As a boy, he would’ve guessed that the man he’d become would be the kind of man who would hear the cries of war and come running to help. Someone valiant, strong, heroic like his own father would be - or even something more gentle, more kind like his mother. But that boy could not have guessed at the twists his life would take, or at the way these twists would break all the goodness inside him until he was only what he had been made into. Something beautiful, but with darkness at its heart, a rot that only ever spread until it lingered just beneath the surface.

He can feel it there, that quiet festering.
He can feel it, and it scares him.

That little boy of dark and light, with angel wings and soft gold eyes still lives someplace deep inside him, trapped like a prisoner within the barbs and thorns of a mind that rejects him. He cannot be that boy, cannot be the man that boy would have wanted him to be. There is no place for gentleness in a world like this one - a world that constantly rises up to ruin them, to slam its fists down on lands that break apart, on continents that crumble and rebuild. He knows better than to think there is anything worth believing in, anything worth giving any part of his festering heart to.

Yet -

When the smoke drifts like fog through trees that sway and bend softly with their leaves whispering at him of the fires burning in not-so-faraway places, there is some uncomfortable sensation that tightens beneath the dark and white of his skin. His nose flares, harsh lines of muscle cutting welts across a jaw so tight he can feel his bones complain beneath the teeth he grinds together. His eyes are hard and flat, crushed gold moons swallowed by the dark of his pupils as they narrow at the bordering trees.

He doesn’t care if they burn, he knows where his family is, and they are certainly not through that forest, not bleached by smoke and ash and choking on air too heavy to breathe. None of them call Tephra home, and that makes absolutely none of that murmuring chaos any of his business. He tears his gaze away from the forest, turns his back on a sound like distant thunder, that rumbling din of a war he has no skin in.

And yet.

He growls and turns back again, and the sound is something furious as it rips itself free from his chest. His eyes return to the place where the border sits just beyond the Taiga’s thick forest, and for a moment he does nothing but watch. But that feeling never sheds from his skin, and, without understanding why, he’s abruptly moving towards the low grind of chaos with long, impatient strides.

(Later, and in the solitude of his own pointed thoughts, he would blame it on the pull of the shadow magic beneath his skin. Nothing more.)

He emerges inside a world that is hardly recognizable through the starless dark and the boom of storming, draconic bodies. Ash falls like snow against his face, landing on lips he licks reflexively, and then curls as he spits with a snarl of disgust. It might have been almost beautiful if not for the way the thrashing rain turned everything to a slurry of grey and brown, lit as it was by fire in every branch and stretch of grass. The screaming took away from it too, if he was being fair.

It is out of some innate reflex when his wings lift and unfurl from his sides, angled arrogantly behind him in rows of stark black and white feather. There is no ripple of muscle at his shoulders though, no sign of flight beyond that. Just an impossible conceit long-learned from the language of birds. He is completely still for a moment, focused on something at the heart of the darkness, though it is not those faded gold eyes that have found it. It’s the strain beneath his skin at the supernatural darkness unfolded like a cloak over a world that should be lit by day. It sings to him, this magic, dives in through his mouth and down his throat, festering like a drug beneath his skin as he closes his eyes to the heady thrum of it. It is easily more power than he possesses himself, but Illum is still able to tear apart the nearest shadow beasts when they come slavering at the scent of him.

He is losing himself to the dark inside him, to the memory of so much strength used against his will for violent means. Against his will, but hadn’t he fallen in some kind of twisted love with that feeling? With soft bodies and softer bones bent to his will, to his (no, her) wicked whims. It builds in him, this serpent strength, the dark and the shadow until he blurs at the edges with it, until he hears a sound, a voice and those beautiful blind eyes might never know how close he came to strangling the life out of that pale, delicate throat.

His spins to face her - face them, a mother and a newborn still covered in the goop of birth, that metallic stink that makes his nose think they’re wounded. There is still shadow roped around her throat - his shadows, though it takes a moment for him to remember himself - and when he does it dissipates like black fog against skin the color of ash, and he is left hard-eyed and heaving, watching as she coaxes her child to stand. He’s already forgotten the word she used, a name, he guesses. But it doesn’t matter because these aren’t his people, aren’t his problem, aren’t his concern.

It is a wonder, then, when he drifts a few silent steps closer, the sound of him lost in the hiss of the shadow-beasts he keeps at bay and the crackle of fire as it consumes a path towards the place they stand. Perhaps even more curious is the way those pale gold eyes go so soft when they settle on the face of the newborn filly, lost in shades of pink and black and lily white. There is a roar as something very dry and very nearby catches fire, a blast of punishing heat and flame he blocks with a combination of shadow magic and his wings, and then with a low snarl of pain, he says, “Hurry up.”