11-14-2020, 05:22 PM
Even though he smiles, even though he has decided not to try to kill @[Nashua] in earnest, there's little room in Wherewolf's walled-off heart for the friendship his brother offers, so he looks at the hawk-winged young stallion askance, one dark ear slowly turning backward. The hard grey-green of his eyes softens to something a little closer to their natural brightness, but the sullen expression remains.
He knows he shouldn't behave this way. He shouldn't antagonize Ama, and he certainly should not have gone after that Taigan girl. Not my fault, he tells himself with practiced ease. Not his fault he is like this. He tries desperately to distance himself from his mother yet so easily blames her for his faults. Whose example did he have to follow, but Neverwhere's? Distant, scowling, full of sharp words and long silences, and so close-fisted with her affections.
Not my fault, it's the mantra he repeats to himself, again and again, wiping away his own sins until he believes himself blameless in the face of the wrongs done to him by his dam. It's easy to do, all it requires is to nurse that hollow feeling in his chest, to remember how it felt to see her greet Amarine and Lilliana so warmly when for him she had little more than cool indifference.
It's not his fault, but he perpetuates it, and that ghost of a smile fades away. It will not be so easy to chink his heavy armor. His wings settle lopsidedly against his ribs and the tarnished silver of his tail snaps loud and bright against his flanks. He steps closer to the wheaten pegasus with bared teeth and standing so close it is impossible not to mark the similarities in their shapes. He steps close enough that the feathers of their wings bristle against one another and the golden markings they share through their sire dapple the one another in shifting light, and he snorts explosively with his muzzle lifted as close to Nashua's face as the other youth will allow, sending a cloudy spray of condensation in his direction. Then the buckskin colt turns abruptly away, probing the cliffside for a way up again that doesn't require the use of his traitorous wings.
"I'm not a team player," his voice is gravelly in that strange way of adolescence, somewhere between childhood and the grown man he will become, more like the treacherous whine of ice about to break, "and I'm not in the market for a savior, either."
He knows he shouldn't behave this way. He shouldn't antagonize Ama, and he certainly should not have gone after that Taigan girl. Not my fault, he tells himself with practiced ease. Not his fault he is like this. He tries desperately to distance himself from his mother yet so easily blames her for his faults. Whose example did he have to follow, but Neverwhere's? Distant, scowling, full of sharp words and long silences, and so close-fisted with her affections.
Not my fault, it's the mantra he repeats to himself, again and again, wiping away his own sins until he believes himself blameless in the face of the wrongs done to him by his dam. It's easy to do, all it requires is to nurse that hollow feeling in his chest, to remember how it felt to see her greet Amarine and Lilliana so warmly when for him she had little more than cool indifference.
It's not his fault, but he perpetuates it, and that ghost of a smile fades away. It will not be so easy to chink his heavy armor. His wings settle lopsidedly against his ribs and the tarnished silver of his tail snaps loud and bright against his flanks. He steps closer to the wheaten pegasus with bared teeth and standing so close it is impossible not to mark the similarities in their shapes. He steps close enough that the feathers of their wings bristle against one another and the golden markings they share through their sire dapple the one another in shifting light, and he snorts explosively with his muzzle lifted as close to Nashua's face as the other youth will allow, sending a cloudy spray of condensation in his direction. Then the buckskin colt turns abruptly away, probing the cliffside for a way up again that doesn't require the use of his traitorous wings.
"I'm not a team player," his voice is gravelly in that strange way of adolescence, somewhere between childhood and the grown man he will become, more like the treacherous whine of ice about to break, "and I'm not in the market for a savior, either."
