Through the vines comes the voice he had longed to hear but he had not allowed himself to dream of it, to even think of its owner. Since he had trekked down the mountain and somehow found his way back into their cave, he had been riddled with thoughts of her, drowned out by the wails of demons and the thought of their blood running down his body. She had been his saving grace, even though she had no idea that she had been. It is her that he thought of in the crypt of their bones, as he tore away at their flesh - they were a fantasy, their love had been fiction, but she had been real and she still was. That idea - her reality and her doe-eyes beneath the moonlight - drove him to get out of the insanity by any means necessary. And as the vines whisper in the breeze, parting for the darkened lips that open to barely whisper his name, his brow creases with sadness and he feels his heart breaking. She didn’t know what he had done - the horrors he had committed just to get back to this moment, to find her once again in the pale moonlight and talk beneath the darkness, like two old friends. Could he even tell her? He swallows hard, reaching forward delicately to meet her muzzle with his own, his nostrils fluttering wildly as he inhales her scent - something that had been just a dream to him for so long. “Yes, Keeper,” he whispers back, his dark legs moving him forward slowly so that he emerges from beneath the cave’s depths, the vines parting as he passes and brushing against his blue mottled skin, resting on his back where he stops, looking at her with new eyes. He knows that he must look different - she would be able to tell that he carries something with him now, something far worse than what a life in darkness will bring you. It hangs heavy on his very soul, and he is unsure if it will ever lighten. His ears flick back and forth, listening to the sounds of the forest. All is still tonight, save for the warm breeze that gently touches their skin. After he has soaked her in for a good few moments, drinking in the peacefulness that she brings him, he looks around himself as if seeing his forest for the first time. He squints, peering into the darkness and waiting for the terrible howls of demons that would soon find themselves on the wind and breathing down his neck. With a curious expression he turns back to her, the brokenness inside him still evident in his blue eyes. “I don’t hear them,” he says mostly to himself, incredulous. It had been the first time in many moons that his thoughts were his own, not stained with the memory of his time in the cave of the mountain. Balto tosses his head, taking a deep breath and hoping to appear somewhat put-together before her. “I’ve been gone,” he says slowly, his lips pressing into a thin line. “I’m sorry.” But he is apologizing for so much more than his absence - he is also apologizing for the devilish things he has done, just so that he may see her again. once the king of beasts but now they feast on thoughts beneath his vacant crown |
@[keeper]