 Drip, drip drip… These hollow caves cry mineral tears - the kind that harden into stoney, ancient teeth. How long they take to grow - seeded by one heartbreak, one wrongdoing, and left to fester in grief for millennia. Alone. Drip, drip, drip… Only, these catacombs are not alone. Not entirely. They’ve kept the company of two stallions for some ten years. Faulkor has all but forgotten the sensation of sight or the touch of light on star-strewn flesh. The only warmth he has felt these long years spent in darkness is that of his companion, Balto. Such a strange pair they make; a would-be king grown old and his apprentice grown much too strong. Faulkor knows how the tables have turned, and he is certain Balto knows as well, but neither dare mention it. Drip, drip, drip… Time’s teeth shred through youthful flesh and lets rot the joints of a once mighty warrior. But, in the darkness it doesn’t matter. Drip...drip… The rhythm fades into sudden silence. Faulkor halts. There is light. He looks to Balto wordlessly before they both stagger forward together. But, something is wrong. In all the years spent in quiet darkness, the hollows have never been so still. All of thirty seconds pass before the earth splits above and below them. Those ancient stone teeth close in on them, as if the cavern itself were reviling against their departure into light. They had been hers for oh so long. For one last moment he and Balto are together, though the younger blue stallion has seemingly lost consciousness. They fall into darkness. But this darkness is sulphuric and hot, like that of new earth forming. Finally, the heat chokes the breath from the black stallion, and he whispers just before joining Balto in slumber: “Is this death?” ------------- It is not death. Hell is too full, and heaven had denied him long ago. His nostrils crinkle at scents long forgotten long before his eyes reveal tiny slivers of themselves. How had he fallen out of the earth? He groans, ribs creaking as he lifts his head. Stars? How generous of the earth to spit him out in the depths of night. Daylight very well may have killed him. He finds his feet, albeit more shakily than he would like to admit. The silvery moonlight reveals a gaunt shell of the beast he once was. He grits his yellowed teeth as he searches the night for the blue stallion, though he is not sure he could recognize him based on appearance. Years spent together in the dark tend to skew how one perceives the other. Faulkor is sure that Balto can’t have gone far - especially if the roan felt anything the way Faulkor’s ribs did. There is something strange and heady amongst the air, and though it has been years since Faulkor has known life beyond the blackness of underground caverns and labyrinths, he recognizes most scents for what they are: pine, grass, afterbirth, life, and death. But, there is something in the air he has never felt before - something bewitching. He finds his companion beneath the towering pines, sprawled out like a dead man. “Get up, Balto.” He whispers in a voice not unlike the rasp of cold wind through the jagged treetops. “There is magic here.” |
@[Balto]