Gale
started under neon lights, then it all got dark
i only know how to go too far
The world around them grows still and silent. The turquoise water no longer laps at his ankles, neither storm nor surf sound in his ears. There is only the beating of his heart, the rise and fall of his lungs, and the silence that stretches ever louder between them.
He should have known better than to think that he could have a moment of relief. The Curse has gone well past ‘mischief’, he realizes, has already attempted murder and done something terrible to the residents of the volcanic kingdom. It has done enough to gain notoriety. Perhaps this pale eyed mare does not know him personally, but instead knows of what he has done.
What has he done, he wonders? Has the blood he sometimes woke in been more than prey consumed as a predator? He knows the Curse is progressive but has no idea how much time has passed. Enough that he has moved several times - from Islandres to Hyaline to Tephra and back to Islandres again - but those brief minutes of memory upon waking might have easily been short visits to those places. The moments of clarity are few and far between, his regenerative healing picking away at the Curse’s magic and giving Gale fleeting bits of freedom. This has been the longest period of time to himself, and is one of the few he even remembers.
How long has it been since he had been in Tephra, Gale wonders? A week? A year? When had he tried to kill someone called Ryatah? Gale tries to remember who that is and in doing so accidentally manages to find the image of an angel. Had his lightning pulled it from the white mare and let him See through her eyes? Or had he only stolen it from the Curse, which has begun to shift and stretch within him in what feels like irritation and disgust?
He remembers the angels. He feels, just for a moment, the desire to hunt them. But it is not his desire, but rather that of the shadowy thing within him, the one that quickly and with well-practiced ease now squeezes the life out of Gale from within his own body. His blue eyes close, and when they reopen, the lightning is gone.
How long has there been silence since she asked him what he meant? How long had Gale’s eyes stared out at nothing, lost in the spiral of his own thoughts?
Long enough that the storm surrounds them. It flashes and rages, kept at bay by the mare that stands above the water. The Curse is still bound by the magic that had first created it, unable to perform a new magic it had not first stolen from the heart of another user. It wants the skills she has, and intends to take them now that it has Gale again.
The body of its host is well-rested, but it suspects that killing the white mare will require more than physical strength. Carnage’s arcane blow had damaged it in ways that are still incomprehensible, and the cursed creature would rather avoid being forced to use magics that might inexplicably fail.
“I know better than to cross the dark god now,” it says, which is in no way an answer to the question she’d asked Gale. The words are a lie, because it will always hunger for more power, and are said mostly because it enjoys having regained the ability to lie. “You don’t happen to be a particular favorite of his like she was, do you?”
@ Beyza
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Gale
