11-19-2017, 09:58 AM
<center><table bgcolor=000000 width="490" height="0%" cellpadding="15" cellspacing=”15" style="border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style: solid;"><tr><td align="left" valign="top" width="490"><DIV STYLE=p align="justify"><font style="font-family:times;color:#778899;font-size:10pt;letter-spacing:px; line-height:13pt"<p align=justify>For him, the searching did not bother him.
For some of the others, however, they were beginning to weaken, to tire.
The evening of the third day brings hushed whispers and sideways glances. How is it they have not found Aravis yet? Balto has some suspicions, but this group is fragile - he keeps his thoughts to himself, but the feeling of dread pits in his stomach, sour on his tongue.
He doesn’t see or hear them as they whisper and look at him beneath furrowed brows (<i>or did he?</i>), and he continues to push through the broad, fat leaves of the jungle, making a way for the group that trails behind him. Balto had been leading them and now he pushes them, encouraging the close-knit group to keep going, to push onward - for Aravis. She had taken care of each and every one of them at some point, they must not give up now. They must not be weak.
The twins, the youngest of the group, beg him for rest.
<i>“It has been three days, Balto...”</I> Eridi tells him carefully, in a whisper. The blue roan grinds his teeth, blue eyes flashing between the pairs of eyes that stare back at him expectantly, frustratingly. With a huff of exasperation, ears flicking into the burrows of his thick and tangled mane, he snarls: <B>“5 minutes.”</B>
This is why he had been content with searching for Aravis on his own. Each minute they are not moving forward is a minute wasted.
The yearlings depart from the group with a satisfied sigh, while the others look on at Balto for a moment with glassy stares. But soon they take their leave, to settle down in the jungly forest floor or to seek water, or to eat. Balto did the same, and found that when he closed his eyes to rest for just a moment, it was hours before he would open them again.
<center> Day 4 </center>
He is awakened by Shasta frantically shouting, and his eyes snap open. Immediately he is on alert, angry that he had let himself fall asleep.
<i>“Bree? Where is your sister?!”</i> she pleads, racing through nearby brush and tree in search for the adventurous filly, her eyes wild with fear. Ambrose and Rilian help her search, using calm and steady voices in attempts to settle her (<I>she is here, Bree is here, Hwin is merely venturing, it’s fine</i>).
Balto’s stomach drops. <i>It is not fine.</i>
His blue eyes scan the rest of the group, and he quietly states over the frantic mother’s voice: <b>“Corin went looking for her too?”</B> Ambrose and Rilian stop, and Shasta freezes. Bree’s young face screws up as she attempts to hold back tears, her lip trembling. Balto’s icy and flat voice leaves them silent, all of them realizing that Corin too is gone. <B>“We should not have stopped.”</B> It’s all he says before he turns, their purpose now changing from finding Aravis to finding Corin and Hwin as well.
<b>“We must keep moving.”</b> Balto says flatly.
He hears Shasta wail behind him, frightened and devastated to move onward without her daughter, and he does not know if the others will be willing to follow him. He didn’t care - his suspicions are coming to fruition, (<i>they are being hunted</i>) and he cannot help but think Corin has something to do with their newly missing member. Their group is slowly dwindling and Balto would not sit idly by and wait for another to be cut from their ranks.
A few moments pass, and he glances behind him to see everyone still following him, now more desperate in their search - renewed strength running through each of them, adrenaline pumping. <i>Good</i>. Eridi is no longer walking close to him anymore and when he glances at her she looks frightened and her gaze will not meet his. Ambrose has remained silent, but Balto can sense the tenseness in his muscles, while Rilian makes it no secret that his patience is at it’s end, scowling directly at Balto.
Darkness falls and now it is their fifth night away from the safety of the beach, and whatever calm that had been left that morning has now gone out. Shasta is sobbing and screaming, accusing Balto of carelessness for bringing such young children on this venture, blaming Ambrose for not helping her watch them, even going so far as to blame Bree for losing her sister. Balto watches on in silence, brooding as he looks on at the madness that is unfurling before him.
It does not take long for darkness to fester and permeate through them.
He cannot take the talking any longer. He stalks away, wishing for nothing more to be in his cave with Aravis, with a gentle fire warming them and listening to her ancient stories.
