ORIGIN

He couldn't get properly to his feet.

It was lurch, flail, struggle, but anger was driving him and it was driving him toward that thin smoky bastard who'd attacked him. Abaddon threw himself up and forward in another hefty lurch--off his flanks and to his chest--but he couldn't untangle legs from metal. He kicked out and tried again--if he couldn't stand right away, to trample and to gore, at least he could throw himself on the smaller Gembound. It wasn't really a coherent thought, or planning: just blind, and potent, fury.

It was clumsy momentum that threw him for the beast--a throwing of his own weight, scrambling with hooves, rising and falling as he struggled to gain his feet. His horns dropped and thrust at nothing, striking thin air, but he viciously hoped that he had something caught beneath him.

He felt the upthrust of something sharp into the cavity of his chest, just beneath the ribs--it was damaging, if only barely. It hurt. He did not like pain.

The bull bellowed, thrashing, feeling the spill of hot blood; he twisted, struggling in now-frantic movement to get to his hooves and drive his horns down into the beast beneath him. If he managed, it would be his full weight--all his muscle--behind scrabbling, driving hooves, his horns thrusting and twisting in an attempt to truly push straight through the torso that lay beneath him.

He felt what felt like his own two horns crashing into him, not deep but terribly painful nonetheless--dimmed, at least, by adrenaline. Hooves scrambled at the floor as he regained his balance, the splatter of his own blood dripping from multiple wounds loud in his ears.

He was irritated that he hadn't done more damage to this thing, but he had damaged it, and at this point he just wanted out.

No-... He wanted in. He wanted to stampede into Draco and have a good, long look; no skinny monster would keep him from his goals. But instinctively he wanted to avoid the creature, avoid further harm.

Cloven hooves hammered at the ground, and he took off: an attempt to charge away, snorting, through the pulsing Aperture and into Draco proper.

His movement slowed from a hefty gallop to a slow trot.

He was wounded, but not severely; by instinct he could feel that the wounds would likely seal--and heal--before he lost much blood. It wouldn't be pleasant. They might become infected. But he'd survive, for now.

Head lifted, dull eyes regarding cave walls and Black Spire from a distance. Strange scents filled this place--of monsters unknown--and had he known the den of beasts he was trotting so stubbornly into he might have even second-guessed himself.

But the caves were large, and--for now, at least--he saw nothing else in motion around him. Behind him-... that was another story. The thin black thing was still visible in the distance, and Abaddon had only to slightly turn his head to see him there.

He picked up speed, again, trying to charge off and away--over the horizon and out of sight completely.

Abaddon was oblivous to the splatters of blood he left behind. Instead, he sought somewhere to rest, now: weariness trickling in. But he wasn't stupid enough to lay down in the first flat area that presented itself, no: he trotted on and on, searching out the perfect, defensible location.

This took him to the Womb.

A cracked honeycomb of Oilstone pods full of scattered bones might not have been anyone's prime bed, but to Abaddon it was perfect: he'd be hidden (he thought), sheltered (he hoped) and able to present nothing but horns to anyone disturbing him.

He didn't want one that hung too open, so he picked one with a smaller hole, and set about enlarging it. With horns and hooves he crashed through the thinned and ancient shell, pushing his way inside--turning, after, and flopping down, nostrils flared with a great and heaving exhale. The metallic stink of his own blood rose in his nostrils--angering him--but for now he needed rest.

He would remain alert until he drifted at last off to sleep--and heavens help the thin smoky thing if it came anywhere in sight.