Sunspire Mountains all the butterflies have turned to vultures in my stomach

Things were going south -- and not in the under-the-belt kind. Riley was so preoccupied by his cannon's lack of boom that he hardly noticed the shift in personality transpiring in Esme.

While she drooled stonily in a transfixed state, a different kind of stony glaze was settling in Riley's eyes: the kind of a man who has tasted the bitterness of his own failure's fruit, and knew he would succumb to exhaustion before he ever experienced success.

He was just about to unfold himself from Esme when she ripped out from underneath him; another catlike move that tore a cry of pain from the yearling. He was ever so slightly top-heavy (considering the sudden lack of weight in his midsection) that when Esme spun around, Riley turtled in on himself with a dull thud.

He pulled his head up with a wince, pinebark and dirt sticking to his muzzle. Esme's poker-hot retort came in far sharper than any sword he could muster, physical or not - -and he just winced and nearly cried into his paws then and there. It would do no good, he knew, to show such vulnerability -- she was furious with him. Nothing like seeing spitfire loathing in your would-be-amore's gaze to really dispel any corndog regrouping.

The mention of Donovan nearly evinced a second cry from the yearling. His face said it all -- a mixture of shame, horror, hurt and plenty of dirt; why the barbed spinaround, how could she? He was at a loss for words and just kept gaping, mouth opening and shutting, while he tried to kickstart his brain into performing better than his floppy noodle had.

Finally, the words came -- like a faucet that had been turned on building pressure, his reply came in short, thick, messy bursts. "You do do it for me!" Riley blurted, voice wooden with shame. "I'm sorry! I don't -- don't know what's wrong with me." He looked down at his paws and a piece of pinestraw that had been sticking to his forehead slid down onto his eye. Wiping it off absentmindedly, Riley looked into his calloused paws and confessed with words that were piteously small: "Please don't go to Donovan."