here i am, so young and strong; (Pike's Lake)

It was not in Salki's nature to stand still. Hers was a spirit always on the move, dancing a lifelong waltz with the playful winds. On the rare occasion where circumstances dictated stillness, a new world opened up to her. A world of wonder for the things she might not otherwise have noticed, like the sensation of slowly sinking into the mud, or the faint tingle of a submerged limb beneath stationary water.

Or the unexpected collision with her own species when the largest stallion she had ever seen abruptly exploded into her world.

It was hard to believe a beast so large and loud could have gone unnoticed on the flat plains until Salki took her moment of pause. She heard him before she saw him, and turned her head to behold him crashing through the goopiest puddle of mud. Salki had heard of giant horses and had always supposed they carried themselves with the elegance of the mountains they resembled, but she could not have been further from the truth. In a spectacularly clumsy display, the stallion stepped right onto the scaly, large-toothed creature, prompting an unholy reaction. Salki took a step back, withdrawing her neck so only her head protruded from the reeds, watching the demonic creature hiss at the giant. Her ears pricked forward.

Evidently, the little devil couldn't talk. It didn't respond to the stallion's words, although it did recoil when a colossal hoof slammed down near its muzzle, splattering it with mud. Salki recognised that coiled pose from occasions when she'd seen cornered snakes. Was the monster stupid enough to attack a beast ten times its size? Salki had no doubt that one stomp from the stallion's hoof would smash its skull, but those teeth also looked like they could hurt.

Cautiously, the small Mongolian emerged from the reeds. She trotted a loop around its back, the mud squelching loudly beneath her hooves, until she was near the stallion but a little further back. Her appearance had divided the reptile's attention. While that might disincentivise it to attack, Salki had no doubt that of the two horses, she was visibly the easier target. She kept well away from those teeth.

"I don't think it's fast," she observed. Now she was closer, she could see that the demon's legs stuck out at odd angles from its body, so its belly was low to the ground. "I bet we can out-run it."

She flicked her tail and spun into a bolt, charging as fast as the unstable terrain would allow - but not too far. That long-toothed creature was weird, and she wanted to keep it in her sights. She slowed not far from it, thudding to a cautious stop, ready to bolt again if needed.