He is quiet as he moves through the dark, and though his pale brown eyes wander they rarely linger long on anyone he finds. This is a world drained of color, of light, and he can feel the weight of it like a stone in his chest where his heart used to be. It is more than this unending night, more than the stars that are too shy too shine. It is more than the sun and the moon who seem to have abandoned the world in favor of this new imbalance, this strange togetherness that leaves the world below in ruins.
It is the life that has gone from everything, the warmth he had loved so well.
It is the families reduced by half, and the bones strewn through wilted grass like empty constellations.
This is not the world he had fallen in love with, but it is the only one left and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
He reaches water without realizing he had been tracking the sound and shush of it, the smell of cold and fresh and always new. But it moves steadily past him now as he draws to a halt and looks down. It is a stream, usually unimpressive but much fuller now with the snowmelt and early spring rains. It swells outwards along the bank, close enough that he should be able to see his reflection, but when the quiet eyes search for the familiar silhouette the only thing he finds is any clarity is the halo of light reflected back from the sky above him.
Tension builds and settles in his shoulders, thickening the lean muscle along his golden back and across his hips. Even those eyes, always soft and gentle, a shade of brown so light and warm they might be honey half-disappear beneath a scowl that robs all the kindness from his face for just a moment. But he has never been good at holding onto the dark and it slips away from him almost immediately as he turns from the reflection to walk instead with the burbling stream at his side.
He is quiet as he walks, focusing only on the sound of the water at his side and the junction ahead where it connects to the roaring river. There is too much weight in his chest, too much weariness in his heart, and for now it is all he can do to push the lingering anxieties aside and think only of the world around him while it slumbers and nightmares in odd perpetuity.
This time when he reaches the water's edge, he stands close enough that it laps around his hooves, close enough that when he leans down he can touch the navy of his nose to its own reflection. His aura is muted in the dark, or perhaps muted by the dark inside his chest, but he studies it for several long moments while white and yellow and orange swirl together to create something murky and unfamiliar. He is used to his blues and greens and this makes him feel like a stranger inside his own body.
Then, with his aura flaring suddenly bright white, he shatters the reflection with a strike from his hoof and starts to turn from it. But the distortion seems so like what he feels inside his chest that it robs all the motion from his body until he feels as stiff and unyielding as any of the giant oaks in the forest beyond. “Who am I anymore?” A quiet voice to match a quiet heart. He blinks and then closes his eyes, opening them only when the sound of something nearby warns him of company. Still, like the trees, he is unmoving.
WEB
@[The Monsters] please mess with his dream teleportation and super senses
@[Colby]