02-22-2018, 05:20 PM
He holds the effortless arrogance of youth and something more. The knowledge that he is, in essence, indomitable. With the lazy blink of an eye, he can summon destruction, on a whim; he can meld into shadows and darkness. And now – he can disintegrate and reassemble wherever he pleases.
Ever since he made this discovery, he has been stalking the remote parts of Beqanna. Watching, listening, learning. The only thing that keeps him rooted to this mundane world is his sister; dreamsong in his blood, the steady buoy in his bay of turmoil. But there is wanton hunger in his eyes, and a vile chasm in his chest. More and more he wears the skin of shadows. Black and gold, monster and child. And he can sense that his grip on this world, on sanity, is slowly fading.
The night is deep and he moves through the shadows slow and heavy (he walks not because he must, but because he still can). Here and there a birdcall penetrates the silence, and he starts at each one, tensed and wanting. It fades into echoes, then fade into quiet. The subtle hum of the underbrush and forest begins again, and he moves on. He is a methodical flow of thoughts, stemming outward from each thud of hooves on the earth beneath him. Past. Present. Future. He remembers. He predicts. And in the sweet caress of the shadows he dreams.
Memories of time spent in darkness press close, and he longs for the white hot prick of solitude. He aches for the swirl of fear in his veins. Because it was easier. Easier than the sweet-syrup feel of the shadows’ call along his spine. He would have to pay their price, because he was gradually turning into a shadow himself. Now, he wish he hadn't, because things aren't easy anymore.
He is escorted by the wolf tonight; sharp-fanged and prodigious in comparison to the colt. It howls a predators lament into the night; hungry and terrible and it sends a chill down his spine. The colt, cresting his first year but with the woes of a man twice, thrice his age in his eye stops suddenly – wolf in tow. His small golden ears flatten against his skull at the sound of something in the dark.
”Who´s there?” he asks, and his voice is silk and honey – altogether unexpected from those lips. But the wolf growls, nefarious and wanting and the colt falls silent. Let me eradicate them it whispers into his waiting ear, and he swats the thought away like one would swat a fly.