She didn't understand. How had his words and actions affected her so much? She, the embodiment of survival instinct, and brutality that only the most ferocious predators know of? She was supposed to be unshakable. A force to be reckoned with, to be feared. 

[i]And to think that it was shattered so easily.[/i] She almost laughed out loud at the thought. It was pathetic, really. She knew she wasn't broken or shattered, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that she had been hurt in ways that she had never before been. But, she had to wonder, what if the problem was herself? It wasn't normally a question that her pride would allow her to consider, but in the light of Arcon's reaction... she had to wonder. 

She raised her head as Crashing spread a wing across her back. At first her eyes were vacant and just stared at the darkness hidden in the depths of the lake. After a few moments of silence, however, she spoke up in a quiet voice. 

"Get treated like a dumb beast for long enough, and you start acting like one." She looked to the side, at Crashing, and smiled sadly. "It should come as no surprise that you know of how I am when it comes to ponies, mortal or not, who have... caught my interest. If I set my eyes on something I hunt it, either to kill or to make it so that neither they nor I can walk the next day." Her sad smile briefly morphed into a smirk. "If I recall, you fell into the latter a few times." 

The smirk gone, she looked out across the water again, staring at nothing in particular. "Most of our fellow Godlings just played it off, however. Brushed it off as me being me, the Goddess of Fertility being a mischievous tease that wanted nothing more than to get a reaction from them... I'm wondering, is it possible that that is what I have become?" 

-----------------------------

Winterjet took a step back, then another, and another, as Sweeper approached her... Or that's what she thought. In the midst of her fear of losing her mane, it felt as if Sweeper was closing in on her constantly, getting bigger and bigger and more and more frightening. 

While she may be a tomboy and brash, to say the least, she was still very much a mare and was proud of it. And being a mare, it was important to have a mane and tail of, at least, decent length. Which meant that having a short mane was a mare was a no-no. Something she had given her father quite the grief about (a good soldier has a short mane and tail to avoid a opponent grabbing onto it!). 

But even as she thought she was going to have to tear the eccentric alicorn a new one for cutting off her mane, said alicorn backed off. Not only that, but she seemed somewhat regretful, and possibly ashamed. Relief washed through her, though she didn't let down her guard, nor did she avert her gaze from Silver Sweeper.

[i]God or not, if you touch my mane I[/i] will [i]end you![/i]