The colt moves beneath darkness like it is part of him - there is no hesitation in his steps, no uncertainty as he walks almost gracefully through a mix of bramble and rock. He follows the gentle curve and twist of the river’s path, drawn to the hushed bubbling of the water over smoothed pebbles and the growing fog that begins to surround him. The lazy mist hangs loosely over this particular calm twist in the large, winding river. It clings to the trees and rocks, as well as his teal and gold body, dipping into the curved lines of his youthful shoulders and flanks.

The fog kisses him and envelops him like a cloak, welcoming him. The pines in the wood just behind him are dark and tall, stretching like silent giants into the black sky. He stops here - where the darkness of night and the dense mist are thickest - and dips his slender forelegs into the babble of the river’s water. A mere child, at home beneath the shadow and unafraid as the night becomes darker, stares into the water that swirls expectantly around his golden ankles, hushed whispers calling him into the deep.

The boy snorts sharply, his gold-tipped ears flipping behind him, deep teal lids narrowing around the soft lavender of his irises. His tongue - thin and forked, like a viper - slithers from his golden mouth, tasting the air. He isn’t alone.

He turns over his shoulder, ruffling the tri-colored wings on his back absentmindedly.

“You can come out,” he murmurs into the shadow of the treeline behind him, his face expressionless as he stares into what appears to be nothing - but he knows it is anything but. I’m not afraid, he murmurs, almost coos, into their mind like venom - whoever it is that lingers in the darkness, or whoever accidentally stumbled across him. He turns back to the water, studying it closely as his head lowers towards it, his forked tongue gently touching it as if it was as delicate as a flower. He lifts his head, tilting it slightly as if contemplating something, before reaching out to their mind once again, this time a thin veil of fear coming from him like icy fingertips, attempting to help him place the stranger within the darkness. It’s so tiny, so minuscule; like the hair on your neck suddenly standing on end, or an unexplained shiver down your spine.

But enough for him to gauge their presence.

Thoughts are delicious and that is what he is seeking; he wonders if they can feel them prying into their consciousness, feasting on their innermost desires and fears, each one more tantalizing than the last. He wants to make all their dreams come true, each and every one of them - though, perhaps, they would not enjoy the way he would do so.

There isn’t enough here - not yet - from this stranger, which is why Molech invites them in, a young and feeble colt merely lost while wandering the river’s path.

“I do not like to be alone,” his slithering voice confesses, lifting his gaze over his shoulder once again to encourage them further, something like sadness in his brilliantly shining eyes - he does try to be truthful.

molech.

It’s a funny thing, he thinks to himself, how just the tiniest bit of fear is enough to send them hurtling towards the edge - towards a future they would have never come to without a push from him. She obeys that sense of danger (they all find it so captivating, awe-inspiring) and gracefully pulls herself from the shadow of darkness so that he may see her and put a face and body to the gently whirring thoughts that he helps himself to so freely.

For a moment, as she becomes visible, he wonders if perhaps she is just a wanderer like himself.

But one quick look into her mind and those sparkling, endless eyes he knows she is not. She is a lost sheep, searching for a shepherd. This star-strewn girl doesn’t know how lucky she is to have found him; especially when the fingertips of his power wrap gently around her, coaxing her forward, wishing to know her fears by fueling the fear himself. Molech finds his golden lips turning into a smile that, had his features not been so naturally charming, one would find devoid of compassion and overflowing with deceit.

He releases her from the shrapnel of fear that he had lured her in with, savoring the taste of her thoughts as they flutter like moth wings against moonlight in his mind. She finds him attractive and he immediately begins to lay the foundation with this piece of information he has been given (taken?). She comes to stand beside him and his beautiful lavender eyes follow, reflecting each fractile of glowing particles that peppers her skin, shining like diamonds - and hunger lies within them, ravenous and desperate.

But he is nothing if not cunning, so he ensures that the lazy smile on his lips remains comforting and inviting as he simultaneously flips through her mind, buzzing as each of her thoughts come rushing towards him without hesitation. They give so easily when they do not know that he is listening. 

“The water,” the boy murmurs in a soft breath, his eyes watching her carefully (adoringly) for any sign she might try to depart from him, all the while with that same, enticing smile on his lips. “It calls to me.” He tells her what he has always thought (for he knew the truth kept them here longer, made them want more, made them moldable) even though it might sound like a lie; but it also sounds magical and wistful, and that also is tempting to them.

