11-21-2017, 09:25 AM
<center><table bgcolor=000000 width="490" height="0%" cellpadding="15" cellspacing=”15" style="border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style: solid;"><tr><td align="left" valign="top" width="490"><DIV STYLE=p align="justify"><font style="font-family:times;color:#778899;font-size:10pt;letter-spacing:px; line-height:13pt"<p align=justify>Balto’s time alone in his cave does not last long.
He had hoped the water would wash off his scent, lead them astray and perhaps take them onward in the wrong direction (they hadn’t been able to travel this far without him in the first place), but he is terribly surprised when their garbled shouts and monstrous moans of rage begin to echo within the darkness. His blood runs cold, cerulean eyes fastening on the bit of light spilling into the mouth of the cave before him, muscles taut with adrenaline and dread. Balto has never been a violent being, but with the quick realization that his life may truly be in danger, he prepares himself for the worst.
The group (grotesque and nearly unrecognizable) crashes through the waterfall with other-wordly whoops and hollers, like dogs chasing down a fox. He scrambles backwards on the smooth stone of the cave floor, unnaturally graceful as his hooves click against wet rock (the sound is so familiar, nearly comforting despite the wickedness that is running towards him). They can’t see him yet but he knows they can smell him, perhaps even <i>hear</i> the tightness of his breath as it catches in his throat, his chest thrumming wildly as his heart races.
Balto hesitates - maybe the madness will leave them, perhaps they can be saved - and they are nearly upon him now, eyes roving with the jungle’s madness and open jaws foaming as they crave their pound of flesh. His hesitation forces him to flee quickly and clumsily, and his eyesight dims as the force of his leap forward meets something black, wet, and solid. He is dazed, eyesight blurry and the back of his head pounding hotly as he can feel the sticky mess that is blood begin to pour down his neck. He bumps into the sharp cave walls in attempts to steady himself as he runs, wincing as the pain intensifies in his head as well as his shoulders bruising from his inability to keep upright.
Despite his dizziness and the mob behind him, he is at a slight advantage.
The cave welcomes him with loving arms as he throws himself deeper into the twisting catacombs, welcoming home the prodigal son that has finally returned. Nearly a decade of his life had been spent within damp, stoney darkness and the skills he had learned then return to him easily despite his time spent in the open world on the beach. Wounded and weary, but unafraid as the cavern tightens around him, much like a snake constricting its prey.
Thoughts whirl through his mind but one rings certain and true: <i>‘Perhaps the caves is where I truly belong.’</i>
The sound of their voices and clacking teeth begin to subside and Balto is met with the sweet sound of silent darkness once again. He squeezes through the cave, the rough walls scraping against his body almost <i>lovingly</i>, even though he can feel the cavern pulling back the skin on his ribs and biting at his shoulders and haunches. His heart rate begins to slow a bit as he realizes he is finally alone again - even if it is in the pitch blackness of a deep, dark cave.
A gentle glow causes him to squint suddenly, and the stallion lifts his head a bit higher in attempts to see it better. His pulse increases, the wound on his head now flowing more with every beat his heart pumps, the blood already beginning to coagulate in a muddy red stain on his shoulder. He hesitates, unsure if he should go towards it, but quickly he realizes that he had no choice unless he wished to return to the blood-lusted mob that waits like a pack of wolves behind him.
The caverns walls begin to open up again, the air feeling cold and unforgiving against his skin that is now free. He feels vulnerable now, out in the open, especially now that the red glow is becoming more and more pronounced, illuminating the beaten and bloodied body of the blue roan stallion. As he staggers closer, he hears something.
A voice, a cry, a moan - of <I>delight</i>.
His blood runs cold and his stomach drops - he does not expect a harrowing rescue or a way out; there is no way that what he is hearing will be a relief.
The cave’s trail opens up and he silently peers in, the voice he had heard originally now joined in a chorus of others; with grunts and moans and laughter. It is all of them (how they got here before he did, he’ll never understand), Ambrose, Rilian, Shasta, Eridi, Jadis, Caspian, Bree. They are tangled mess of bodies and color, he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. They are themselves again (from what he can make out), but the piercing smell of blood and sweat and sex lets him know better. There is someone else, the one giving off the eerie red glow, and Balto’s stomach threatens to spill its contents, bile on his tongue as it rises in his throat, acidic and burning.
<i>Aravis.</i>
She orchestrates the madness, giving them their lust for fulfilling their desires, a satisfied smirk as she stands in the midst of the twisting, moaning bodies.
Her eyes are on him, and he is not sure how long she has seen him - perhaps she has known where he was all along, and has just now decided to reveal herself to him.
<i>‘Balto, my sweet boy,’</i> she beckons to him, her voice a whisper but somehow perfectly clear and sultry in his ears. <i>‘You’ve finally arrived. Join us.’</i>
The others don’t stop their acts just because he has entered. If anything, it rouses them even more, and the blue roan has to look away - perhaps looking for another way out, another passage, another world of darkness to crawl into. Or maybe he looks away so that he does not run to the once fragile bay mare that calls to him, the one that treated him like her own son, that he looked to as his own mother. He couldn’t bare to look at her (she is alive, they’re all alive), but something is wrong.
