let my shadows prove the sunshine

He doesn’t remember how he got here, only that above him is the familiar foliage of the jungle - humid, green and laced with the vibrant color of hibiscus and plumeria.

He was home.

For a moment he wonders if any of it is real, his cerulean gaze taking in each part of the landscape with a weary and cautious eye. Part of him knew it was over - the torture, the onslaught he was forced to carry - but part of him holds fast to that uncertainty, wavering between with a gentle shake to his palomino and white frame.

Svedka had been healed; enough to make it home but not in a way that would deem him without scars. His shoulder still bleeds without hesitation, pouring from an open wound from his own claws - ragged and only partly clotted, staining the jungle floor with his own rust-colored blood. He sighs, his vision fading in and out with each blink, staggering forward on barely usable legs.

It’s not until he reaches a breach in lava rock that the stallion finally stops, gazing into its open chasms with wide yet unseeing eyes. He’s so tired, so very tired, and when his eyes fall upon a familiar hole within the volcano’s side, he merely watches it for a moment before he enters it’s warm depths, completely disoriented and lost within it’s shadow.

With a shuddering sigh he leans against the warm pumice of the inside of the cave, his eyesight fluttering in and out. He had no idea of the life that flutters within him, that pulses and vibrates, because his bones are oh so weary. His mind is an eternity away, flitting from the afterlife back to the present, exhaustion in their cerulean depths.

He collapses to the floor of the cavern with an ungraceful slide to the ground, curling there as if that is where he was meant to die.

Hadn’t he, though? Hadn’t he meant to die, in that place?

svedka

let my shadows prove the sunshine

He hears her but he cannot bring himself to lift his head from the warmth of the wet stone floor, try as he might. Even in his condition, she would be able to see the quiver of his neck as he attempts to greet her, his bold blue gaze shattered by things he is sure he could never bring to his lips. The sound of her approaching brings a shudder of comfort throughout his aching body, a soft whuffle of breath leaving his pale mouth as he rests his head against the cavern floor, slumped and breathless and feeling so very hollow.

Part of him is missing; he can feel it.

Strangely, though, when her voice seeps through the darkness and the pain and the hopelessness, he feels a sort of jolt - something like when he had been awakened by the Dark god, but it is less fierce. It is gentle, natural, loving. It’s Solace.

And within that jolt - a mere blink - the pale white and gold stallion’s entire being hums with blue light. It is gone before it even comes to fruition; so quick that not even Svedka noticed it’s appearance.

He wishes she was at his side and within a breadth of a moment she is. There is a smile that lightly crosses his pearled mouth, trying to ignore the searing sensation in his shoulders that tear with each shudder of a breath from his lungs. “Sol,” he whispers, attempting to keep the smile on his mouth for as long as he could before weariness takes over, leaving him to close his eyes and turn his head just enough to rest it there on one of her slender, ivory legs.

She smells of the sea and of their home. She bathes him in her soft light - blue and slightly pulsing - adding a sort of enchanting glow to the terrible scene she shines upon.

“You always said my wanderings would bring me trouble,” he whispers with his eyes still closed, laughter in his throat - somehow trying to keep the situation light - but then winces slightly. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me like this; it would ruin my reputation.” 

His brow furrows, all shadow and sweat marring his otherwise perfect white face. He wonders if she can sense the unease - not just from his wounds, but somewhere deep within him. Solace has to assume that his wounds are from the lion - his lion - but how, she would wonder? He swallows hard. How to tell her? Something is not right and Svedka knows this; but how could he speak of such things when it’s completely possible that he will be sent back there by the night’s end? No, now wouldn’t be the time to tell her.

svedka