“Are you by yourself, too?”

Molech refrains from the itch to glance around the forest to search for any companions, so he instead gently whispers into her mind: “I think I would like to be the only one to be able to bask in the glow of a living star tonight.” A compliment, sweet and full of youthful innocence, wrapped thinly in a pinprick of fear, looking for precisely what he could use to make her his.

molech.

His lavender gaze stays on her, tracing and memorizing the delicate swirls of stars and galaxies across her metallic skin. He finds it endlessly captivating and even in the hushed silver of the moonlight she glitters and glows, as if she is the only source of light. Molech wants to touch her, to taste her, to smell her more intimately but he bides his time - he plays the part of a curious colt meeting a sweet girl, despite how entranced he is with each part of her. He must not scare her away; he must keep her close. He must allow her to feel unrest around her and, without her even realizing it, find solace with him.

Her mind is gentle and lays open for him like a book. He is sweet in the way he thumbs through, soft and delicate so as not to disturb the innocent, wistful thoughts that reside there. She is thinking of the water and he likes how the water soothes her. She’s wondering about him then and a handsome smile creases the deep green of his mouth. “My father is, too,” he replies simply, turning his gaze from her just a moment to glance at the clear and crisp water below them. He remembers his father only briefly - he had held their heads beneath the water to see if they had inherited his ability. His sister had, Molech had not.

“Were you?” Molech’s young voice is laced with curiosity but it is just a whisper on the night air, his breath clouding before his dark lips as the chill of autumn rolls in. He is about to ask more of her, but her own idle wonderings give him pause, and the teal, white and gold colt closes his eyes briefly at her imaginings of the moon, silver and soft as its light crinkles across the river’s winding waters. He inhales deeply, her thoughts addictive and sweet on his tongue, leaving him wanting for more.

Her voice pulls his dark lids from his glimmering and pale irises, though now they are much more sharp and cold than they had previously been, falling to her fawn-like smile on her lips. He freezes for a moment, his handsome face calculating and stony. His gentle push into her mind with his voice makes her question him and he cannot hide the flame that suddenly burns in his lavender eyes. His dark teal mouth twitches (the only movement on his body) as he fights the urge to become violent with her by drawing the black of his thin, forked tongue across his lips, reminding himself to be careful.

The colt finally breaks his frozen posture with a dreamy smile, smoothing out the rigidity of his spine with a soft toss of his head as his tongue flicks back into his mouth. The aura of fear he had cloaked her with slowly retreats, learning that perhaps he had pushed too far too quickly. If he wanted her to be willing, he would have to be more cunning than this. While he is young and still learning, she is an exceptional specimen for practice. His voice is sickly sweet with bashfulness as he lowers his head slightly, glancing up at her from beneath his golden forelock. “I’m sorry,” he drawls, “was it too much? I forget that not everyone is used to hearing me in their head.” He lifts his head, eyes widening with a soft concern and a near pout on his lips.

“Please don’t leave yet.”

molech.

He visibly relaxes, listening carefully to thoughts as he gently unfolds them, wondering who her father is and if he’s anything like his own. Molech snorts softly, a slight tension in his jaw as he clenches his teeth at the thought of Maugrim - a fearsome entity who had berated him in his first few days of birth only to be left alone when he did not possess the same manipulation of water. And for a moment, when she pulls water from the river, there is anger in his eyes - it is quick and a flash across the lavender of his eyes, but it is there nonetheless. A violent anger, one that is bottled up and kept on a leash, kept quelled by the young boy’s own ability to control the dark thoughts that twist and turn inside his mind, thankful that he is the one that can read minds and not the other way around.

That flash of rage is quickly replaced by a look of awe as the water follows to her sides, grasping and clinging there as if the droplets itself belonged to her - loved her. The soft look on his face is perhaps the only genuine and true emotion from him in their entire meeting; she is even more spectacular than he had already deemed her being and now even more so does he wish to make her his. As she comes to join him, her tinkling voice sending shivers down his spine, the young boy reaches his muzzle to hers, the white of his searching for the cool, clear, and sparkling of hers. He’s nearly forgotten to continue to read her thoughts, enraptured with this beautiful girl that so willingly spills his heart to him, almost flattered that she would find him so trusting. “You’re so lovely,” he tells her, his lavender eyes finding hers with a gentle click.

