He is not entirely certain how long he had slept. He had left a world consumed by their personal wars and petty foibles only to waken in one consumed by darkness. Perhaps the gods had finally grown tired of their petty squabbles. Or perhaps they had merely fallen victim to the vagaries of the universe. Whatever the case may be, Hurricane finds himself not only awakened, but in a deeper sense renewed.
The vitality that had been fading before he had slipped into slumber has, at long last, returned. There is vigor now where before there had only been a tumbling fall into weary bitterness, a renewed sense of self where once he had felt lost and forgotten, a relic of ancient days.
He may remain both ancient and a relic, but he is one with renewed purpose.
In the end however, leopards do not truly change their spots. His memories are too great to allow himself to truly believe in the fallacies of renewed youth. Even if they had not, his first encounter with an orange-eyed beast had ensured he knew without doubt this is not the world he had once belonged to. He doubted it ever would be again.
But with eternity still stretching before him, he has no choice but to carve his way through this new existence. He has watched Beqanna rise and fall through the eons, and never had it truly remained the same. What he sees even now would undoubtedly one day shift and change further, all while he remained the same, undying and unchanging.
He had long ago accepted this, but even he, as it had turned out, had not been immune to uncertainty.
For all that the world has changed, the forest remains at least passingly familiar. It had been new once, not so long ago in Hurricane’s life, but now it grows old in this world, those memories lost except to those like the pale pegasus. Upon waking, he had taken it upon himself to clear a small space for himself, skills honed long ago on the battlefield serving him to keep them at bay as much as his ability to disappear from sight.
But when the new intruder comes, it quickly becomes clear that it does not matter if he can be seen or not. He had been prepared for a shadowy creature, but it is immediately evident that this creature is not that. The skeletal figure moves with surprising grace through the trees, ivory bone awash in a strange golden glow.
Hurricane shifts instinctively, preparing himself for whatever it may try to throw at him when a soft, feminine voice emanates from where lips might once have been. As she tilts her sightless skull in an attempt to locate him, Hurricane silently considers whether or not she still constitutes a threat. But in the end, the fragility shrouding her convinces him she is not, no matter how strange she might look.
“Yes,” he replies after a lengthy silence, his soft voice gruff with disuse. His wings settle from their half unfurled position, the whisper of feathers a hush in the otherwise still darkness. He continues then, because underneath it all he is still uncertain, still distrusting. “Are you with the shadow beasts?”
quiet now, you're gonna wake the beast
hide your soul out of his reach
Hurricane
@[splendora]