Diving Deep - Solo

[FennWenn]

A shriek rang through the air.

Daugi leaped out from under Fenn with a speed that shocked the breath from his body. One moment, he was sitting slack-jawed on her back. The next, he was sprawled out on the soggy stones in stark surprise, the wind knocked clean out of him and his eyes staring at the white skies. His back hurt a little from the impact, and his head spun.

Time blurred past while he shockedly contemplated the pain and the sliminess of the rock underneath him. A bath was going to be needed, far sooner than he’d hoped for this month. But he had a feeling that this was the least of his worries right now.

As soon as he began to get his bearings again, a fuzzy shape interrupted the sky above. Fenn blinked and focused on it.

One very pale and trembling Loreley hunched over him, wavering gaze him over for injuries. She sighed in relief at finding none worth her time. Which, Fenn noted with new alarm, was ironic. Blood welled up from a couple red gashes on her arm and ran down in thin trails, diluting where it mixed with droplets of lakewater. It seemed that Lore had taken a dunk in the lake while he was busy using the rocks as a bed. There was splashing in the distance.

He startled her by woozily grabbing the wrist of her injured arm, trying to point out the gashes. The girl shook her head and grabbed him by his upper arms. “I’m okay,” she half-shrieked in reply, hauling him upright for the third time today. “Just scraped! It tried to bite me and drag me under but- but your dog-”

A hair-curling scream rose from the lake, nearly horse-like, but not quite. Fenn’s breath caught in his throat as he turned to stare.

The little fae didn’t see his mount locked in combat very often. Usually, she dutifully followed his preferred way of dealing with problems — running the fuck away. Now was an exception. The horse was no longer a horse, but a roughly horse-shaped and terrifying visage of limp seaweed, algae, and glowing eyes. When it moved, slivers of bone and lifeless grey muscle peered out of the mass. A massive, eelish tail thumped the rocks where once it had appeared to have hair and bristles. Daugi lunged to lock her jaws around the creature’s neck, twisting it as if to snap it in the same way she dispatched so many deer in the past.

The not-horse bellowed out in anger, not having any of this. As Daugi struggled for a grip, the creature contorted to bludgeon her back with one slimy hoof, sweeping its tail toward her head menacingly. The wolf let go, but only to dodge the thick appendage. Only dive in for another bite.

Fenn’s hands trembled at his side, thoughts churning, wanting desperately to help, but having no idea how to intervene between the battling behemoths. If he whistled for her to flee, he risked distracting her. He risked allowing the not-horse a decisive blow. To throw ice from afar carried the same possibility. If he tried getting closer to help her fight, his risked himself and her concentration.

And if he did nothing…

But what could he do?

At his side, Loreley cried out with that same frustration.

Both beasts traded blows and bites. They were quick. They were vehement. They were rough equals in size and strength. The wolf, it was clear, was more experienced in this sort of struggle. She aimed for the vitals and gouged at its chest. She bit legs with the intention of hobbling the beast, of wrenching joints out of place. She blocked clumsy blows at her own neck with a snap of her powerful jaws. But it also became painfully clear that Daugi was made of true flesh and bone, while the slavering not-horse was something else entirely. When the wolf managed to dislocate ones of its knees, it sharply twisted the leg and popped the bone back into place. When her snapping pried a rib loose from its flesh, it only spared a second to stare at the ivory scythe as it hit the rocks, and then carried on.