resurrect the saint within the wretch

It is not often that the winged stallion finds himself journeying outside of Tephra. He tries to keep the warmth of the volcano and the solitude that it brings; being alone seems to keep the terrible visions at bay (at least, that is what he tells himself) and he finds comfort in the familiarity of it. There is also her - crystalline, bright-eyed, stubborn, beautiful - that tends to his burdens and the weight of it across his shoulders. She keeps the darkness away - at least for a time - and he finds that her touch seems to melt away any shadows that try to infiltrate his mind.

Perhaps it is the cold that draws him out of Tephra. It had been a long while since had soared on the wind-scrubbed skies of winter and felt the chill of it deep within his marrow. Cold and unforgiving (it made him feel alive and breathing), the wind bites and scraps at his auburn and white skin, ripping against the ivory of his great wings without mercy. The freshly fallen snow ladens the ground in huge, white dollops, sparkling and inviting to his navy eyes that watch from above. It’s a beautiful sight and rather lovely, but even in the brightness of the sun does his mind fall to a darker place.

A severed wing. A dark god. Black and gold feathers. Oh, the blood. The cries for help - the confusion.

The vision is still seared in Warden’s mind like it had only just happened. She had been another victim of his own. Not Carnage’s, but the Watcher. He had been there with her in her last breaths, but did nothing as she choked on her own blood.

With a sweeping tip of his left wing, the horned stallion slowly spirals downward towards the river that lay like a crystalline snake below him. Too fast moving to become solid ice during the winter months, the river rushes loudly as Warden comes to land beside it with a solid thud of his blue opaled hooves hitting a mixture of snow and pebble. He comes to the river’s edge - ice crunching beneath his hooves - and stops to stare at his rippling reflection, lost in his thoughts and in his visions, replaying them over and over as if to torture himself for things he cannot change.

Movement catches the deep ocean blue of his empty stare and he glances to his left, squinting. He is sure it is only a trick of his eyes - a winter hare jumping into the shadows, a cardinal taking to the skies to fill its nest - but then he realizes he is not mistaken. He isn’t alone.

The stallion tilts his horned head, the blue opal shining brilliantly in the sunlight. The tiny body is as white as freshly fallen snow, hidden almost expertly in between the greyscale of winter. When he sees the deep onyx of her wings, however, Warden’s blood runs cold and he is sure his heart is about to beat from his chest.

I saw you die.

The thought comes to his head and he is quick to keep it from coming out of his mouth as well. Instead, he halts, frozen as if the winter’s temperatures had finally gotten to him. At a loss for words but knowing he couldn’t simply stare and not say anything, he finally speaks. “Hello?” he gently asks, because maybe he is wrong - maybe he had only found her body, and his premonition had been true. He swallows hard.

Or it hadn’t happened yet.

resurrect the saint within the wretch

If only he knew that she was attempting to grasp at whatever was left of her mother so that she might feel something, just one emotion to pull her from the brink (and perhaps it is a strange blessing that his visions do not come with mind reading; he is sure his heart would break far more than it currently does), for the horned stallion before her - though he stands as still and stoically as the silent snow-laden woods around them - fights to sort through the entanglement of emotions that shred through his chest. Guilt, sorrow, hopelessness, sympathy. They all twist and turn like ugly, convoluted things within him, alive and breathing. But somehow, on the outside, he is just a silent shadow towering over her, wrapped in the darkness of nightfall.

She had died; he had seen it - had he been wrong? Had she gone beyond, like in his vision, and back again? The questions curl uncomfortably, cold and stifled within his mind. Moonlight has spilled between them, silver against the bright white of the patches of fresh-fallen snow, the darkness of the rocks and the tall pines painting the entire river in greyscale. Besides the shudder of the rushing river, the silence between them is nearly deafening. There is a flurry of movement that gives his dark ocean eyes focus, his head lowering just slightly so that his horns nearly fall into the auburn of his neck.

And then, after moments and moments (and Warden thinks he might have stood there forever, waiting to hear a voice come from the crumpled and tiny mare), she calls back to him through the thin, cold, and unforgiving air of winter.

Stay back!

Warden wonders if she can hear his heart breaking, barely beating in his chest.

