02-14-2018, 08:05 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel|Megrim" rel="stylesheet"><center><div style="width: 550px; background: url('http://i.imgur.com/WNrdwnp.png'); background-color: #cac3b9; #background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #000000; border-radius: 250px 0px 0px 0px;"><div style="width: 540px; background: url('http://i.imgur.com/WNrdwnp.png'); padding-top:110px; background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-color: #0f0f0f; box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #000000; border-radius: 250px 0px 0px 0px;"><div style="font-family: 'Megrim', cursive; font-size:40px; color: #312d22;padding-right: 200px; padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 150px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #312d22; 0px 0px 10px #312d22, 0 0 15px #ada59d, 0 0 15px #ada59d;">Diable Rouge</div>><div style="width: 500px;padding-left: 10px;padding-right: 10px; opacity: .8;font-family: Times; color: #d6cdc1; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; border-right: solid 2px #393228; border-left: solid 2px #393228; text-shadow: .2px .2px .2px #000;">He is a big believer in time.
Time, to him, was both good and bad. Time had helped him to heal, helped him to grow. Time ha helped him face Solace, time had helped him move forward from his mother's murder. And it was time that was also taking its toll on the old stallion.
He was no longer the exuberant, young four year old he had been when he first traveled to Beqanna all those years ago. The deep russet of his coat was speckled with gray, his once capable blue eyes becoming dark with blindness. His muscles ached when he woke, his energy nearly nonexistent.
Time had taken those he loved and cared about. It took the Bewanna he once knew (and dare he say, <i>loved</i>). Ellyse had disappeared along with Dahmer, Offspring (who he had been loyal to for much of his adult life, was nothing but a distant memory. Fleeting people with fleeting hearts, he knew one day they would leave him (didn't he?). Phoebus had grown before his eyes, the boy of fire taking his leave from Tephra to find something new, to find himself (the boy was truly like the volcano Rou loved so much, he could not be tamed).
AuroraElis was nowhere to be found...vanished. He had looked (oh <i>god</i> had he looked), trying desperately to find any trace of his one true love. But it seemed she had been completely erased. Perhaps, the fairies gave her wings the gift of flight, and she had taken off to find something better. Perhaps, she had just grown tired of him and snuck away under the blanket of night. Whatever the case, he knew she wasn't there with him. And god, did he miss her.
It was in these moments (that despair of loneliness that clouded his thoughts), that his mind wandered to Kaiode.
And it frustrated him, how much he still missed the little boy who was taken from the world (from him) too soon. He had talked to Solace, hadn't he? And AuroraElis had given him another child, right? So why was there that ever-present agony within him?
He keeps to himself most nights, and tonight was no different. He had walked through the playground, galloped through the field, sneaked through the forest, and waded across the river back to Tephra. Back to the land that had raised him, back to the smell of salty sea brine and sulfur, and there he emerged, body soaked with warm summer water, onto the beach.
He finds himself wander along the shoreline, towards the great heap of rocks that lay on the beach's north-end. Here, he stumbles towards Kaiode's grave, the lump that had once been there now disintegrated. Dust and bones. Fragments of the beautiful child he once was.
<i>He once was.</i> Diable Rouge shakes his head at the thought...he could barely remember the child's face anymore. Time gives and it takes, and today it had taken away the memory of Kaiode's face. His eyes well with tears, and soon they are pouring; a steady stream down his face.
<i>"What would you give for one last chance to talk to him...?"</i> A slow, meaningful whisper into the stallion's ear causes him to lurch sideways, nearly falling.
The goddess is tall, nearly his height, with a sturdy build. Her coat is a deep sorrel, her eyes a stunningly bright hue of blue. She smiles at him through crooked teeth, her fawn mane traveling in soft waves down her back. Two golden antlers stick out from the top of her head, they were glowing in the black of the night.<b>"Who are you?"</b> He questions curiously.
<i>"What would you give?"</i> She asks again, more sternly this time.
He doesn't hesitate to answer the stranger. <b>"I'd give anything."</b> He tells her. The Erotes' grin stretches further across her lips, and she nods behind him. Diable Rouge furrows his brow, and looks over.
And he is there. His bay coat glistening, every broken bone his body had endured, healed. His Kaiode, his love, his son. <b>"Kaiode..."</b> The child does not move. <b>"...Kaiode?"</b>
<i>"He can't move, Rou,"</i> The soothing voice comes from beside him. <i>"But he can hear you and feel you. Go on, talk to him while you can."</i> The large stallion steps towards his son, wrapping him in his tight embrace. For a brief moment, nothing is said, and he only weeps.
<b>"Oh...oh Kaiode,"</b> He steps away, sniffing. <b>"I loved you from the moment I saw you. You were my miracle. I've...never stopped thinking of you...or loving you. I hope you're proud of me, and I hope...I hope you're at peace. That's...all I ever wanted, my son."</b>
Diable Rouge wraps him in one last hug, and as quickly as he had appeared, the boy is gone. Rou looks to his side, but the goddess has already left, leaving him confused and broken.
