i’ve been both a saint & a viper

The creature stays close to the comfort of the shadows, the terrible sound of his unsteady breaths loud in his ears. His skin is stretched thin across bone, as if at any moment he would tear with just a single step. At the base of his spindly and sharp antlers, blood has caked on the deep black of his skin, perfectly frozen where they dried dripping down his thin, emaciated face. His eyes grow dark, only a pinpoint of blue left in the very center as his blank stare remains hidden beneath the shade of his growing antlers and the tall pines that surround him.

Part of him is still as he once was, but the growing darkness of his skin is still spreading, leaving only his barrel and neck as the mottled blue of his past. He thinks himself dying (or perhaps undying, caught in this perpetual state of living death), his throat dry as his stomach roils with hunger and starvation, the simple smell of a living being causing something sinister to awaken within him.

The smell of death brings the creature out from the shadows he normally keeps. His own monsters (hallucinations, a product of starvation as well as decades of insanity) scurry somewhere in the depths of the forest that borders the river, parading and howling at the promise of blood. His dark nostrils flutter, thin and papery, as he steps into the sunlight where the dragon feasts on her kill.

He is ugly in the light (ugly in the darkness too, but it is less noticeable - the sharp edges of his hips and spine are not so easily seen, nor the discomforting way his eyes look upon others). The creaking of his bones silence themselves as he stands now motionless, the cooing of his demons whispering dark thoughts into his ears. The shadow of his thin and sharp antlers cast splinters of darkness across his already obsidian face, ominous and sinister as he stands in the broad light of day. Licking his lips, propelled by hunger alone, the stallion shuffles closer to the predator, his breath struggling and haphazardous. Balto’s insidious eyes never leave the dragon’s.

He is no predator himself (perhaps not now), but merely a scavenger begging for scraps.

Balto

i’ve been both a saint & a viper

The dark creature watches the reptilian beast with patient, burning eyes. His gaze drifts between her slitted eyes and the blood that pours from between her massive claws, hunger gnawing at the pits of his stomach. He swallows hard as she ingests huge portions of meat, lowering his head a bit more as he continues his casual walk towards the predator. The sun falls against the barely sprouted tangle of antlers, sharp and twisted like branches across his face.

Her voice falls clearly through the air and Balto’s movement ceases. All whispers have fallen silent (uninterested in such a conversation where it is so obvious that he would not be able to draw blood) and he is alone in his thoughts with this dragon, stained in blood.

“Yes,” he manages, his voice low and harsh with disuse. For a moment of tense silence, Balto’s lungs rattle with a few inhales and exhales. He understands nothing of his desire for blood and sinew, only the instinctual need to investigate the smell of death that has permeated the entire riverlands. “I am no thief,” Balto reassures the dragon, though the sour feeling in his stomach would be able to convince him otherwise. His hunger grows and with the inability to die, he will soon have to face the morbid reality that he is more predator than he truly believes.

Balto’s icy blue eyes fall back to the stag that is now unrecognizable - a mass of blood-stained and cracked bones, bits of fur and seemingly brittle antlers compared to the teeth and claws of the dragoness.

Balto