The stallion’s wings that were already folded into his sides shudder slightly, his onyx legs moving as he takes a few steps back. He obeys her command, but there is a heaviness in his gaze that weighs him down; he moves slowly, methodically, unwillingly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into the darkness after a long while, his breath clouding before his pink lips. “I just - I need to know you’re alright.”

He can’t tell her why he needs to know (how do you tell someone you’ve seen them die?), so silence and darkness swallows them both again, the jeweled blue of his horns sparkling in the shadows of night.

resurrect the saint within the wretch

There is sadness in his dark ocean eyes - a sadness that is permanent, but somehow deepens within those irises as he watches her shiver beneath her hiding place, cold and frightened. He wants to tell her he knows what it’s like to be frightened, to be uncertain, to feel helpless; but none of these words come. Instead, he bows his great horned head in an attempt to make himself seem smaller. He goes so far as to pull the flurry of his white wings as close as they could to his body, blinking gently beneath snow-white lashes.

Silence engulfs them - deadly and sinister despite the fact that the two were in no way attempting to harm each other. And then; so sudden that Warden’s head jerks upwards in concern, his nostrils flaring pink at the sound of her cries. His brow furrows, nearly breaking his promise to give her space when he lifts a single dark foreleg, desperate to go to her and comfort a mere (and terribly broken) stranger.

Her voice is so quiet, shaking and uncertain with such sadness that Warden can feel her heartbreak. He swallows, a frown on his pearled lips as he lowers his body into the snow, his dark legs curling beneath him as he comes to rest just where he had been standing before her, nearly eye level but still that same distance away. His wings are as white and untainted as the world around them, his movement downward sending the familiar smell of ash and smoke into the otherwise clear night air.

“I don’t know what it’s like not to be scared,” he confesses in a hushed voice, near to the same tone that she had spoken in to him. The constant nightmares, the constant knowing of the future - fear is an old friend. He’s scared at this moment, even though in reality, there is nothing to be frightened of. “I’ve learned that that’s okay.” He pauses, pressing his lips together thoughtfully. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say more, but finds that there is nothing he could offer her that would make her feel brave.

resurrect the saint within the wretch

Here he is, amongst darkness and snow and ice, making matters worse for the poor, frightened girl before him. Warden curves his neck, the gentle slope of his horns now standing upwards prominently from his crown as his eyes fall away from her, settling on the darkness beyond. His skin shivers, a gentle tremble of mahogany and white, allowing the swiftness of her voice to fall across him in waves, becoming more intense with every word passing through her lips.

Maybe it is because he enjoys the lashing, but the horned pegasus remains still and quiet. He never turns his navy eyes to meet her gaze, though, but he is listening actively.

The fear in her voice is raw and painful, full of emotion and vibrating with something like anger - but not really, more like concern for insinuating that being afraid is something to accept. But she does not know what he’s seen and what he’s watched come apart at the seams, and the inability to do nothing as it unfolds. It gives him a sort of apathy towards the way of the world - for though he wishes for it to be righted, no amount of shouting at the stars or running from the future will change it. He should know, he’s tried for his entire life.

“It’s not,” he replies with finality, finding the strength to let his gaze wander back to her, his pale face strewn with the shadows from the branches in the canopy above them. “None of it’s okay and there will never be peace.” He inhales sharply, nearly inclined to glance upwards at the stars that peek through the bare branches with a discerning scowl, but he refrains.

Instead, Warden’s brow furrows, to meet her gaze carefully. He cannot quite see the tears that have begun to stain her cheeks, but he could hear it in her voice how they threatened to choke her. The Watcher watches her sympathetically, wishing he could offer her more than what he is giving her. He is nothing but a harbinger of death and destruction; an angel of death standing before her masqueraded with perfect white wings and a warrior’s prideful stance. “Which is why the fear is okay - if you were not afraid of this world and all its horrors, I would be more worried for you than I am now.”

A pause, a consideration that finds him as he tilts his head slightly.

“Beings such as us cannot change the terrible atrocities we have witnessed and experienced. It would be far easier to lie down and allow the ice to stop our hearts.” Warden snorts softly, knowing it is quite possible that none of his words will dry her tears and may easily cause more to flow. “I do not wish to leave you in the snow, though.” He finds it odd that he wishes for her to stand, to do something, when all his life he has been where she is - curled into the snow, with no fight left, reality raining down unceasingly. “I can take you somewhere warm; that will solve at least something tonight.”