Foal Prompt: Crossroads

Airachnid glanced up into the thicket of dense trees creating a tangled sky. The violently dark clouds overhead shuddered, threatening rain. Large droplets were already starting to filter through the sheltered canopy, the water curling down the broad leaves and dropping onto her back in cold, uncomfortable splashes. The droplets that missed her infiltrated down into the undergrowth, threatening to turn the sandy forest floor into a squelching cesspit of mud. 

The three-year-old filly looked at the hare at her feet. She had always been unreasonably savage when it came to her hunts and her fascination with gore had only grown stronger as she aged. Starscream disapproved of it, of course. Like he disapproved of everything she did. He whined that she spoilt the prey. That she mutilated the flesh until it was inedible. That she spilt far too much blood. She blinked. Its head was nearly torn off, virtually hanging by a thread. Some of its organs were threatening to spill out through the hole she had ripped across its navel. Starscream would be most displeased. She carefully picked up what remained of the hare in her maw and trotted away. 

Thunder crashed overhead, echoing its way across the valley. The potential of an outburst from her father weighed heavily on her mind. The dense forest gave way to thin aspens and pines that swayed in the vicious winds. She watched their tops creak and bend under the intense storm, startling as a bolt of lightning snaked down from the uninviting clouds and struck the very top of one of the pines. She shied away as the smouldering branches crashed down in front of her. Something was peculiar. The flames only grew, unaffected by the rain and mud fighting to extinguish them. A flash to her left diverted her attention, as another bright beam struck a different tree, causing more flaming branches to topple in front of her. 

She watched in awe as the flames began to climb skyward, creating a Great Wall of fire that kissed the clouds. She had to be hallucinating because all of the natural sounds of the forest were gone. The trees didn’t rustle, no birds crying out in warning. It was silent. Then, to her surprise, a looming face emerged through the wall of flames, ebony black, with vicious yellow eyes. 

“Hello, my dear.” Hannibal’s booming voice was ringing in her ears as she stood at the mercy of the lowlord. 

“My liege.” She answered coolly. 

The lowlord grinned wildly, embers on his lips. “Bringing your father a gift? How thoughtful you are. I am truly moved by your loss.”

“My loss?” She echoed. 

“Indeed,” Hannibal sighed distastefully. “We are very much alike, you and I. In my youth, I went great lengths to appease my father, only for him to cast me aside like a mere mortal. I truly feel your anguish.” 

She thought about her growing hatred for Starscream. He had never shown any gratitude to her. Never accepted her. She had wanted to leave his company for some time now. 

“I broke free from his control. In freedom, I found power. Consider that you can do the same.” 

Despite how her father was terrified of the lowlord, how he loathed the dark entity - since her youth, airachnid had found him more relatable than any other character in the fables she had been told. They both had unreliable father figures, both were reprimanded when they tried to call their own authority.

Hannibal’s form began to fade in the flames, wavering as it dissipated. The fire began to slow its pace until the rain extinguished it to ashes that smouldered in the high winds. She coughed, eyes watering as the smoke was blasted into her face by the winds.

The haunting spectre made her run towards the mountains with a quickening pace, trying to keep the coming confrontation out of her mind. When she reached the small inlet in the mountainside, the rainwater was streaming down the mouth of the cavern, and she could just barely make out the distorted physique of her father beyond. She entered, shivering as the cool water splashed against the back of her poll. Starscream was hunkered down near the rear of the cavern and he turned to watch her. She proceeded forward and dropped the hare onto the floor with little elegance or care. 

Starscream stared at the carcass for a moment, before airachnid began to notice the brewing anger in his expression.

“Fool!” He snarled. “I told you, I wanted a boar! It’s a wonder we’re from the same lineage, you can’t even comprehend basic instructions! Get back out there and fetch me what I asked for, imbecile!” 

Airachnid took a deep breath, her manes bristling as the anger simmering in her stomach began to boil over. 

“No.” 