<I>‘Balto?’</I> he hears her say, her voice a question but a bit more demanding, as if she is losing patience with his indecisiveness.
Balto is familiar with darkness - he knows it well. But the darkness that is laced between the shuddering bodies is not something natural; it is not right.
This thought is only solidified more when he sees the body of Corin hanging like a prized catch on the ceiling, stalactites piercing through his head like a crown, while blood still pours from his lifeless body. How dare they desecrate the cave like they are, using it to cloak their devilish and greedy thoughts! The darkness in the caves is a mother, loving and kind and protective, and here they stand denouncing her before his very eyes. His brow furrows and finally his gaze meets Aravis’, anger and rage boiling beneath the depths of his blue eyes.
Aravis is not his mother. The darkness is.
<b>“Don’t you dare speak my name,”</b> he whispers through a clenched jaw, knowing that despite his quiet hiss, she would be able to hear him.
Aravis’ lips turn downward into a disappointed from (the expression is terrifying) and though fear runs rampant through him, he does not crawl back into the darkness from whence he came.
<i>‘You do not wish to join your family, my loyal son?’</i> Her voice is ice, unemotional. He knows his answer will either send him to his death or spiraling into madness like those before him.
He hears the crooning of the blackness behind him, encouraging him, giving him strength. How could he have left the caves to begin with? The outside world only brought him here, to this moment where his trust has been depleted and his heart left empty. Never again will he leave her, the darkness is his family.
Even if it meant dying here in the deep underground, at least he is finally home.
<B>“You are not my family.”</B>
His statement causes the others to pause their debauchery, glancing at him with terrible, stoic eyes. But then he remembers a forest with golden rays of light filtering through, a deep and still lake, trees as tall as the sky (a home, perhaps, in the very distant past, when he was just a colt) and the thought comforts him.
<i>‘Disappointing, Balto.’</i> A pause. <i>‘Bring him to me.’</i> Aravis demands, and the group slithers away from her at her command, like snakes coming towards him. It is an unfair fight he knows, but Balto rushes to meet them anyways, returning their bites and kicks with swift ones of his own, as best he could. He would not succumb to them, they do not love him, they do not care for him, he’d rather die than live in a lie.
They begin drag him to the center, towards Aravis, where sweat and blood and bodily fluids all meet, his screams of protest and rage filling the cavern. His own blood pours down his body as he defends himself, as well as Corin’s as it drops from the ceiling.
He half-expects to wake up soon, as if this nightmare would finally end.
But the nightmare is real, and he is sure that it is far from over.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>
He had hoped the water would wash off his scent, lead them astray and perhaps take them onward in the wrong direction (they hadn’t been able to travel this far without him in the first place), but he is terribly surprised when their garbled shouts and monstrous moans of rage begin to echo within the darkness. His blood runs cold, cerulean eyes fastening on the bit of light spilling into the mouth of the cave before him, muscles taut with adrenaline and dread. Balto has never been a violent being, but with the quick realization that his life may truly be in danger, he prepares himself for the worst.
The group (grotesque and nearly unrecognizable) crashes through the waterfall with other-wordly whoops and hollers, like dogs chasing down a fox. He scrambles backwards on the smooth stone of the cave floor, unnaturally graceful as his hooves click against wet rock (the sound is so familiar, nearly comforting despite the wickedness that is running towards him). They can’t see him yet but he knows they can smell him, perhaps even <i>hear</i> the tightness of his breath as it catches in his throat, his chest thrumming wildly as his heart races.
Balto hesitates - maybe the madness will leave them, perhaps they can be saved - and they are nearly upon him now, eyes roving with the jungle’s madness and open jaws foaming as they crave their pound of flesh. His hesitation forces him to flee quickly and clumsily, and his eyesight dims as the force of his leap forward meets something black, wet, and solid. He is dazed, eyesight blurry and the back of his head pounding hotly as he can feel the sticky mess that is blood begin to pour down his neck. He bumps into the sharp cave walls in attempts to steady himself as he runs, wincing as the pain intensifies in his head as well as his shoulders bruising from his inability to keep upright.
Despite his dizziness and the mob behind him, he is at a slight advantage.
The cave welcomes him with loving arms as he throws himself deeper into the twisting catacombs, welcoming home the prodigal son that has finally returned. Nearly a decade of his life had been spent within damp, stoney darkness and the skills he had learned then return to him easily despite his time spent in the open world on the beach. Wounded and weary, but unafraid as the cavern tightens around him, much like a snake constricting its prey.
Thoughts whirl through his mind but one rings certain and true: <i>‘Perhaps the caves is where I truly belong.’</i>
The sound of their voices and clacking teeth begin to subside and Balto is met with the sweet sound of silent darkness once again. He squeezes through the cave, the rough walls scraping against his body almost <i>lovingly</i>, even though he can feel the cavern pulling back the skin on his ribs and biting at his shoulders and haunches. His heart rate begins to slow a bit as he realizes he is finally alone again - even if it is in the pitch blackness of a deep, dark cave.
