05-22-2018, 02:12 PM
The story repeats, is always the same: this place, that. A holy jackal with a feather says Go or Stay. In this case, Go.
Behind the wreck of a familiar body, alive with the slow thickness of bitter ruin, slid a flat companion that had kept its blackness, that should have soaked the earth in a streak of pitchblende and left a long trail of shadow behind the terrible, inexhaustible source of that motive power. The body moved with a strange, measured evenness, as if through deep water. The thick ropes of athletic muscle taut only with the long struggle to pull the shadow to which the body was harnessed.
Still, a conspiracy of grace and youthful power survived in the elegant, weathered form, as fickle and enduring as epic poetry: runic scars, the ceremony of time passed, the ritual erosion of winters wearing smooth the curve of a cliff-like, expressive lip the color of liquid gold, from which long whiskers splintered in a delicate profusion and caught a slant of cold light. The feet lifted and fell with the clean, rhythmic precision of a gazelle’s. The intricate work of the body as a whole was a flawless function despite the slow madness that had long since begun to poison the marrow. Even here; in the face of exile – he walked without pause or stumble.
It is the plangent note of her scent that has brought him here – that scent of courage and untamed wilderness he remembers so well; it is the memory of warm skin against cold lips, of the whisper-soft syllables of a name he has kept repeating in his sleep. Khaedrik wonders if she remembers him – if her eyes stray for the darkness and shadows at night the way his eyes seek the fair faces of wildflowers in spring. He wonders if she has stayed the same; mud-footed and intrepid, smart-mouthed and wise beyond her years or if time has marred her the way it has him.
Khaedrik does not fear the prying eyes of the Nerinian people – he does not fear their hoarse and whispered voices, for while he has no business here – he carries himself with the dauntless ease of a predator. For what has he – master of shadow and ruin to fear from anyone? No, Khaedrik, flagrant trespasser fears no-one but his own volatile mind. And that is what makes him a coward.
”Wishbone” he whispers – and her name is smoke and shadow on his lips. He closes his bitter-black eyes against the sound – wondering if she will come.
@[Wishbone]