resurrect the saint within the wretch
I know.
He’s heard the words before - a simple phrase spoken to show understanding and solidarity, but mostly met with a brief close of his ivory eyelids in disbelief because, of course, they do not know.
However, as the words pass through Aletta’s lips, there is something in them that grants him just a little bit of peace; that, despite not really knowing his plight, she did know by the way of her own experiences. It’s very hard, and a sigh that had been held tightly between his teeth like bitter iron suddenly relinquishes itself, as if saying it out loud somehow had power over him.
The knowledge of the future has aged him beyond his years. He had never been a child, not really. As a yearling he had found himself within a blizzard, screaming into the cold and the whiteness of its power, begging to be stripped of his power, to fall frozen beneath blankets and blankets of ice and snow. Even now he wishes to succumb to this weight and gravity, for it is all he knows. It is all that he can do to carry it without faltering and it has turned him into the man he is now - one that is desperate not to feel yet each vision brings him more empathy than the next, so then drives himself to be alone at all costs, not to get too close - as if anything he did would decrease the burden that nearly breaks his back.
Yet - even with the sound of defeat in his voice and how it clunks heavily across his brow like a sullied crown - he remains fervent, present, steady. But he is only a man and he will not pretend he is anything more than that.
Aletta’s voice is strong and sturdy, resilient where he finds himself weak and malleable. She becomes what he needs, to prop him up in a time of darkness and despair that is seemingly never ending for this watcher. She forces him, pushes his hand, reminds him of what he needs to hear. It grounds him; he finds himself rolling his shoulders to pull his muscles taut beneath his auburn and patched white skin, his horned head rising with ease, though the edges of darkness do not quite fall away from his navy eyes.
There is only one who comes to his mind as she rouses him back from his reverie. A gentle, hopeful girl with rubied skin and violets in her hair; a love that is undeserving. And if he knows her future, perhaps he is the only one to keep her from it.
Perhaps he is not only a watcher; maybe he is something much more.
The stallion snorts sharply, stiffly tossing his head.
“ I pray I can keep them far from what I know of their future.”
Then, as if on cue, a tingling sensation begins to prick in the center of his ivory forehead. Terribly ironic as the sensation grows, pulsing and warning him of its unavoidable takeover. The grimace brought onto his face would be akin to something from physical pain, but that is not the reason his face contorts as it does. “No, no, no,” he mumbles to himself, a single onyx foreleg scraping at the damp earth beneath his blue opaled hoof, his jaw clenching as his ears fall deep into the tangle of his obsidian mane. Warden’s neck bends, pressing his chin to his chest, as if willing the premonition away would be enough to stop it.
Of course, it wouldn’t.
When his chin snaps up, his eyes are black and unseeing to the world around them - dark as pitch and bottomless as the sky above them. All is still as his third eye once again takes him into its nightmare.
The sound of rushing water is crashing in his ears, devastatingly loud and ear-splitting. He gasps, realizing that he’s beneath the constant push of it, feeling the pressure as it splatters forcefully into his mouth and nose, pressing against his chest until he felt like it would burst. Despite the increase in his heart rate and adrenaline, he glances around - for this will not be his demise, but Aletta’s.
Bleary-eyed from the constant rush of water, he sees her now familiar silvered form from the other side - as if the water is a curtain, shielding him from her. He tries to call to her but his voice is garbled as water pushes into his throat, causing him to spit and his eyes to burn. Her figure begins to fade beneath the water as Warden begins to get pushed deeper, so far so that his body becomes numb.
When the stallion gasps for air the second time, he is breathing in the warm night sky and the meadow grasses, his navy eyes rimmed with white as they roll to find Aletta still standing beside him. He’s not sure how long his vision has lasted and with a disgruntled, unsettled look on his face he turns to look at her slowly, as if afraid to meet her gaze. He tips his chin up, still visibly shaken from his moment in time, his jaw clenching as he swallows hard.
“I know the endings.” He repeats her very words with a sense of foreboding and misery in his voice, thin and weary. “Do you want to know?”
@[aletta]
here is a novel for you, enjoy!!!