The darkness greets him like an old friend as he moves away from the group, familiar against his body.
Then, there is something that is familiar, a stench that is overwhelming his senses, and his brows furrow thoughtfully. His breath catches in his throat as empty eyes stare back at him, a grim smile on the face of none other than Hwin.
It is sickening. He tastes bile in his throat as it threatens to spill, and he turns away from the filly’s face, attempting to rid himself of the sight, but only is greeted with the charred and burnt body on the ground. He feels weak and dizzy; he barely hears the shouts as the group comes to find him.
<i>“Balto, how dare you walk away from me, when my darling daughter is -”</i> Shasta’s vile voice cuts short, stopping in her throat for only a second before a shriek leaves her, obviously realizing the demise of one of her daughters. The others are frozen into silence, the forest echoing with the desperate screams of a mourning mother. He does nothing - for what can he do? Rilian steps into action, prying Shasta away from the burnt corpse and the laughing, morbid face. Ambrose steers the others from the sickening sight, and not even Eridi tries to convince Balto to come with them.
He lingers for a moment longer before following them, wondering who else would be missing in the morning - so sleep does not find him.
<CENTER> Day 6</center>
He must have closed his eyes for just a moment, because when he opens them he surprised by the amount of eyes staring back at him. He snorts sharply, glad to see at least their faces are not just empty sockets, but something unsettles him. He takes a step backwards, staring at the familiar faces around him. Their eyes…
Bottomless and empty, completely black and never ending, his friends look at him with silent scowls. Eridi, Jadis, Shasta, Bree, Rilian, Ambrose, Caspian. They are all there, their accusing stares making him feel small. He says nothing.
<i>“You found her first,”</i> spits Shasta, her voice garbled and rough - it was not her voice. <i>“How did you know where to find her?”</i> As she speaks her face twists and bloats, the madness flaring beneath the blackness of her eyes.
<B>“Shasta,”</b> he says steadily, but he feels his heartrate pulsing wildly, fear running through him. They are becoming unearthly, their mouths stretching abnormally as the accusations begin, the circle around him growing smaller and smaller as their voices grow, shrieking like demons.
<I>“You brought us to our deaths,”</i> Eridi moans hauntingly, her face no longer sweet and lovely, but stretched beyond recognition, her mouth twisted and elongated. They were terrifying, and behind him, darkness calls to him - familiar and loving, nothing like those that stand before him. He scrambles backwards, hesitating for a moment - perhaps he can save them, perhaps there is something he can do - but his fear drives him as they close in on him, bloated and ugly faces continually shouting his faults and mistakes, making him wish he had never stepped out of the cave that one night in Beqanna so long ago.
Ambrose leaps forward, his teeth and hooves searching to pull skin from his flesh. He manages to tear into him with gaping and unforgiving jaws, but his adrenaline does not allow him to feel the pain. He does not fight back - his shock keeps him frozen. <i>“Kill him!”</i> Corin says first, and then they groan and garble, chanting in unison as Ambrose lashes out at him, solidly thudding into his ribs and breaking skin with his open jaws.
Balto turns and flees, galloping without direction, eyes wild as he moves deeper into the jungle and into the darkness that used to be his home. He hears thudding hooves behind him.
He runs and runs, past Hwin’s decapitated corpse and smiling face, and does not stop until his hooves hit water.
Balto splashes into water that is illuminated by the moonlight, the sound of the waterfall filling his ears along with the sound of his racing heart. He breathes (or tries to) and glances around frantically - had they followed? Is Corin here? What kind of sickness did the others have? Did he have it too?
His heart slows just enough for him to notice that the sound of the water seems to be echoing and his ears prick curiously. Squinting, he peers through the rushing water, the blackness opening up behind it. <i>A cave.</i>
He glances around, the jungle eerily silent and still. He leaps forward and pushes himself through the water, pulling himself up onto the smooth and damp stone behind the waterfall, the fresh water running off of his body in rivulets. The cold water refreshes his sweat-stained skin and stings as it touches the wounds on his neck and side from flashing teeth and blunt hooves. He enters the cave without a thought, the darkness wrapping around him familiarly. He breathes now, inhaling the damp and dank air, his muscles relaxing. He goes in deeper, so far that none of the moonlight reaches the inside.