A gentle glow causes him to squint suddenly, and the stallion lifts his head a bit higher in attempts to see it better. His pulse increases, the wound on his head now flowing more with every beat his heart pumps, the blood already beginning to coagulate in a muddy red stain on his shoulder. He hesitates, unsure if he should go towards it, but quickly he realizes that he had no choice unless he wished to return to the blood-lusted mob that waits like a pack of wolves behind him.
The caverns walls begin to open up again, the air feeling cold and unforgiving against his skin that is now free. He feels vulnerable now, out in the open, especially now that the red glow is becoming more and more pronounced, illuminating the beaten and bloodied body of the blue roan stallion. As he staggers closer, he hears something.
A voice, a cry, a moan - of <I>delight</i>.
His blood runs cold and his stomach drops - he does not expect a harrowing rescue or a way out; there is no way that what he is hearing will be a relief.
The cave’s trail opens up and he silently peers in, the voice he had heard originally now joined in a chorus of others; with grunts and moans and laughter. It is all of them (how they got here before he did, he’ll never understand), Ambrose, Rilian, Shasta, Eridi, Jadis, Caspian, Bree. They are tangled mess of bodies and color, he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. They are themselves again (from what he can make out), but the piercing smell of blood and sweat and sex lets him know better. There is someone else, the one giving off the eerie red glow, and Balto’s stomach threatens to spill its contents, bile on his tongue as it rises in his throat, acidic and burning.
<i>Aravis.</i>
She orchestrates the madness, giving them their lust for fulfilling their desires, a satisfied smirk as she stands in the midst of the twisting, moaning bodies.
Her eyes are on him, and he is not sure how long she has seen him - perhaps she has known where he was all along, and has just now decided to reveal herself to him.
<i>‘Balto, my sweet boy,’</i> she beckons to him, her voice a whisper but somehow perfectly clear and sultry in his ears. <i>‘You’ve finally arrived. Join us.’</i>
The others don’t stop their acts just because he has entered. If anything, it rouses them even more, and the blue roan has to look away - perhaps looking for another way out, another passage, another world of darkness to crawl into. Or maybe he looks away so that he does not run to the once fragile bay mare that calls to him, the one that treated him like her own son, that he looked to as his own mother. He couldn’t bare to look at her (she is alive, they’re all alive), but something is wrong.
<I>‘Balto?’</I> he hears her say, her voice a question but a bit more demanding, as if she is losing patience with his indecisiveness.
Balto is familiar with darkness - he knows it well. But the darkness that is laced between the shuddering bodies is not something natural; it is not right.
This thought is only solidified more when he sees the body of Corin hanging like a prized catch on the ceiling, stalactites piercing through his head like a crown, while blood still pours from his lifeless body. How dare they desecrate the cave like they are, using it to cloak their devilish and greedy thoughts! The darkness in the caves is a mother, loving and kind and protective, and here they stand denouncing her before his very eyes. His brow furrows and finally his gaze meets Aravis’, anger and rage boiling beneath the depths of his blue eyes.
Aravis is not his mother. The darkness is.
<b>“Don’t you dare speak my name,”</b> he whispers through a clenched jaw, knowing that despite his quiet hiss, she would be able to hear him.
Aravis’ lips turn downward into a disappointed from (the expression is terrifying) and though fear runs rampant through him, he does not crawl back into the darkness from whence he came.
<i>‘You do not wish to join your family, my loyal son?’</i> Her voice is ice, unemotional. He knows his answer will either send him to his death or spiraling into madness like those before him.
He hears the crooning of the blackness behind him, encouraging him, giving him strength. How could he have left the caves to begin with? The outside world only brought him here, to this moment where his trust has been depleted and his heart left empty. Never again will he leave her, the darkness is his family.
Even if it meant dying here in the deep underground, at least he is finally home.
<B>“You are not my family.”</B>
His statement causes the others to pause their debauchery, glancing at him with terrible, stoic eyes. But then he remembers a forest with golden rays of light filtering through, a deep and still lake, trees as tall as the sky (a home, perhaps, in the very distant past, when he was just a colt) and the thought comforts him.
<i>‘Disappointing, Balto.’</i> A pause. <i>‘Bring him to me.’</i> Aravis demands, and the group slithers away from her at her command, like snakes coming towards him. It is an unfair fight he knows, but Balto rushes to meet them anyways, returning their bites and kicks with swift ones of his own, as best he could. He would not succumb to them, they do not love him, they do not care for him, he’d rather die than live in a lie.
They begin drag him to the center, towards Aravis, where sweat and blood and bodily fluids all meet, his screams of protest and rage filling the cavern. His own blood pours down his body as he defends himself, as well as Corin’s as it drops from the ceiling.
He half-expects to wake up soon, as if this nightmare would finally end.
But the nightmare is real, and he is sure that it is far from over.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>