Like the prodigal son he is, Skandar finally returns.
He is not what he once had been. If anything, he is more. Perhaps he would be unrecognizable to most (as he so often is, with his constantly changing skin and the orphan that he so proudly claims to be), but there are a certain few that would find those burning eyes unmistakable.
The now-stallion is only shadow and blackened skin; he nearly seems without form, crawling atop the earth with heavy, downtrodden steps as if the earth of Pangea was attempting to pull him back into the crevice in which he belonged. But he has never belonged - not really - and so the earth does not give way but only groans as the appendages that could only be understood as hooves fall heavily upon the clay.
Darkness squirms around him, fidgeting and unruly. The black of night shrouds him further, making him appear a mere ghost across the barren landscape. He groans (it’s all he remembers, he thinks, for that is how they had spoken, how they had communicated) but no one responds. They are gone, burnt from the earth with the rising of the forbidden sun, vanquished by light and light alone. He, ever the outcast, remains, shriveling in the daylight and barely functioning beneath the silver light of the once barren moon.
In the midst of his black shape (an unrecognizable thing, shifting and attempting to become what the monsters were when he had been living amongst them), there are bold flashes of the galaxies that once beautifully adorned his navy flesh - oranges and blues pop and crack, trying to recreate what he truly is despite his attempt to remain the monster he had thought himself to be.
But those eyes - burning and searing red - are nearly unforgettable.
Skandar can feel the sunrise on the horizon. He clicks and groans, calling out to a family that is no longer there, finally hissing angrily as he slows his movement into a fissuring, shadowy stillness.
He pauses, breathless and sore and lost - forgotten.
Then, “Aela.”
skandar
@[Aela]