ORIGIN

Beta managed to stumble to their feet, but not in time to try and dodge the icy breath that the dragon hurtled its way. It shrunk back with a groan as the ice froze together parts of its fur and a strong chill went up their spine, even through the pain of the icicles stabbing at their skin. It could barely see anything, but an idea raced to its head - maybe it could turn it around on her. She was giving it plenty of weapons, wasn't she?

It tried to lash out at the ice, to maybe throw some of it in Asimona's face to blind her, but they swung their paw too far and, instead of launching the ice at her, it only came back to it, hitting Beta in the face instead. They howled and stumbled back, pawing at their stinging eyes.

Beta had just gotten the last of the ice shards out of its eyes when the dragon suddenly tackled it to the ground. This was not how it had imagined its day going, not at all! It was supposed to have sneaked up on the dragon, got a hit in, waved it off in the spirit of practice, and gone to the next target. And, eventually, tell Master Vargas that it had sneaked up on a dragon! A dragon!! But no, it had to just fail everything.

"Fuck. Ow! OW! Lady, ow, come on, what the fuck are you doing that for?! Come on, I was just practicing! I'm Ruby-Beta, jeez, get off me!" It struggled against her weight, clawing at the ground for some kind of hold to get it out from under her. "What the hell are you talking about? Who the fuck is your family and why the hell should I care? Just lemme go!" Wildly, it scraped at the ground and threw a cloud of dust at her eyes, hoping to get her off of it for just a second.

The instant she reared back, Beta jerked out from beneath her and didn't waste any time. It wasn't going to run, though, because she'd just chase, as she did before. So, instead, it lashed forward with one of its paws, striking hard at one of her legs. The wind was whipping up dust in its face, but it still landed the hit, right next to her knee. As soon as it hit, it hissed and staggered back, closing its eyes against the dust. "God, why did you have to be such a pain? Vargas just told me to train! I don't know what the fuck the others have been doing, I don't know about any war! Fuck! Don't follow me!"

It turned, then, and stumbled towards the exit of Monoceros, head down against the wind, still shivering from the icy blast and blood dribbling down its shoulder. That was so damn pathetic. If Master Vargas had seen that display...it would be over for them.

*exit