He trembles like the scattering, ripped leaves that shudder from their branches, cascading down and spiraling into the oblivion of the dark and foreboding forest (dark and foreboding is all he can see and feel, wrapped up in this tempest of howling winds that tear at him). He somehow continues to remain upright in the midst of chaotic throes, the trees themselves beginning to bend wildly out of shape with the consistent press of tireless wind, tearing its icy and humid fingers through the obsidian color of his short mane and tail without mercy. The brightness of his bald face is stark against the deep green and blackness of the world around them, shrouded by ebony as well as encompassed with the gentle expression of flickering doubt.
Where is the monster? (There’s always one, somewhere, lurking. If it is not her, then...)
His deep cobalt gaze refocuses, deciding that studying the details of her face would keep his mind occupied on elsewhere things for the time being. The young boy snorts softly, though the sound of it is lost on the ever-strengthening wind so she would only have seen the deep flare of alabaster nostrils. The slate-gray of her eyes that never wandered from his own take him on without hesitancy - he notices the bit of a frown that finds the silver of her lips and he finds that the expression makes him feel guilty, as if she had been expecting something else (much as he had been himself).
She withdraws from him - taken aback and suddenly ponderous, no longer with a lowered head to threaten him.
Like what?
How does she not know of all the things lurking in the dark? Even now, he can feel eyes on him; the same darkness that dripped its poison into his father’s lungs surges around them, causing him to shift his weight uncomfortably. He cannot answer that question - not here, where shadow and evil and dark magic can find them, spoil them, make them go rotten from the inside out, just like father.
He doesn’t answer her first question and part of him breathes a sigh of relief - perhaps she wouldn’t notice his lack of an answer, especially when her gaze lowers quite seriously and she leans in a bit secretively towards him.
Yes.
It’s worse than he’s imagined. Of course he doesn’t question it. Why would she lie?
His voice suddenly changes as he inhales deeply, stepping forward and raising his head so that is posture is a bit more authoritative instead of submissive and unsure. “We can’t stay here,” Warden tells her, the darkness of his eyes flickering from hers to the howling of the forest. He can already smell the spring-time storm on the wind (damp and wet and sinister) and they are not safe.
Will he ever be?
-- warden
@[Nutkin] <3
