06-29-2016, 11:09 PM
silence, like a cancer grows
He is breathless, restless, and not at all for the usual reasons. His heart is not pounding irregularly, but it pounds nonetheless, rattling against his rib cage as he saunters across the dull, dreary lands that lay before him. He broke away at dawn, savoring the way the gentle sun slowly peeked up over a tired, weary horizon, illuminating the melting frost and snow that lingers still on the permafrost below. He hid away in the crevices of the mountain, secluded for a few long, bittersweet hours as he absorbed the energy and warmth of a beckoning sun - his two-toned pelt painted in its light as he forgets, even for a moment, how inexplicably small (and how useless) he is in the scheme of things.
His dark hooves leave heavy imprints with each step he takes, leaving a trail and marking a path - but beneath him are the markings of many others; a path well-traveled. A path he cannot see - one that he blindly follows without realizing. A path marked by the many hefty, solid, muscular men that had lived many years before his own as he wanders towards the very heart of the tundra.
As his forelegs propel him forth, a soft breath of air slowly exhales from his lungs, leaving behind a trail of fog from the cold evening air. The sun was beginning to set, its brilliant colors of magenta and lavender shining over the horizon, reflecting off of the sheets of ice that remain along the mountain like shimmering painted glass. Gentle stems of grass peaked beneath the frost, lapping gently at his legs as he finally stands still while his lungs sting with the icy air.
In spite of the invitation of spring, the cold remains, setting into his bones and reminding him of his bodily existence. His heart gives a brief skip, but he ignores it. It is an odd discomfort (the way that it seems to forget how to function, how to thrive), but it is one he has learned to put to the very back of his mind. His legs, once spindly and uneasy, were now strengthened by testosterone that had begun to surge through his still young body. He was no longer awkward, fumbling or clumsy, but he was petite, if nothing else. He fit easily into the side of his father, who towered over him and was likely three times his own weight - but he is Argo; a growing boy with bright, brown fawn eyes and a too-curious mind.
His curiosity is sated, for however long, by the vision of stark, silvery obsidian against the dull gray of a cave entrance. A wry grin tugs at his whiskered lips as he quietly creeps along behind, nipping his blunt teeth against the hide of a too-familiar form. He presses alongside him, reaching to tug at his tangled forelock, mischief alight in his dark eyes as he observes the worried, furrowed brow of his brother's expression.
"Looking for me, Nevi? You'll never find me - where it is that I go, I mean." He muses, his taut skin pressed against his side, seeking his warmth and comfort in ways that were perhaps too inappropriate for words at times. "Sometimes I need to get away. Sometimes I need to be alone." You suffocate me, he doesn't say. You all do.
He knows the depths of their love, of their adoration, of their worry. It is all a bit too much for him, at times.
He knows his brother knows this; he does but cannot help himself.
ARGO
the fragile ice prince.