03-07-2018, 01:52 PM
The shadows drifted across his skin, writing illegible threats upon his golden hide, made timeless by the darkness. They stung him into movement; cruel and unforgiving as they scorned him, taunted him, bade him give in! Khaedrik was unfeeling in the choking blackness that tightened – noose-like – around the arch of his neck, blunting his senses with mace-like might. He has draped himself in shadows and apathy; and his ears hear only the resounding silence that shattered like bone against trees.
The darkness was his cocoon – his quarantine – his pocket of fruitful sanity. It kept him safe, and it kept him numb. And he was grateful for it. He had no desire to feel, for this was like a fast, and just as someone fasting spurns hunger, Khaedrik spurned emotion. He wants to disappear into the night; sever the strings to reality he has so carefully woven. Why evoke burden when this was a time of unburden. Why strangle apathy and resuscitate doubt.
Oh, he has tried normalcy; and he has bit hard into the gravel of failure. He has lost; and he is soulless – a shadow-ghost now. He wallows in his misery; clad in shadow and gloom – until suddenly that shroud of darkness begin to stir. It has sensed something on the wind; or rather, someone. Go they whisper into waiting ears and he obeys, trading apathy for interest. There was someone in these woods tonight. Someone like him.
Khaedrik – who needs no legs to travel, appears before the boy in a cloud of darkness. His eyes gleam fever-bright and delirious, and his own shadows pool around the others feet as if greeting an old friend.
”What are you?” he demands; as if the boy is taunting him with his darkness.