The blue roan stallion will not find sleep - he positions himself facing the mouth of the water-guarded cave, ready for anyone (or anything) that may enter.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>
For some of the others, however, they were beginning to weaken, to tire.
The evening of the third day brings hushed whispers and sideways glances. How is it they have not found Aravis yet? Balto has some suspicions, but this group is fragile - he keeps his thoughts to himself, but the feeling of dread pits in his stomach, sour on his tongue.
He doesn’t see or hear them as they whisper and look at him beneath furrowed brows (<i>or did he?</i>), and he continues to push through the broad, fat leaves of the jungle, making a way for the group that trails behind him. Balto had been leading them and now he pushes them, encouraging the close-knit group to keep going, to push onward - for Aravis. She had taken care of each and every one of them at some point, they must not give up now. They must not be weak.
The twins, the youngest of the group, beg him for rest.
<i>“It has been three days, Balto...”</I> Eridi tells him carefully, in a whisper. The blue roan grinds his teeth, blue eyes flashing between the pairs of eyes that stare back at him expectantly, frustratingly. With a huff of exasperation, ears flicking into the burrows of his thick and tangled mane, he snarls: <B>“5 minutes.”</B>
This is why he had been content with searching for Aravis on his own. Each minute they are not moving forward is a minute wasted.
The yearlings depart from the group with a satisfied sigh, while the others look on at Balto for a moment with glassy stares. But soon they take their leave, to settle down in the jungly forest floor or to seek water, or to eat. Balto did the same, and found that when he closed his eyes to rest for just a moment, it was hours before he would open them again.
<center> Day 4 </center>
He is awakened by Shasta frantically shouting, and his eyes snap open. Immediately he is on alert, angry that he had let himself fall asleep.
<i>“Bree? Where is your sister?!”</i> she pleads, racing through nearby brush and tree in search for the adventurous filly, her eyes wild with fear. Ambrose and Rilian help her search, using calm and steady voices in attempts to settle her (<I>she is here, Bree is here, Hwin is merely venturing, it’s fine</i>).
Balto’s stomach drops. <i>It is not fine.</i>
His blue eyes scan the rest of the group, and he quietly states over the frantic mother’s voice: <b>“Corin went looking for her too?”</B> Ambrose and Rilian stop, and Shasta freezes. Bree’s young face screws up as she attempts to hold back tears, her lip trembling. Balto’s icy and flat voice leaves them silent, all of them realizing that Corin too is gone. <B>“We should not have stopped.”</B> It’s all he says before he turns, their purpose now changing from finding Aravis to finding Corin and Hwin as well.
<b>“We must keep moving.”</b> Balto says flatly.
He hears Shasta wail behind him, frightened and devastated to move onward without her daughter, and he does not know if the others will be willing to follow him. He didn’t care - his suspicions are coming to fruition, (<i>they are being hunted</i>) and he cannot help but think Corin has something to do with their newly missing member. Their group is slowly dwindling and Balto would not sit idly by and wait for another to be cut from their ranks.
A few moments pass, and he glances behind him to see everyone still following him, now more desperate in their search - renewed strength running through each of them, adrenaline pumping. <i>Good</i>. Eridi is no longer walking close to him anymore and when he glances at her she looks frightened and her gaze will not meet his. Ambrose has remained silent, but Balto can sense the tenseness in his muscles, while Rilian makes it no secret that his patience is at it’s end, scowling directly at Balto.
Darkness falls and now it is their fifth night away from the safety of the beach, and whatever calm that had been left that morning has now gone out. Shasta is sobbing and screaming, accusing Balto of carelessness for bringing such young children on this venture, blaming Ambrose for not helping her watch them, even going so far as to blame Bree for losing her sister. Balto watches on in silence, brooding as he looks on at the madness that is unfurling before him.
It does not take long for darkness to fester and permeate through them.
He cannot take the talking any longer. He stalks away, wishing for nothing more to be in his cave with Aravis, with a gentle fire warming them and listening to her ancient stories.
The darkness greets him like an old friend as he moves away from the group, familiar against his body.
