If there is violence in his blood, then it is buried deep, hidden within the furthest generations of his bloodline. He wonders sometimes if Heartfire has such a capacity, if his sister is all the things he is not, if she would ever use her abilities to harm someone. She could, it would be easy enough – but, was she capable. Except when he watches her, when he sees her, the dark seems to dissipate until all he can see is the one that is his other half, the life that he is tethered to.

Then, she is just his sister.
Then, he cannot see the way her shadows have come to find him, too.

And it is there, that violence, buried beneath the layers of so many generations. But it isn’t pushed back as far as he thinks it is, not hidden so deep that it cannot find him. It waits somewhere, as it has waited for all of them, festering and rotting in the darkest parts of his heart for something to change him, to ruin him, to break him open so that it can spill over and fill in those cracks and crevices.

It is there even if he pretends he cannot feel it.
It is there.

He shifts uneasily beneath the trees at the edge of the meadow, using their shade to conceal the deep black of his skin since the shadows no longer hear him, no longer swallow him like dark fog as they had since birth. He feels naked without them, vulnerable to the eyes that rove and catch like burrs over his face, over his unease, over those black and white feathered wings. It was easier to be invisible, made hazy by the swell of darkness from his skin. It was easier before.

His eyes sharpen and catch on a black mare, and he cannot help but cringe away from her boldness, from her ease, from the way she is all the things he is not. He turns away fully, ready to let the shadows swallow him, but a voice rends open the silence and he finds his eyes drawn warily back. It is her. He knew it would be, he could hear the wild fervor in her voice, the same that flashed in her eyes and was smeared in red across her body. She drifts closer and he does not move, he can smell the sharpness of iron, the bitterness of blood, and his wariness holds him fast.

Hello. She had said, had shouted at him, and so his jaw softens and his mouth splits to let loose his tongue. “Hello.” He echoes back, but the greeting is hollow, empty. He doesn’t know why he asks - he doesn’t think he cares, but it feels like something his parents would have asked and because they are better than him, better than that dark in his heart, he will ask, too. "Are you hurt?" But he is still hollow.