i’ve been both a saint & a viper
Her eyes have trouble finding him in the darkness and shadow, for that is all he finds himself to be, but once her gaze rests on his, he blinks at her slowly. She stumbles towards him, clumsy and wild, her eyes fierce but unseeing, recognition rattling in their depths though, Balto knows, she is nothing but a stranger. Just like they were, when he was forced to kill them in their sleep.
Quick, they whisper in his ears, vibrating with anticipation across his blue hide, do it quick!
He hesitates, of course, because he is not so easily controlled by their commands, despite the parasite that they are as they dig further and further into his brain, implanting darkness and nurturing the evil that has begun to sprout there. His glassy eyes watch with no expression as her wings unfurl, illuminating with a light that seems to sizzle on her skin and he finds it hypnotic. The stallion tilts his head curiously, like a lamb being led to the slaughter.
There is a single moment of delight that crosses his face as the realization finally clicks in his mind. Perhaps he had finally found it, this death, in the form of this woman who crackles and glows and holds resentment for him. He closes his eyes, waiting for whatever might come as she glows brighter and bolder, a semblance of a smile on the dark of his mouth.
You’ll never die, they coo as a desperate reminder, just as the thunder shakes the foundation of the earth and the lightning finds purchase in a pine tree beside them. It creaks and snaps with the lightning’s power, instantly going up in flames - the heat awakens him, his blue eyes snapping open just as her teeth scrape at the hollow of his cheekbone. The stallion leaps back with a residual strength he didn’t know was there, his ears flattening into the darkness of his mane. He sneers at her, his bright gaze suddenly dark with anger and betrayal. She hadn’t killed him.
“Do it!” he shouts at her, the red fire glow burning in his eyes like hellfire. His demons entrap him, anchoring him to the ground and reminding him that there is no way out, that he is theirs forever. “Kill me!” His voice rises, pain and anguish choking in his throat as the dry and brittle leaves from summer’s heat spark and ignite, begging her for release, for sweet mercy. Something like tears turns his eyes glassy with sadness and hope.
His demons squirm, angry and malevolent at his confession; he is no coward, he is a killer. They remind him: bodies torn apart and hollowed, their heart in his mouth, blood on the ceiling and tongue, forever engrained on his insides. His demons recreate their now-dead voices in the darker parts of the woods, calling his name.
He falters then, feeling his weakness and mortality despite the inability to die, whispering: “I didn’t mean to,” into the darkness beyond the fire.
Balto
@[Sabra]