But beneath the initial hurt, the stallion will wake up the next day feeling at ease. The words he never got to say to his son were finally told, not to Aurora, not to Warrick, but to <i>him</i>, in the flesh.
That's all he ever needed. <div style="font-family: 'Cinzel', serif; color: #d3ccc2; font-size: 15px;padding-top: 20px; text-align: center;letter-spacing: 2px;text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #cdc6be, 0px 0px 10px #cdc6be;">in the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet.</div</div></center>
Time, to him, was both good and bad. Time had helped him to heal, helped him to grow. Time ha helped him face Solace, time had helped him move forward from his mother's murder. And it was time that was also taking its toll on the old stallion.
He was no longer the exuberant, young four year old he had been when he first traveled to Beqanna all those years ago. The deep russet of his coat was speckled with gray, his once capable blue eyes becoming dark with blindness. His muscles ached when he woke, his energy nearly nonexistent.
Time had taken those he loved and cared about. It took the Bewanna he once knew (and dare he say, <i>loved</i>). Ellyse had disappeared along with Dahmer, Offspring (who he had been loyal to for much of his adult life, was nothing but a distant memory. Fleeting people with fleeting hearts, he knew one day they would leave him (didn't he?). Phoebus had grown before his eyes, the boy of fire taking his leave from Tephra to find something new, to find himself (the boy was truly like the volcano Rou loved so much, he could not be tamed).
AuroraElis was nowhere to be found...vanished. He had looked (oh <i>god</i> had he looked), trying desperately to find any trace of his one true love. But it seemed she had been completely erased. Perhaps, the fairies gave her wings the gift of flight, and she had taken off to find something better. Perhaps, she had just grown tired of him and snuck away under the blanket of night. Whatever the case, he knew she wasn't there with him. And god, did he miss her.
It was in these moments (that despair of loneliness that clouded his thoughts), that his mind wandered to Kaiode.
And it frustrated him, how much he still missed the little boy who was taken from the world (from him) too soon. He had talked to Solace, hadn't he? And AuroraElis had given him another child, right? So why was there that ever-present agony within him?
He keeps to himself most nights, and tonight was no different. He had walked through the playground, galloped through the field, sneaked through the forest, and waded across the river back to Tephra. Back to the land that had raised him, back to the smell of salty sea brine and sulfur, and there he emerged, body soaked with warm summer water, onto the beach.
He finds himself wander along the shoreline, towards the great heap of rocks that lay on the beach's north-end. Here, he stumbles towards Kaiode's grave, the lump that had once been there now disintegrated. Dust and bones. Fragments of the beautiful child he once was.
<i>He once was.</i> Diable Rouge shakes his head at the thought...he could barely remember the child's face anymore. Time gives and it takes, and today it had taken away the memory of Kaiode's face. His eyes well with tears, and soon they are pouring; a steady stream down his face.
<i>"What would you give for one last chance to talk to him...?"</i> A slow, meaningful whisper into the stallion's ear causes him to lurch sideways, nearly falling.
The goddess is tall, nearly his height, with a sturdy build. Her coat is a deep sorrel, her eyes a stunningly bright hue of blue. She smiles at him through crooked teeth, her fawn mane traveling in soft waves down her back. Two golden antlers stick out from the top of her head, they were glowing in the black of the night.<b>"Who are you?"</b> He questions curiously.
<i>"What would you give?"</i> She asks again, more sternly this time.
He doesn't hesitate to answer the stranger. <b>"I'd give anything."</b> He tells her. The Erotes' grin stretches further across her lips, and she nods behind him. Diable Rouge furrows his brow, and looks over.
And he is there. His bay coat glistening, every broken bone his body had endured, healed. His Kaiode, his love, his son. <b>"Kaiode..."</b> The child does not move. <b>"...Kaiode?"</b>
<i>"He can't move, Rou,"</i> The soothing voice comes from beside him. <i>"But he can hear you and feel you. Go on, talk to him while you can."</i> The large stallion steps towards his son, wrapping him in his tight embrace. For a brief moment, nothing is said, and he only weeps.
<b>"Oh...oh Kaiode,"</b> He steps away, sniffing. <b>"I loved you from the moment I saw you. You were my miracle. I've...never stopped thinking of you...or loving you. I hope you're proud of me, and I hope...I hope you're at peace. That's...all I ever wanted, my son."</b>
Diable Rouge wraps him in one last hug, and as quickly as he had appeared, the boy is gone. Rou looks to his side, but the goddess has already left, leaving him confused and broken.
But beneath the initial hurt, the stallion will wake up the next day feeling at ease. The words he never got to say to his son were finally told, not to Aurora, not to Warrick, but to <i>him</i>, in the flesh.
That's all he ever needed. <div style="font-family: 'Cinzel', serif; color: #d3ccc2; font-size: 15px;padding-top: 20px; text-align: center;letter-spacing: 2px;text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #cdc6be, 0px 0px 10px #cdc6be;">in the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet.</div</div></center>