She regarded the great being in front of her with some trepidation.
It towered before her, regal, rugged, breathtakingly beautiful... all at once.
She caught a light whiff of smoke and took a step back when she realized, it came from the nostrils of the fire breathing beast, who seemed to be regarding her back with a sombre expression.
For a moment she felt a terror that excluded her from all else...
The noises behind her suddenly jarred her back to her predicament.
The forest rustled with sounds of the demons she had been trying to outrun, before entering this magical clearing.
The beast heard them too and raised its fearsome head to take in the sudden restlessness of its habitat.
In her mind's eye, she could see the first of the demons breaking the thick cover of trees behind her, inching surreptously towards her...
The beast turned slightly, till it was facing her, looking down upon the trembling form of the lost soul that she was.
As the fiery red eyes, reminicient of eternity, met her mere mortal gaze, the clock was broken, for but fraction of a moment, with the weight of her choice; the choice between the demons she knew as well as herself and this unknown unbelievable terror...
Time resumed on its course and with it, hers was chosen too.
Just as the demon's slithery arms brushed her black cloak, she reached out towards the flowing white mane of her beast of choice, and swung onto its back.
The beast in turn, spread its mighty wings with a surprisingly soft ruffle, and with a contrasting mighty roar, rose up towards the orange dawn sky. The speed left her disoriented and faint but the wind that ripped through her, woke up her very soul, as she watched her demons staring up gaping, before being eternalised in a cloud of fire raining down from the nostrils of the accelerating beast...