to run, how each step jars her shoulder and sends pain lancing up her neck and down into her ribs. The path they had decided to take on their retreat is a meandering one, designed to throw off pursuit and not lead directly back to the Meridian camp. She remembers it with no problem, she leads them to land covered with moss so thick it obscures the distinct hoofprints she tends to leave behind, they forge a "river" of garden run off...
But Amos' Fear spell still follows her. The bite of the bit in the corners of her mouth, the feel of being exposed and unable to cover her shameful state with a trussed-up tail, the humiliating fear sparked by the scent of male in her nostrils, the unwelcome, dominating weight upon her body, forelegs grasping, squeezing-
Her legs falter. She stumbles over something, a rock, a root, she doesn't see it, she doesn't care-
Hayame jerkingly slows her pace in a sudden turn, her right hand slipping weakly from the clutch in the girth and hanging uselessly from her shoulder as she braces her weight on the left, panting far heavier than a woman in her peak physical condition should be over a run, sweat lathered on her dun coat and cold on her skin. She is pale, and Liem still smells like Amos' blood, and though she looks over to the man to make sure he is still there... His eyes are still red.
And Hayame has enough food left in her first stomach that it suddenly comes up, and her hand isn't enough to stop it, beginning to retch noisily against the tree trunk.]
cw: vomit
But there were things that could still affect her. Things that had nothing to do battle, with the violence necessary for victory and honor that she has trained herself all her life to ignore. Things like that spooky little black colt butchering humans in his hut and smiling as he offered her a freshly cut slice of human liver with blood smeared about his mouth. Things like the feel of ropes, binding, heats, burning, grooms jeering, a stallion pawing at the earth. Things like Liem swallowing hot, fresh blood gushing from a man's neck.
Hayame runs. She almost forgets how much it hurts to run, how each step jars her shoulder and sends pain lancing up her neck and down into her ribs. The path they had decided to take on their retreat is a meandering one, designed to throw off pursuit and not lead directly back to the Meridian camp. She remembers it with no problem, she leads them to land covered with moss so thick it obscures the distinct hoofprints she tends to leave behind, they forge a "river" of garden run off...
But Amos' Fear spell still follows her. The bite of the bit in the corners of her mouth, the feel of being exposed and unable to cover her shameful state with a trussed-up tail, the humiliating fear sparked by the scent of male in her nostrils, the unwelcome, dominating weight upon her body, forelegs grasping, squeezing-
Her legs falter. She stumbles over something, a rock, a root, she doesn't see it, she doesn't care-
Hayame jerkingly slows her pace in a sudden turn, her right hand slipping weakly from the clutch in the girth and hanging uselessly from her shoulder as she braces her weight on the left, panting far heavier than a woman in her peak physical condition should be over a run, sweat lathered on her dun coat and cold on her skin. She is pale, and Liem still smells like Amos' blood, and though she looks over to the man to make sure he is still there... His eyes are still red.
And Hayame has enough food left in her first stomach that it suddenly comes up, and her hand isn't enough to stop it, beginning to retch noisily against the tree trunk.]