between the shadows and the soul

[Tarnished]

I really hate to break it to you,
But your life is being played with.

War games.

He doesn’t care much for them; it isn’t a secret that he lacks the rest of the family’s ambition, maybe it’s because he didn’t have a parent lighting a fire under his ass to be all that he could be. Maybe it’s because he hated his mother and wanted to rebel against everything she stood for; she wanted all of her children to be Kings and Queens, playing across Beqanna like her own personal pawns—descendants, like herself, of the Whore of the Slave Pens. The one Tatter pulled from the fire. The one whose blood marked them as Blemished and made them the laughing stock of the family. Tarnished is the only one named accordingly.

He is the only one that truly knows now.

Everyone else is dead or scattered to the wind.

Straia should know.

As always, he has the uncanny ability to appear in the right place at the wrong time. The sand around Straia stirs, as if disturbed by the wind, but there’s no breeze; grains gather, they sift and pull themselves together to make the shape of a horse and before long, her long lost cousin is standing some feet away. He cocks his head, staring at her curiously—the Deserts has warned them of an attack, but he cannot quite bring himself to attack the Raven Queen. Not without cause, anyways. And he doesn’t care about the mares she sends bumbling over the borders, they’re nothing to him. They’re not a good enough reason to turn on his own blood.

If she were to turn on him, on the other hand….

Well, things might get interesting.

“Hello, cousin,” Tarnished says, grinning big enough to bear his curved (and pretty, pretty white!) serrated teeth.

“Dunno what this is all about,” he seems to shrug, motioning after the women with the ravens whose talons have dug into their backs. He doesn’t watch them go, it’s probably for the best; he doesn’t even care to learn their names. They’re probably on some sort of suicide mission and he’ll come across their baking meaty bits come the morning. At least the vultures will have something nice to eat. “Don’t really care, just got home so all of this is none of my business—but!” The stallion sighs, his golden eyes locked on the face of his would-be opponent. “Leave my brood out of it, pretty sure you can tell them from the rest with those pretty birds of yours... yes?” He tilts his head the other way, much in the same manner one of her ravens might in order to get a better view.

She wanted the truth, once.

She wanted to know.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t felt obliged to fill her in on all of their family secrets at the time.

And here she is, starting a war and maybe dying come the dawn.

He should feel ashamed.

“Proud of you, whether that means anything or not—probably not,” he laughs. “We weren’t supposed to be anything, you and me. Or our mothers. Descended down from some no-name mare that the Chamber took to the Slave Pens. We were a blight on the bloodline—something to be embarrassed of and look at you, cousin! Look at you.” Tarnished shakes his head, already dissolving back into the sand.

“Keep my children out of it and I won’t get involved.”

And then he’s gone.

tarnished

( vanquish x nocturnal)

[If anything needs to be changed, let me know. No one should have seen or heard the conversation with Nish and Straia. ]