jamie
from the destruction, out of the flame
The darkness has no conscience.
The shadow things feels no flicker of guilt, no tremor of remorse, when surprise registers on the blue stallion’s face.
The shadow thing had not asked because it cared.
No, the shadow thing is implicitly selfish. He had asked only because of his own pain. Because he wanted somewhere to place the blame. He is the blue stallion and the blue stallion is him and their pain is shared. The shadow thing does not want it anymore.
How keen he is to shrug it off.
There is some wicked stirring at the very center of him.
Some monstrous thing that trembles in the cavern of his chest.
He is no monster, Jamie.
Except that he so often is.
He can no longer convince himself otherwise, no matter how he tries.
But his efforts have been weak as of late.
He is a monster.
He is this blue stallion’s monster. He is the darkness that plagues him and the blue stallion is the pain in joints that he does not know are real. This blue stallion is responsible for the rattling in his lungs when he draws breath. And there is some brilliant flash of anger, blame. A sharp spike of hatred before it is gone and it is just the two of them and the blue stallion’s demons. He’s got his mouth pressed against the stallion’s shoulder but there’s nothing there but the idea of touch. His breath like some soft gust of wind when he exhales.
The fog grows denser as it curls itself sweetly around them, ducking under the blue stallion’s neck, splintering down his chest and then it comes crawling back to Jamie. They are intertwined. The fog is every bit as tangible as Jamie, which is to say hardly at all, but it shackles them together all the same.
Will he help? Still, the bold yellow eyes are closed. If not for the fog draped loose around his neck, he might as well not have been there at all.
Ordinarily the answer would be a resounding no, the shadow creature is a selfish thing. But it is precisely because he is a selfish thing that he pries open his eyes and nods his featureless head. Such a peculiar thing they make, the two of them in the dense darkness. Again, Jamie exhales a ragged breath and brings his cheek to rest against the blue stallion’s. Still barely there at all. The idea of touch instead of the real thing.
“We will rest,” he wheezes and he commands the fog to tighten its grip. It slips up the blue stallion’s neck and administers a steady pressure to the windpipe.
you need a villain, give me a name
