so long and good night; pollock

[michaelis]

excuse the gross words pls :|

Burning on, just like a match you strike to incinerate the lives of everyone you know.
And what's the worst you take from every heart you break? And like
the blade you stain, well, I've been holding on tonight.
This was not the same Beqanna as he had once known intimately.

In a split second, the world seemed to be engulfed in chaos. Michaelis had never truly thrived in such a high risks game. He believed that the world should be an orderly and predictable thing. He didn’t care to be tossed about through a tumultuous tsunami from the whims of a magical entity. The shadow child has certainly had enough of fairies and their nefarious ways; hence the troublesome little things that trembled along his frame in their fear of the unknown.

The air was thin and unwelcoming upon the towering mountain, but Michaelis was too wary to move through the area until he had a better understanding of the layout of his surroundings. The wispy tendrils snaked around his face, searching for some reassurance from him. He had left his precious two shadow girls hidden amongst the brush. He would not expose them to this terribly unfamiliar place just yet.

He traversed beneath the moonlight freely, unhindered by the darkness. He had impeccable vision at night, and this was his best chance to observe this land – without the struggles of his day-blindness he would have otherwise.

Michaelis
( The Shadow Child )

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

He knows the crook-back of this Mountain. Her pock-marked ugliness and the more beautiful and fecund valley held tight below, between her rocky thighs. He had clung to her tit like a newborn until his lungs sung for mercy. She has a way of telling someone when their time is up. 
Tight-chested and dry-mouthed, she drove him from her like a unwelcome bedmate, unclean and incomplete in the naked dawn.

When he could not sleep – (when last had he been able to sleep soundly? before the ice and snow? before even then?) – he thought not just of Norwegian mysteries, but also of her spine and ribs; her thin, wiry hair of lichen; her thievery and her entitlement; the glint of mica on her cheek; he traced his own nimble footsteps across her hard, grey skin, over and over. He chased his crown and mantle like a dethroned king, 

—when he did finally sleep, he dreamed of colorful shanties and broken bones; of a ram’s skull baking in the sun, high on some mountain top.

(It is coming fast, racing up to him like the ground does a falling man. He is so close, sometimes he can feel the heft of his headgear when he wakes up
She’d have to give it all back someday. Had their not been an agreement? A contract signed in missing body parts and coercion?)

He cannot feel the moment when his grand, beautiful wings wither and fall from his body like overripe fruit. Nor the moment when his single wing comes to rest from his shoulder, limp like a cloak. But his head feels heavier, and his feet designed for this climb as they each cleave in two. Only that he welcomes them, for a time they stave off his thirst and the feeble feeling in his throat.
He slips into invisibility, even through darkness has crested the stone. Just for the feeling.

Power.

He moves on her in his full glory – these moments have become sweet as a feast to him – until he spies the other man, scaling the eyesore like so many unsure bodies, rebirthed. He too has a grace that others do not. They share that, this shadow and gifter. Pollock may not have this man’s night vision, but his caprine feet are made for her crags.

(Conquerors. Ever the arrogant son.) 
“A mountain at night is a dangerous place.” His voice does not have that slipperiness. No, he has no interest in this flesh.
(He is right to have hidden his girls.)
The golden stallion tilts his head, examining the shade that makes restless work of his body.

POLLOCK
the gift giver