01-15-2017, 09:23 PM
Skele is loved.
Love is not always simple – mother’s love, he would say, is just that. It can be a wild thing; a thing born of feral and unsure hearts. It can be a strange and dangerous thing.
Of wild things, Skele is familiar. Strange and dangerous? He has followed the scent of many hairy beast of the hinterlands, searching for their lairs in dark and damp caves and in between lichen-y rocks – before mother calls him back to her, chastising him for being a reckless son. The hunt unceremoniously called off for the day.
But of wild love? Strange or dangerous love? Skele is too young. To him all things are strange and all love is simple. And all the world is wild, chock-full of dangerous beasts!
“RRR-AWR!” he throws his head back, stamping a front hoof viciously. The squirrel (much smaller than he by far) chatters its teeth, jerking its tail angrily, and scampers up the trunk of a nearby, naked tree. An unkind thing to do, he knows, but such is the nature of being a beast. He watches it run away, licking his chops (he has chops, right now) in mock hunger.
Off he stalks, moving as gracefully as he can through the shrubs and trees that ring the Playground's clearing – more primitive and evocative spaces, these, all the better for imagination, thinks the boy with the strange face markings. He runs, chasing after the rodent – who is really very interesting (despite his size), now that he thinks about it. He jumps and leaps, like an acrobat (not that Skele would know what that is) from limb to limb. The black and white boy leaps along, too, much more grounded (one day, he will be able to climb, though not as nimbly as this) – following his path until the snow gets too deep and untrodden, then he watches with bright, green eyes until he can see him no more.
He only has so much time before he becomes too old for this (this place and those spaces) and only so much time after that before it becomes a reality for him. A beast is what Skele is. A beast with a wild heart, dangerous instincts and simple cravings; evolved by a strange magic that had jumped a generation and into his bones.
Love is not always simple – mother’s love, he would say, is just that. It can be a wild thing; a thing born of feral and unsure hearts. It can be a strange and dangerous thing.
Of wild things, Skele is familiar. Strange and dangerous? He has followed the scent of many hairy beast of the hinterlands, searching for their lairs in dark and damp caves and in between lichen-y rocks – before mother calls him back to her, chastising him for being a reckless son. The hunt unceremoniously called off for the day.
But of wild love? Strange or dangerous love? Skele is too young. To him all things are strange and all love is simple. And all the world is wild, chock-full of dangerous beasts!
“RRR-AWR!” he throws his head back, stamping a front hoof viciously. The squirrel (much smaller than he by far) chatters its teeth, jerking its tail angrily, and scampers up the trunk of a nearby, naked tree. An unkind thing to do, he knows, but such is the nature of being a beast. He watches it run away, licking his chops (he has chops, right now) in mock hunger.
Off he stalks, moving as gracefully as he can through the shrubs and trees that ring the Playground's clearing – more primitive and evocative spaces, these, all the better for imagination, thinks the boy with the strange face markings. He runs, chasing after the rodent – who is really very interesting (despite his size), now that he thinks about it. He jumps and leaps, like an acrobat (not that Skele would know what that is) from limb to limb. The black and white boy leaps along, too, much more grounded (one day, he will be able to climb, though not as nimbly as this) – following his path until the snow gets too deep and untrodden, then he watches with bright, green eyes until he can see him no more.
He only has so much time before he becomes too old for this (this place and those spaces) and only so much time after that before it becomes a reality for him. A beast is what Skele is. A beast with a wild heart, dangerous instincts and simple cravings; evolved by a strange magic that had jumped a generation and into his bones.