[open] Shadows for Skin [ANY]

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

There has been a sense of offness, in a dream perhaps? It intensifies now as he takes a closer look at Cheri. In the shade of the column, he thought she had looked strangely frail. The shadows had been more deceiving then he had realized as a musty gust of breath escapes her. As a sliver of her face catches in the dim light, this piece of her not covered in strange foliage, he finds himself releasing a surprised huff of air himself. Skeletal, decrepit, like a husk.

There is a piercing whine ringing in his ears as he’s about to step closer towards her but it is Aela's appearance that stops him. She, at least, looks normal and her singsong voice momentarily distracts him from his rising unease and anger. Until she adds to it with her cryptic words. What on earth is she talking about? There is a pause, a moment, and then the shade of Cheri speaks of Loess being gone as the withered remains of plants fall away and reveals the shadow of the mare he had only seen yesterday. Nothing registers across his face as the words start to settle. As he looks at this part of Beqanna that shouldn’t exist. As he realizes that Aela’s scent is no longer that of wildflowers and Skandar. That Cheri seems unsurprised despite looking at deaths door.

He had missed something. And the anger that burns inside of him should be enough to raise the snake whose hunger is pounding at his insides but for some reason… For some reason is too weak to rise and control him. Cheri’s eyes are on him but his are not on hers. It is Aela who receives his blazing stare, finely tipped ears laid back against his glittering skull, as he finally speaks. Cold and collected as always. A single question as he pulls on the bond that he shares with Light, a panicked dread weaving between the heat of his growing rage. “Where is my son Aela?”

Apparently the South had been taken, Cheri overthrown (probably by Gale after she had interfered in their fight), his own crown probably given to another. But none of it matter, not even if the Pampas was burned to the ground or the entirety of Beqanna laid under the sea, nothing mattered but the son that had been safely asleep next to his mother amongst the wildflowers he had left behind last night. That he was safe and whole.

obscene

@Aela @Cheri
Sorry not sorry Star