[private] came in like a vision, balto - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: Forest (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=73) +---- Thread: [private] came in like a vision, balto (/showthread.php?tid=28622) Pages:
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came in like a vision, balto - jamie - 01-02-2021 Jamie
He is at home in this strange darkness. This darkness that he is certain Beyza constructed specifically for him. She had promised to bring the underworld to Beqanna and, as he sees it, she had made good on her promise. It makes the shadow thing almost giddy. The heart pulses with such a wild thrill. He has never known happiness, Jamie, not like this. The kind of unfettered delight that fixes that shark-took smile to his peculiar, featureless face. It reminds him of an old friend, this darkness. The cave dweller. The opponent who had vowed to destroy him. Perhaps things might have turned out differently if death had not stolen the shadow thing’s conscience. Perhaps it would have pained him too greatly to harm his friend, perhaps he might have laid down in surrender and let the blue stallion kill him. Perhaps he would have begged him to. But the shadow thing has no conscience to speak of, not anymore, and he had fought instead. Under any other circumstances, he might have sought out the cave dweller to apologize for the way things had turned out. And yet. He does seek out his old friend, but it is not to apologize. He finds him in the forest, which is the first place their paths crossed. And he can feel the memory of that encounter in the cage of his chest. How terribly it had pained him to realize Balto’s lie. How he had wailed with it! He approaches the blue stallion without an ounce of malice. He tilts his peculiar head and flashes that same shark-tooth smile, acutely aware of the things that loiter in the shadows. “Balto,” he murmurs, rasping, “old friend.” ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME ) @[Balto] RE: came in like a vision, balto - Balto - 01-03-2021 i’ve been both a saint & a viper The fighting had taken much from him; much of his strength and it even satiated all that anger that now writhes freely within him. Though the time he had spent in the arena had taken much from him, it seems to now give him something in return. Balto @[jamie] RE: came in like a vision, balto - jamie - 01-10-2021 Jamie
Oh, how it pains him to see his friend in this state! Purged of the wicked thing that had pledged to do to Jamie what Jamie had been unable to do. The static darkness that had vowed never to let him rest, keening at the promise that Jamie had made. It is not guilt he feels now, his lack of conscience protects him from any semblance of remorse, but there is something that stirs in the cavern of his chest all the same. He is not innocent in this, he knows, but he had only ever wanted to help. Balto lifts his weary head from where he’d leaned it against the bark of a tree and Jamie hears them. He hears them. He does not even have to try, they stream steady into his psyche, these things born from terrible darkness. He aches for the blue stallion. Balto. Come to finish the job? The shadow thing’s heart spasms and he lets loose a ragged breath. “Balto,” he coos and when he touches Balto now, he can turn his edges solid. The same as they’d been on the battlefield. He does not dissolve around the hard plain of Balto’s shoulder. He sighs into Balto’s skin and mournfully shakes his head, just barely. “I only ever wanted to help you,” he mutters, “I never wanted to hurt you.” He lifts his head to catch the cave dweller’s eye as the fog begins to thicken and swim into the darkness around them. This strange, strange darkness. The darkness Beyza brought. “I can help you now,” he whispers, “because I never belonged to you, I belonged to Death.” He had belonged to the dark things that teem in the shadows now. “Let me help you.” ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME ) @[Balto] RE: came in like a vision, balto - Balto - 01-16-2021 i’ve been both a saint & a viper
Jamie speaks his name again and he visibly withdraws, turning away from the sound of his own name and the voice that speaks it. The blue-black stallion lowers his head, the thick darkness of his forelock hiding the bruises and blood that stains his forehead, where two protrusions begin to form just on either side. Balto @[jamie] RE: came in like a vision, balto - jamie - 01-31-2021 Jamie
He understands now that they can all die. Even Jamie, who had been reborn from death once. Even Balto, who thinks he is immune. And perhaps he is, but Jamie still believes that he can help. Despite the changes in his friend, the darkening of his flesh, Jamie believes he holds the key. He belongs to Death and Death belongs to him. He had felt the way that Balto had shied away from his touch but it had not been enough to convince him to withdraw it. No, he goes on touching him. He touches him and gently - so gently - pulls at his life force, lets it slide down his own throat where it pools heavy in the pit of his gut. “Come with me,” he murmurs and releases his hold on the blue-black stallion’s soul, “come with me to Pangea and I will end your suffering.” He sinks closer still until they are shoulder to shoulder and he can lay his strange head along the sharp ladder of Balto’s spine. He exhales a long, rasping sigh, ravaged by the heat of Balto’s skin. “I will take care of you if you’ll let me,” he promises. He owes his friend that much, he thinks. He may not be able to kill him in any way that makes a difference, but he believes he can at least ease his misery. The fog curls its way up the length of Balto’s neck where it gingerly caresses his throat, the same way it had so long ago. This, too, is a vow. He will keep his word this time, though he knows that Balto has no reason to trust him. He had not kept his promise the last time and how it had destroyed him to have to break his promise! How he had mourned their lost opportunity! But he is not the same creature he’d been then. And neither is Balto. They are different. And he knows that this time things will be different. ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME ) @[Balto] RE: came in like a vision, balto - Balto - 05-16-2021 i’ve been both a saint & a viper Balto rasps, his breath caught in his throat, those icy eyes stagnant beneath a heavily shadowed brow as Jamie digs somewhere deep inside him. His whole body tenses, shuddering. Balto @[jamie] RE: came in like a vision, balto - jamie - 05-18-2021 jamie I CAN’T EXACTLY DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
How terribly fond the shadow-thing is of this cave dweller. Despite the anger that had ripped through him like a flash flood some years before. When Balto had made the dark thing believe that he belonged to him, when it had been revealed that he’d lied. Despite how horribly Jamie had wanted him to suffer. Despite how fiercely Balto had wanted to make him bleed when they’d met again on the battlefield. How tenderly the shadow-thing touches him now. How sweet the promises he makes. He will take care of the old stallion, black now with decay. He will see to it that the suffering ends in any way he can. It is not a kindness, no, the shadow-thing is not capable of these things. It is something else entirely. Something perverse. Something dark and dangerous. Anything is possible. So much has changed. He is capable of such devastating things now. He draws back his head and he kisses the dark stallion’s brow the same way he had kissed his daughters’ perfect brows. He leaves his promise there and Balto comes willingly back into his embrace. How this feeds his power, strengthens the dark thing until he is almost trembling with it! “I promise you,” he wheezes and feeds magic into the stallion’s veins, feeds just enough into the gut to try and convince him. See, it says, see what I can give you? “Things are different now.” But will he kill him or will he resurrect him? AND IT LEAVES ME COLD @[Balto] RE: came in like a vision, balto - Balto - 05-22-2021 i’ve been both a saint & a viper As it had been years ago, the old stallion flutters helplessly into the embrace of shadow, unable to relent to such darkness. His body and mind craves it, lusts after it, desires it; even though it hasn’t worked before, even though he has lived decades in torment. He is willing all the same, a lamb led to the slaughter. Balto @[jamie] RE: came in like a vision, balto - jamie - 05-28-2021 jamie I CAN’T EXACTLY DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
How easy it would be to kill him. (Is it bloodlust that lives in the cage of his chest or something else entirely?) And he had meant it, Jamie, when he’d told him that he would take care of him. But he is not a merciful thing. He is a thing that feasts on death, yes, but not like this. Not when they beg for it. And Balto has always begged for it, desperate for a reprieve. There are other ways, though, the reaper knows. There are other ways to drag oneself away from the brink of madness. There is no reason for the old stallion to trust him. They have been here before. The shadow thing has made him promises before and broken them, left the blue stallion worse off than he’d been before. (Will Balto feel the same way this time? Will this drive him even deeper into madness?) Jamie presses his ink-black mouth to the stallion’s temple again, murmurs something unintelligible. Perhaps it has some meaning, perhaps it doesn’t. For a moment, he is still, exhaling his rattling breath across the stallion’s mottled skin. Listening, listening for the clamor of his demons. Will they be pleased? There, in the quiet, the shadow thing closes his eyes and channels all of his focus into the blue stallion. He relaxes his magic into the space between them. He draws all of the color out of the blue stallion, lets it slide spectacularly down his throat. Lets it pool in his gut. Until there is nothing left until the same deep black that stares back at him. Is it the soul he swallows next? Or something else? The thing that dictates his hunger. He does not relieve it, he only changes it. How diligently the shadow thing works until, finally, he draws away. And when he opens those freakish yellow eyes, he no longer recognizes the thing looking back at him. “Oh, Balto,” he sighs. AND IT LEAVES ME COLD @[Balto] RE: came in like a vision, balto - Balto - 06-08-2021 i’ve been both a saint & a viper Jamie’s voice is familiar against his skin and the stallion stills beneath it. The darkness of his lids close around those icy eyes, veiling the desperation within them from the dark world that shelters them both. Despite the uncertainty and the voices that whisper (are they Balto’s demons, or something more sinister that he hears?) in his ears, he clings to the ray of hope that shudders in his chest. Yes, this will be the end. Jamie will finally untether him, letting his blood seep into the damp and brittle forest floor just beneath his hooves. Balto @ jamie |