He’s staring into nothingness. There is the cold and there is the trees (dark, so much taller than him, stretching into oblivion with such an overwhelming silence he dare not look up into their neverending canopy) and there is nothing else. Here there is no crash of the sea, no incessant grumble of a volcano that groans with anticipation and grief; no sisters with worried eyes, nor the feeling of palpable sorrow that encases all of what once was his home (as well as his mother). He comes here for a calm place to be alone with his thoughts - or that is what he tells himself. He is only a yearling, incapable of understanding the true meaning behind what is happening beneath the hearth of the volcano, but stubbornly insists that he is much more than just the youngest son of the King - he is the warrior son, meant to take his rightful place when the sun sets on the familiar navy wings of his father.
The moon is full - swollen and heavy with molten silver light and deep crevices of slate grey - and its light filters through the intertwining branches above the mahogany and ivory colt. He can’t feel the way the moonlight trickles across the undeveloped slope of his shoulders or the slenderness of his chest, but it gently caresses him in a way he cannot notice - tender silver dapples that attempt to kiss away the frigidity in his smoke-saturated skin. The boy inhales deeply as his slow and methodical walk brings him through overgrown roots and brambles of branches that are a near-auburn in the cool temperatures, the only sound being the soft grazing of his small hooves in the underbrush and the shuddering exhale that leaves his dark lips in a cloud of vapor.
After a time, (he’s lost track of how long he’s been walking - it had meant to just be a short trip, but it is clear he is no longer in Tephra) the bay and white colt comes to a halt. He’s not sure why he’s suddenly decided to stop; perhaps it is because of the way that the once deafening stillness of the forest now begins to crescendo - the nonexistent wind now rises to meet him, sweeping over his distraught face with autumn’s terribly bitter bite. He shudders against the stirring breeze as it whistles through the canopy, following the sudden gust with wide eyes.
He attempts to narrow them almost immediately (mustn’t look afraid) and then braces himself against the cold, leaning into the harshness of the cool air as the too brittle leaves from above fall to the ground in a hasty flurry. Their crisp edges flick against his shoulders and neck and back, breaking apart against his body before crumbling into pieces on the forest floor only to be stirred up again by the howling and forlorn wind -
whose sound eerily matches the one that Warden feels inside of his chest.
WARDEN
i am the sword in the darkness.
