03-02-2021, 12:44 PM
Curiousity mingles with caution and the strangeness of him. She is still reaching out as if he is one of hers - or perhaps even if he is someone else's, she can grasp at him, pull him away. She doesn't know if it's possible, but brushes against the pulsing darkness of his skin as if to weave a rope of shadows round his neck and draw him to her. She's never had to catch a shadow before, and there's something intoxicating in the attempt, despite the soft voice in the back of her head that tells her she is doomed to failure.
Nevertheless, she tries, and he recoils swiftly, drawing into himself until there is nothing left but dark flesh drawn taut over bones and red eyes that flash confusion, curiousity, irritation, and yet somehow hold no emotion at all. No, she thinks, it is not his eyes she's reading but his darkness. Those too-bright, too-large, twin lights are empty and proffer no more emotion than the cold, quivering, stars hanging above the Isle or the flickering red of dragon-struck trees whose hearts are burning beneath their charred shells.
I know, he says, coming closer (drawn by her magic, perhaps, but not its power,) and his voice is sharp as dragon scales. It is full of the sound of cold smoke and dry leaves and she knows that rasp well, knows the soft scratch of it in her ears when the shadows speak their broken messages, but not the rich resonance underneath. Not the weary exasperation that still colors his words when he tells her that she is the wrong color.
Her curved ears, pressed forward until they shape a heart above her head turn back slightly now, and the golden mare draws her chin to her chest as though to look within herself. It is dark, and the shadows that cling to her skin sometimes make her coat dusky, but she is still the color of ripened wheat and the forelock that bends over her eyes is still pale and silvery in the dim reflected river light. The stars gleaming softly on her shoulders are unaffected by the cursed eclipse. She is exactly the right color. Nothing has changed.
"I am the same color I've always been," it's her turn for her words to be clipped and tight, "are you?"
Needled, Beryl digs in her heels, turning her simple curiousity into an insult which she wields like a club, skillessly. When she steps forward into his challenge, the dim world turns dark. It's only a moment, a blink, half a breath, but it's darker than anything she's ever known (for her shadows are ever full of those golden eyes, spinning away in a tunnel to unseen places.) It makes her stop abruptly, and then it's gone and the muted world returns except...
Except that instead of a red-eyed shadow-stallion, there is a dull gleam of bone, black as obsidian, as stag beetle shells, and the coal of his eyes has gone, replaced with empty shadow. Her grey lips twist into a frown.
"If you are trying to scare me, it won't work."
Nevertheless, she tries, and he recoils swiftly, drawing into himself until there is nothing left but dark flesh drawn taut over bones and red eyes that flash confusion, curiousity, irritation, and yet somehow hold no emotion at all. No, she thinks, it is not his eyes she's reading but his darkness. Those too-bright, too-large, twin lights are empty and proffer no more emotion than the cold, quivering, stars hanging above the Isle or the flickering red of dragon-struck trees whose hearts are burning beneath their charred shells.
I know, he says, coming closer (drawn by her magic, perhaps, but not its power,) and his voice is sharp as dragon scales. It is full of the sound of cold smoke and dry leaves and she knows that rasp well, knows the soft scratch of it in her ears when the shadows speak their broken messages, but not the rich resonance underneath. Not the weary exasperation that still colors his words when he tells her that she is the wrong color.
Her curved ears, pressed forward until they shape a heart above her head turn back slightly now, and the golden mare draws her chin to her chest as though to look within herself. It is dark, and the shadows that cling to her skin sometimes make her coat dusky, but she is still the color of ripened wheat and the forelock that bends over her eyes is still pale and silvery in the dim reflected river light. The stars gleaming softly on her shoulders are unaffected by the cursed eclipse. She is exactly the right color. Nothing has changed.
"I am the same color I've always been," it's her turn for her words to be clipped and tight, "are you?"
Needled, Beryl digs in her heels, turning her simple curiousity into an insult which she wields like a club, skillessly. When she steps forward into his challenge, the dim world turns dark. It's only a moment, a blink, half a breath, but it's darker than anything she's ever known (for her shadows are ever full of those golden eyes, spinning away in a tunnel to unseen places.) It makes her stop abruptly, and then it's gone and the muted world returns except...
Except that instead of a red-eyed shadow-stallion, there is a dull gleam of bone, black as obsidian, as stag beetle shells, and the coal of his eyes has gone, replaced with empty shadow. Her grey lips twist into a frown.
"If you are trying to scare me, it won't work."
@[Torryn]