Then, there is something that is familiar, a stench that is overwhelming his senses, and his brows furrow thoughtfully. His breath catches in his throat as empty eyes stare back at him, a grim smile on the face of none other than Hwin.
It is sickening. He tastes bile in his throat as it threatens to spill, and he turns away from the filly’s face, attempting to rid himself of the sight, but only is greeted with the charred and burnt body on the ground. He feels weak and dizzy; he barely hears the shouts as the group comes to find him.
<i>“Balto, how dare you walk away from me, when my darling daughter is -”</i> Shasta’s vile voice cuts short, stopping in her throat for only a second before a shriek leaves her, obviously realizing the demise of one of her daughters. The others are frozen into silence, the forest echoing with the desperate screams of a mourning mother. He does nothing - for what can he do? Rilian steps into action, prying Shasta away from the burnt corpse and the laughing, morbid face. Ambrose steers the others from the sickening sight, and not even Eridi tries to convince Balto to come with them.
He lingers for a moment longer before following them, wondering who else would be missing in the morning - so sleep does not find him.
<CENTER> Day 6</center>
He must have closed his eyes for just a moment, because when he opens them he surprised by the amount of eyes staring back at him. He snorts sharply, glad to see at least their faces are not just empty sockets, but something unsettles him. He takes a step backwards, staring at the familiar faces around him. Their eyes…
Bottomless and empty, completely black and never ending, his friends look at him with silent scowls. Eridi, Jadis, Shasta, Bree, Rilian, Ambrose, Caspian. They are all there, their accusing stares making him feel small. He says nothing.
<i>“You found her first,”</i> spits Shasta, her voice garbled and rough - it was not her voice. <i>“How did you know where to find her?”</i> As she speaks her face twists and bloats, the madness flaring beneath the blackness of her eyes.
<B>“Shasta,”</b> he says steadily, but he feels his heartrate pulsing wildly, fear running through him. They are becoming unearthly, their mouths stretching abnormally as the accusations begin, the circle around him growing smaller and smaller as their voices grow, shrieking like demons.
<I>“You brought us to our deaths,”</i> Eridi moans hauntingly, her face no longer sweet and lovely, but stretched beyond recognition, her mouth twisted and elongated. They were terrifying, and behind him, darkness calls to him - familiar and loving, nothing like those that stand before him. He scrambles backwards, hesitating for a moment - perhaps he can save them, perhaps there is something he can do - but his fear drives him as they close in on him, bloated and ugly faces continually shouting his faults and mistakes, making him wish he had never stepped out of the cave that one night in Beqanna so long ago.
Ambrose leaps forward, his teeth and hooves searching to pull skin from his flesh. He manages to tear into him with gaping and unforgiving jaws, but his adrenaline does not allow him to feel the pain. He does not fight back - his shock keeps him frozen. <i>“Kill him!”</i> Corin says first, and then they groan and garble, chanting in unison as Ambrose lashes out at him, solidly thudding into his ribs and breaking skin with his open jaws.
Balto turns and flees, galloping without direction, eyes wild as he moves deeper into the jungle and into the darkness that used to be his home. He hears thudding hooves behind him.
He runs and runs, past Hwin’s decapitated corpse and smiling face, and does not stop until his hooves hit water.
Balto splashes into water that is illuminated by the moonlight, the sound of the waterfall filling his ears along with the sound of his racing heart. He breathes (or tries to) and glances around frantically - had they followed? Is Corin here? What kind of sickness did the others have? Did he have it too?
His heart slows just enough for him to notice that the sound of the water seems to be echoing and his ears prick curiously. Squinting, he peers through the rushing water, the blackness opening up behind it. <i>A cave.</i>
He glances around, the jungle eerily silent and still. He leaps forward and pushes himself through the water, pulling himself up onto the smooth and damp stone behind the waterfall, the fresh water running off of his body in rivulets. The cold water refreshes his sweat-stained skin and stings as it touches the wounds on his neck and side from flashing teeth and blunt hooves. He enters the cave without a thought, the darkness wrapping around him familiarly. He breathes now, inhaling the damp and dank air, his muscles relaxing. He goes in deeper, so far that none of the moonlight reaches the inside.
The blue roan stallion will not find sleep - he positions himself facing the mouth of the water-guarded cave, ready for anyone (or anything) that may enter.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>