Airachnid watched the mad glimmer in Starscream’s eye twitch. The water shimmering in the light of the lightning reflected onto his tense, scrunched up face, making his expression seem more enraged and demented than in life. 

“What did you just say to me?” 

“I said no.” She stood her ground. 

“How dare you!” Her father snarled, his face distorting in rage as he bared his fangs, yellowed and slightly curled with age. “How dare you speak to me like that!” He roared, inching closer to her face. 

“Things have changed, Starscream. I am no longer taking orders from you!” She raised herself up to meet his tone, snorting wildly. 

“You little wretch!” He spat. “You’d turn against the one who raised you and rob him of everything he worked so hard to defend!” 

“This is as much my territory as it is yours.” This wasn’t about breaking free anymore. The sudden taste of freedom and rebellion was ecstasy. She wanted to capitalise on it like a shark to blood. If she could take his territory and everything that came with it…

Starscream lunged towards her, his hot breath blasting her face as he advanced. “You want to rob me of my territory! Well then, you’ll have to fight me for it. Don’t think the fact that you are my daughter will save you from being eviscerated!” Starscream snarled, almost foaming at the mouth. Airachnid cringed - his will to live seemed unbreakable. Like he was willing to throw anyone and anything into the fire to survive. 

“You’re no father to me!” She hissed. 

She watched his one clear eye flicker for a moment, and then glaze over with a powerful sheen of raging hate. He swung his crown of horns towards her, airachnid’s feet slipping backwards over the soaked pebbles to avoid being gored by the blow aimed deliberately to her throat. She snapped back, catching a sliver of his wispy manes between her teeth as she pulled away. 

He snarled, his flared nostrils tinted red by the blood rushing to the surface. “Are you mad, Airachnid!?” 

“Am I mad?” She retorted. “Maybe a little,” she muttered under her breath.

“Get out!” He roared, taking her withers between his teeth and shaking his head furiously. She snapped at the firm flesh of his shoulder, pinching and trying to find something to grip onto. Starscream may have been thin and becoming infirm, but she was an immature filly. Did she have the strength to overpower a matured stallion? Starscream was old and deranged, but his strength and strategy were easily capable of eliminating her. 

She rammed her skull into his bony chest, winding him for a moment. She looked at the small, identical puncture wounds on his chest, leaking blood as a result of the small horns on her forehead. She swallowed. If he had done the same to her, he would have shredded through the skin in an instant. He angled his head, his forked horns scraping the side of her cheek as he pulled away. 

She sunk her teeth into his upper leg, bringing him onto his knees, if only for a moment before he staggered up and continued to advance. 

“Coward,” he jeered. She savoured the blood coating her tongue. Her smoky brown fur hid the gore. Starscream’s silvery coat revealed it all. She wheeled up and grabbed his ear between his teeth. She shook her head furiously as she felt the blood flood her mouth. He had locked their horns together in an attempt to spear her in the eye. 

She fought to pull harder, and part of his ear came free between her teeth. He clattered backwards over the rocks. She watched his foot slip between a crevasse in the floor, and she pulled herself up to loom above him, thankful for the stroke of luck. She looked down at him in disgust. His flanks were soaked with sweat and blood was running down his face from his ear wound. She didn’t look much better. Blood oozed from a bite wound on her flank and her legs were shaking from the effort. 

“Well?” Starscream growled, “after everything I’ve done for you, all the time I’ve spent taking care of you, only for you to kill me on the spot? Disgraceful. You’d murder your own, poor father in cold blood?” 

She hated that about him. That he was sly enough to worm his way into anyone’s mind and draw previously buried empathy and mercy to the surface. 

She raised her hoof and watched him squirm like the coward he was before slamming her foot down “I’m done.” 

“What?” 

“I said, I’m done. I’m finished with you,” she snapped. In a move that she would later come to regret, she turned and walked away, ignoring his berating insults that echoed off of the cavern walls behind her.