She even smiles at him when he knows he has given himself away; perhaps she has chosen to ignore the break in his facade or merely missed it, but either way, Molech is grateful for it. Especially when the coldness of her mouth finds the heat of his deep teal shoulder, awakening something terrible and deadly within him. With a soft tilt of his head, he wonders if it was possible for her to shatter, to break into such slivers of glass and stars that she would simply cease to exist, or if he could keep a shard of her beautiful blinking eyes just for himself to stare into.

This thought gives him a genuine smile, handsome and charming. Her confession is something that he can relate to more than she could imagine, but Molech is not one to share the vivid and violent details in his young life. The aura of fear that he had entrapped her with dissipates and with it, she comes all the closer to him. “You do?” he asks innocently, though he cannot concentrate with the crystal of her sparkling body curling in beside him - it should not have been this easy, but he feels as though it just might be. He encourages the contact she gives him by softly whispering to her,  “You can’t leave,” with a gentle sigh, his eyes reflecting the gurgling waters of the river before him.

“Tell me your name.” A command, as luscious and flowing as the river before them, masked with gentleness in his voice. You can trust me, he adds delicately into her mind, placing it there like a rose on a coffin. 

molech.

There is part of him that finds his eagerness to infiltrate their minds as a kindness; he only wants to shepherd this lost sheep, care for and nurture her in ways his own family couldn’t do for him. There is nothing wrong in the way he tries to guide (control) her, even though there is something far more vulgar and obscene that lies beneath the surface. Something that, at his young age, has not manifested itself fully - it is only a feeling, simmering and dull, but noticeable enough to where the young colt answers to it’s call, ready and willing to be the author of her story. Perhaps she will be the first to experience the terrible relationship between puppet and master, or maybe he is still too young to enforce much of that just yet.

He does not, however, deny himself the gentle way she leans into him, her breath but a whisper against the deep green and white of his shoulder. She needed him, he deems to himself, finding that the resolution to vibrate forcefully in his own mind followed by the incessant willingness to see it through. She needed him and no one else. He would be enough or there will be nothing else for her to live for.

Molech is lost in those galaxy-soaked eyes, wondering if they have looked upon anyone else in the way that they do for him. Rainbows dance uncontrollably against the dark patches of his skin, shimmering with each tender inhale and exhale of her delicate lungs. He sets the bed for her - soft and warm and welcoming - and all she needs to do is lie down. He makes it easy for her, he tells himself, because he is so very kind.

The pastel purple of his irises hides behind dark lids for a moment, reveling in the way she promises him with such finality - I won’t - without knowing she wouldn’t have had a choice anyway. He would always find her; their thoughts always give them away. Her mind swells with delight the moment he lays his promise there (was it a lie? He cannot tell for certain) and that same handsome smile graces his dark lips once again in satisfaction.

Clementia.

Perfection rings out into the chilly air like the sound of clear bells and the young colt’s eyes gingerly open, those enticing lavender pupils coming to rest on the spiraling and starry depths of hers. “Clementia,” he repeats her name like a song, melodic in the baritone of his voice. “My name is Molech.” Silence engulfs them, the darkness of night and the frigid cold creeping in like a fog.

“If you ever need to find me, Clementia,” he says her name again because he enjoys how it sounds in his throat and off his tongue, and to secure the possession of her name to him, “I’ll always be at the water’s edge.” He smiles at her, taking a single step forward so that the river’s water now runs across the deep goldenrod of his knees. Like a wave, the clear water runs up his legs and then his shoulders, draining the color from his coat and melting his skin into the water itself until he is a completely translucent being, completely liquid. It’s at this moment that he would normally succumb to the water’s path, traveling down the river to other parts of Beqanna as quickly as the river would take him and even to the ocean - but she would not be able to accompany him, so he remains suspended, half equine and half water, with that same dreaded smile on his face.

With a breath he becomes solid again, the color returning as his skin reforms to what it once was, dry as it had been only moments ago. “See,” he explains, “you were meant to find me tonight.”

molech.