resurrect the saint within the wretch
It all happens so quickly; he had been beneath a full winter’s moon, huge and bright as it’s cratered face spilled silver light over the Tephran sea. Then the familiar pain began - a deep thrum in his head, bold and persistent. His great, white wings send him hurdling to the north, away from the steady glow of the volcano, and into the endless night. He is shocked, however, at how quickly his eyesight is taken over by his vision. He feels the heat even before his eyes turn their milky white, no longer feeling the cold sea wind against his skin. It is replaced with the crackling of embers and the fierce lick of uncontrollable flames, acrid smoke infiltrating his lungs. Fire burns in his eyelids, in each shuddering pulse of his heart as it races, and within his very veins. It burns and burns, unforgiving and without mercy, relentless in the way it spreads.
He’s not alone within the firestorm - there is another. A stranger (they always were at first, weren’t they?) coughs behind him, peering through orange and red flames that only grow higher and higher with everything they consume. Warden’s heavy gaze sees the speckled wings against the stallion’s chestnut sides and the bangles of gold that wrap around his forelegs and across his haunches. Warden finds their color glowing spectacularly within the midst of the fire, though he quickly becomes more concerned as he realizes that the stranger is now burning alive.
The Watcher reaches towards him as they both beat their wings in an attempt to fly upwards and out. But those white and brown speckled wings are doused in flames, the air they move only fanning the fire into a more chaotic tempest. The other calls for help but smoke only enters his open mouth, sending him to his knees. Warden is beside him, urging him forwards but nothing is heard or seen or felt in the future. How is that each time he knows that their future is inevitable, that he still attempts to save them? The horned stallion watches mournfully as the lungs on the chestnut and gold stallion give out far before the flames begin to burn away his skin.
Warden sheds a tear for him as he does for everyone.
With a gasp, he returns to the present, where he is met with air so frigid that it takes the breath from his lungs. He is tumbling through the night sky in a whirlwind of feathers and auburn skin, and though his wings fling outwards to catch himself, Warden crashes through the canopy of the redwoods. The branches crack and scrape at his skin, pulling his flesh apart as if trying to catch him and slow him down. They are unsuccessful as he lands with a solid and sickening thud, all of the air in his lungs escaping in a painful groan.
Dazed, bleeding, and already bruising, the dirt-covered stallion rolls to his side, staring up at the kaleidoscope of giant redwoods that tower over him. He groans, a shuddering breath leaving him. Not often do his visions take place during a flight, so he remains in this prone position, his memory of the future still searing in his mind while his body physically pulses with pain from the fall.
@[lilliana]
