“Pray tell, how exactly am I a coward, hmm?” she asked, leaning down. She towered over the human, even if he hadn’t been seated as he was, paralyzed on the ground. Now with her there, he felt a rising, primal fear, like that of primitive men fearing the sound of thunder as lightning split the sky. It was an instinctual reaction and one that told you it was best to placate and soothe rather than anger something much greater than you. Perhaps it had been because he had been cowering in fear too long, hiding in the shadow of the deer for protection from the forest and he felt the need to rebel, to lash out at the darkness around him. Perhaps it was simply pride talking, after having suffered indignity upon indignity, a veritable conga line of humiliation ever since the tournament when that damned earth pony had knocked him clear across fifteen feet and he had gone out like a light. Perhaps it really was fear, causing him to think and act irrationally. He was certainly more than acquainted with it recently, more than he ever cared to and never planned on being again.