03-05-2020, 09:40 AM
center> 
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
There is a voice on the wind, one of command. It stirs Castile from a deep slumber, his body coiled in the shadows of a mountain cave. Lepis is so deeply embedded in his memories that even as his grasp on sanity loosens, he remembers her. Much else, however, is fading behind an abysmal black hole.
He recalls announcing to Ilma who is to be his successor should he spiral irreversibly into a draconic lifestyle. It isn’t Lepis, and yet she beckons them all with enough feverish purpose that within a few heartbeats, Castile is airborne.
The flight is brief, expedited by the tone in which Lepis has set. By the time he joins them, the ground groaning beneath his weight, there is already Alcinder and Starsin heeding the call. A sobering glance finds the boy, a tenderness easing the sharp ridges of the dragon’s face as he reaches down to gingerly nudge him. ”My son,” the words are hardly more than a rumbling growl, but there is adoration threaded in the statement nonetheless. The others are spared such niceties. Towering above each of them, struggling to sift through what is right and wrong, who is what, and why, Castile adopts a piercing stare that unyieldingly holds the remaining females. A primal hiss drips past his lips as they peel back in his internal struggle.
It has only been in the previous months that Pangea has extended their aggression toward Loess, the reasons unbeknownst to him. Prior to that, Loess has thrived beneath his reign and yet they squabble as though…
No, stop.
An agitated flick of his tail is the only indication of what treads through his barbaric thoughts. Betrayal, he muses, but he has experienced such things more than once in his life that now it is near comical. Change was necessary, thus a new face to guide them, but they shy from it in the hours that Oceane spends locked away in the confines of Pangea. Rather than take her back, they already press for replacement. A deep exhalation thickens the air above him with a cloud of blackened smoke as he regards Lepis with conflicting emotions of confusion, disappointment, and surprise. She had refused to lead alongside him when the opportunity was offered on a plate to her; perhaps, she has been a snake in the grass, biding her time for a moment such as this. To a degree, he cannot fault her, but his eyes nonetheless narrow in mistrust of them all. Corded muscles tangle and knot underneath his scales, preparing for what may come.
He recalls announcing to Ilma who is to be his successor should he spiral irreversibly into a draconic lifestyle. It isn’t Lepis, and yet she beckons them all with enough feverish purpose that within a few heartbeats, Castile is airborne.
The flight is brief, expedited by the tone in which Lepis has set. By the time he joins them, the ground groaning beneath his weight, there is already Alcinder and Starsin heeding the call. A sobering glance finds the boy, a tenderness easing the sharp ridges of the dragon’s face as he reaches down to gingerly nudge him. ”My son,” the words are hardly more than a rumbling growl, but there is adoration threaded in the statement nonetheless. The others are spared such niceties. Towering above each of them, struggling to sift through what is right and wrong, who is what, and why, Castile adopts a piercing stare that unyieldingly holds the remaining females. A primal hiss drips past his lips as they peel back in his internal struggle.
It has only been in the previous months that Pangea has extended their aggression toward Loess, the reasons unbeknownst to him. Prior to that, Loess has thrived beneath his reign and yet they squabble as though…
No, stop.
An agitated flick of his tail is the only indication of what treads through his barbaric thoughts. Betrayal, he muses, but he has experienced such things more than once in his life that now it is near comical. Change was necessary, thus a new face to guide them, but they shy from it in the hours that Oceane spends locked away in the confines of Pangea. Rather than take her back, they already press for replacement. A deep exhalation thickens the air above him with a cloud of blackened smoke as he regards Lepis with conflicting emotions of confusion, disappointment, and surprise. She had refused to lead alongside him when the opportunity was offered on a plate to her; perhaps, she has been a snake in the grass, biding her time for a moment such as this. To a degree, he cannot fault her, but his eyes nonetheless narrow in mistrust of them all. Corded muscles tangle and knot underneath his scales, preparing for what may come.
castile