He was not expecting the blow. Or maybe he was, with his early forms of cheek and audacity. But he had not yet known pain. And this simple scratch may as well have been a killing blow to a child newly hatched. He bleated and stumbled back as it tore open skin - shallow, of course, but he thought it might be deep, the way it felt. Like fiery lines had shredded across his skin, like his nerves themselves had figured out how to turn screaming into a sensation.

But it went away fast. In its place...euphoria quickly flooded in. Ice quelling the fire and then reigniting it, but colder, more lifting, like helium in a balloon. He felt light-headed, he felt like he was drifting from his body. Colors blurred, his vision shifted. He couldn't see anything but then he could see everything. It was strange, like he was underwater (although he had never been underwater before) and every fiber of his young, breathing body was singing in a discordant harmony. It was great.

"Woahh..." he bleated, stumbling. "What...is this magic?" Oh wait, hadn't the other one hurt him? He could still feel the wound on his cheek, but it was a distant thought, like it had happened to a part he'd cut off and regrown. But that still meant he'd been hurt! Why was he laughing about that? Why was he giggling? Was it funny?

Through it all, however, a strike of wrongness pierced through, followed very quickly by fear. This...was this right? No, this didn't feel right. He felt happy, he felt excited, but the way his heart was hammering wasn't like before. It was heavy, drugged. A sense of weight came with the euphoria, the toxins like metal in his veins. It was so deeply wrong and so horribly disturbing that the giggling cut abruptly and he simply stared at the other with confusion. "What. You do to me?" There was a tremble, disgust in his voice. Anger. But he couldn't quite reach those right now. So he just tried to stay conscious and aware and held onto that wrongness like a lifeline.

He stared, blankly at first, at Doru, watching idily, almost carelessly, as the calf's world turned upside down and inside out. He bleated again as he struggled to stay upright and fight back those feelings of euphoria. It was not right, not right!! It was overwhelming, artificially rewriting neurons and flooding his brain with false chemicals to drive him away from fear. Make him happy. Make him complacent.

But this calf was anything but complacent. The euphoria flooded through veins already hot and bright with a new life's spark, and like adding sugar, spice, and everything nice to a cauldron, it mixed with that anger and fear to create a unique sensation not unlike a fight or flight, leaning heavily towards fight. But not out of survival, but out of a need to feel, a love for rushing blood and adrenaline and danger. The fallacy of youth invincibility and a prideful indignation that this much older Gembound would walk up to a newborn kid and drug him to teach him a lesson. He didn't know much, but he knew that was pretty fucked up.

He bleated again, but this was mixed with a strangely aggressive hiss as his wobbly stance widened, eyes trying to focus on the dark form in front of him. "Teach...a lesson? I...teach you one!" His muscles bunched and he sprang forward, his head lowered so that the opal that jutted from his forehead was pointed right in Doru's direction. Heat suddenly flared across its surface, the gemstone glowing almost white hot as he made to buck up, not stab through but score the pointed, heated horn right up the torso of Doru.

The dust in his eyes wasn't going to stop him as he charged forward. It put him off course, but he still felt the horn connect with Doru's torso. He felt a moment of victory before the rush of wings frustrated him further. He couldn't see for a moment, trying to blink the dust and grit from his eyes, but everything was blurry and spotty. Still, he'd gathered enough that the other had flown out of his reach.

He began to kick and buck at nothing, daring Doru to come closer again, his movements still stumbling and awkward and now with the blindness added on top, he looked like he was having some kind of a fit. Which he was, in a way - it was quite easy to see the childish tantrum taking over. He'd only been alive for a few minutes but already he was experiencing a deep, righteous, and prideful fury. Doru was trying to reason with him, but he was beyond reason now, his venom-addled mind and the confusion and pride based anger sending him into a full-on little boy tantrum as another little burst of wind went Doru's way. To knock him out of the air, or just because he had nothing else he could do while he was flying out of his reach?

"You!" he brayed. "Coward! You mean, you dumb! I will be...better then you! Just wait! Won't be little forever!" It was a promise and a threat. Yeah, he wasn't going to forget this.

He continued kicking and stumbling for a little while, waiting for more lashing words, maybe even another bite or something to come, but nothing. Silence. Slowly, he settled, turning his head to rub the grit out of his eyes and blinking back his vision. The other one was gone.

He spat and then trampled on some broken bones for good measure. He was still trembling from the euphoric overdrive and it was really starting to make his head spin. He didn't like it, it was too fake it was too nauseating to stand. It made him want to chew his veins right out of his skin if only he didn't have to feel this false sense of happiness anymore.

The fawn collapsed to the ground and curled in on himself, still trembling with rage that persisted and dimmed to a smoldering from the entire experience. The face of the creature burned in his vision - yeah he'd get him back for that. When he was grown, he would be the one "teaching a lesson."

For now, however, he just curled tighter and shut his eyes and waited for the venom to run its course.

*exit