[open] falling hard;

[An]

▻ six legs - cosmos coloration | follower of cevik - lover of none ◅

He sleeps standing, crest brushing the lowest boughs of a pine he had found to hide him from the elements that had approached in the evening. He dreams of weightlessness, of gaseousness becoming flesh, of a war that erupted between three sibling stars over rulership of their system. He dreams of falling in love with mortals over the eons, of watching the rise and elimination of intelligent life, of listening to prayers--

His white iridescent eyes catch moonlight that finally breaks through the vacating storm, storm clouds somehow feeling nostalgic and impossibly far above. His six legs fidget, step two three four five and six six six -- his white foreleg grating against the earth with a bit of irritation. He always felt so betrayed when he woke from those dreams. Like so much more than he recalled had been stripped from him.

He moves out into the drenched surroundings with precious little wetness to his own body and glances once over his shoulder in thanks to the tree that had spared him the majority of the offense from the skies. His thick tail snaps, biting the rise of bugs away from his flank as he shakes again and snorts. Morning approached already. It was time to move.

That was something he understood about himself - that the universe always turned and stagnation was a danger not even the stars could abide for long before succumbing to meteor or their energy overflowing and imploding them from within.

An

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[frey]

frey—

Frey hides the pathetic parts of her nature beneath a cold, brusque exterior. Quiet, fierce, imposing—she is a far cry from the lost little girl abandoned by her mother; but there is no true bite behind her snake’s fangs nor is there a tough skin underneath her slick scales.

Spineless, what she calls herself in her head. She lives in a constant loop of self-hatred, learned from every breathing creature that ever left her. Pathetic, useless, depraved. I’d just end it all if I wasn’t such a coward, is what she tells herself. The hatred—over years and years—has mutated like so many irradiated cells. Frey might as well be wearing a second, malformed head.

At least that head would see with both eyes.

The six-legged creature ahead of her gives her pause. Having just imagined extra appendages on her own body, she wonders if she is imagining the almost spectral man. The scaled mare shakes her thick head, strands of brilliant jade falling into her eyes. She huffs, taking a few unsure steps back before realizing the stranger will have seen her by now.

(And she can’t allow herself to look at another and run—no, that pride she still holds would whip her endlessly, lash after lash a new reason for despising herself.)

“It’s early,” Frey barks out in a rough, almost masculine voice. She blinks, then adds the rest of the sentence she almost forgot, “Did I wake you? My apologies.” She lifts her head as high as her height will allow, a certain cold cruelty in her gaze.

@"An"#4182