Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
Her eyes are wary, but there is weariness in their jade depths. Gale stares, his own eyes bright and lightning sharp, crackling like the miniscule bolts that pulse across his hide. She looks soft, and beyond the sharp curl of her horn he cannot Sense anything within her that feels sharp enough to truly hurt him.
Should he eat her?
Bring her skull back to Malik as a plaything?
His young son will appreciate the toy, something to sharpen his pointed milk teeth on. The cub is starting to eat more meat as well, and the mare is strong and well-muscled, with a haunch that could easily fill the stomach of a growing boy.
Kill her here or take her back home first?
She’s looking up at the place his horns had once been, and Gale grows them again.
Well, he means to, but instead the forked horns that he had been gifted by Hyaline’s entity grow. They are not white spirals like her own, but instead they are black and three pronged, and they glow and flicker with slow moving blue lava-like light. Gale frowns, because the magic does not usually affect him so.
Had she done this?
Had she hidden something from him, some ability that causes a malfunction in his abilities? Best play along, he decides, and tread carefully until he has a better idea of the source of this oddity. If it is the green-eyed mare, he will take it from her as he eats her heart, and the thought causes the claws of his forelimbs to dig into the earth.
Concentrating, he pulls the horns longer, till they curl around like his had - like hers do. “The darkness took them.” he replies, referring to the Eclipse. She does not glow, he realizes just as he speaks, there is no light about her the way there is on so many of the survivors. Perhaps she is a newcomer to this world? Perhaps she has some foreign Gift he does not recognize.
Take her back home first. The choice is made for him. Better to have back-up.
“I would like to take you to Hyaline with me.” He tells her. The declaration is matter-of-fact, and he waits expectantly for an answer once he has asked: “Will you come?” He sounds only curious, and there is still a handsome smile on his dark face. She could say no, the smile says.
He’s not quite decided if that is true yet.
|
