it’s fairly simple to cut right through the mess; jenjen pony

[zai]

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

 
He is a rusted, quiet thing. 

Dusk has already settled over his shoulders, the blurring of light and shadow melding into his wide shoulders and dragging the corner of his thick lip down in the corner. He doesn’t move as the sun moves across the sky. He doesn’t move as the shadows make their long play, stretching outward with spindly fingers and then dragging backward, casting their form along the expanse of his back and out into the forest floor. 

He remains still, unmoving—nothing but a stone pressed into the floor, as surely rooted as the trees that curve up and around him. If it were not the cracking of a branch, the sound as abrupt and violent as the fracturing of a spine, he may not have moved at all. Instead, the sound sends one dark ear toward it, the motion slight and muffled by the thick, tangled wire of his forelock. His head angles with it, the motion inquisitive before he shakes that from him, the curiosity dropping from him and finding a home amongst the moss underneath. 

It had been a long time since he had found himself back here, and in a lot of ways, he no longer feels the young man he had once been. There is no longer the buoyancy of youth, the elasticity of naive hope. He is rigid now, stern, bruises barely hidden behind the grey mist of his guarded eyes. It’s not difficult to imagine the man he might have become had things gone differently. It is not difficult to think of the carefree boy that he had been—the joy that has blossomed so assuredly in his chest, blooming roses of innocence wrapping around each rib and up his throat. Instead, such beauty had been ripped from him, hallowed him out. 

And during the in-between, those formative moments where he might have found and clung to a driftwood life raft, he had instead let go. He had dropped into the ether of his own thoughts, retreating further and further away into the sullen, bitter silence. He had let rust climb up his limbs and rot begin to seep through his veins. Now, there is little of that laughing young boy. In his stead is a rusted, quiet thing. This man who stands in the darkness, peering into this land that is not home but is also not completely alien. He snorts, the sudden exhale of air disturbing the lightest of leaves beneath him, and shakes, letting the dust lift off his spotted hide and then slowly fall down, settling back into the familiar curves and straightaways. 

Beneath his mane, the summer afternoon heat produces just the slightest hint of a sheen, dampening the flesh and providing the barest reminder that he was alive at all. He almost settles back into the stillness. He almost drops back into the cradle of it, but he hears another crack—loud and echoing. This time, he doesn’t move his head. He doesn’t flick an ear. Instead, he just lifts his solemn, stormy eyes, sharpening against the areas where the shadows have already obscured his vision. His voice is strong and clear, a surprising sound when considering the quietness of the rest of him, and it rings unmistakably through the hushed forest air: “Yes?”

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess

[polaris]

Polaris

She is as quiet as a broken thing can be, though the fissures and cracks through her body protest with soft groans and creaks when she moves. It would be so much easier to be still, to pick a place and hide away in the deep shadows beneath the trees, but she is restless, discontent. It’s been so long since she had seen any sign of her family, any sign of the sable-skinned man who had appointed himself her guardian - who she had clung to so readily in return. A father, a protector, a friend. Her whole world. Missing now. Missing for so long despite how diligently she continues to comb the forests.

It is why she is here now, picking her way from one shadow to the next, knowing the dark will cloak the strange appeal of her glittering figure. Smooth, even glass in reflective teal - darker in the cracked places beneath the surface, like a network of crooked veins beneath false skin. Maybe it should make her feel better, to have veins. An imitation of normalcy, sameness, when she is so clearly odd. But the cracks scare her, feel like staring down at wide fissures knowing they will one day undo her.

She doesn’t want to be undone.

The day must be quiet - or she must be louder than she realizes, the creak of not-bones and crooked skin, pocked glass not meant for a world like this, because she is stopped by a sound - a voice, and it feels almost as startling as a slap across the face. She had thought she was alone here. Yes? She shrinks back out of habit, instantly worried and wary and slipping back into the embrace of cool shadows, shadows that steal the glitter from her glass. He’s just there though, through the trees and just ahead. Tall and stoic and almost reminding her of someone else. That someone had been softer though, she thinks.

He’s staring into the trees towards her, and she wonders if he can see that glint of teal reflecting from the shadows. Shining and pocked with constellations of brokenness, out of place among that flatter browns and greens. Always out of place. She is frozen though, a delicate glass sculpture, those faded amber eyes wide and unblinking. There is no effort made to move closer - certainly no attempt to run, she is not a creature made for such things. Nor does she offer a answer to his question, not even a sound of acknowledgement. She is only silent, reaching for invisible.

though i never needed any proof to trust the heart that beats inside of you

[zai]

have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
just a cage of rib bones and other various parts

Whatever he had been expecting, whatever expectations had risen inside of him like a phoenix, had not prepared him for the vision that comes into focus—the edges of her unmistakable and yet impossible. There is a moment of confusion, the furrowing of a sullen brow, the deepening of an already infuriating scowl. It did not make sense and yet, and yet, it was somehow further proof of his return back home. Somehow a visible reminder of the magic that cradled this land once more and invited him back in. For but a brief moment he thinks of Djinni and the strange magic that simmered in her blood and he wonders if this is but a creature of her own making—something to lure him in, something to hook his attention.

It would be like her. To place such a delicate thing at his feet and see how he reacted.

Would he simply turn his cheek and leave?

Would he reach out?

Would it stir some feeling of protectiveness in his guarded chest?

The thought of it—the test—nearly infuriates him, but he doesn’t show the depth of his anger. He shows nothing at all except that pull of leathered lips and twitch of his ear. For a moment, he considers ignoring her and simply walking away, despite the fact that she sits frozen in the middle of the forest for the sole reason of his calling out to her. But—but—there is something else in him that infuriates him more even than the idea of this being bait—and the humanity that rattles against his ribcage leaves him rooted, grey eyes peering out at her with the barest hint of irritation as if she had been the one to call out to him.

For another moment, he remains trapped within the amber of her gaze before he snorts, the derision clear, and mostly directed at himself. Still, he lifts a heavy hoof and steps toward her, his movements slow and calculated, his grey eyes narrowing in concentration. She is a delicate thing, somehow impossible and yet breathing clearly before him, and he finds himself interested, the curiosity blooming in his echoing chest.

“My name is Zai,” he finally offers, the gesture seemingly kind but somehow blunted by the disinterested way that he throws it out, sharp and final. It is, like all things boiling inside of him, an impossible mixture of the man that he once was—kind, joyful, loving—and the man that he has hardened to be. There is a part of him that nearly reaches for her, certain in the need to protect, but he is held back, sullen as the shadows once against creep across his mahogany face and further still into the slate of his gaze.

so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess