[open] crooked souls

[Cyan]

The darkness had come, the light had vanished, and so too had his good mood.
Or the closest thing he could call good.
Whatever that meant.

He wasn’t well equipped to navigate a land encapsulated by a sunless sky, and many a time found himself stumbling into thorns and brambles and all manners of unpleasantness he might’ve been able to avoid if he could actually see.  A prevailing thought crosses his mind in such instances, that perhaps leaving Beqanna in favor of a place more desirable might be a balm to his ceaseless dour attitude.  Preferably a place that had those small conveniences like the light.

And warmth.
And sun.
What a privileged life he had lived before.

Pushing off from the lodgepole pine that he’d been leaning against, his crimson eyes looked towards the River, wondering what his mother was up to.  If it hadn’t been for her, he would have had no qualms with up and leaving in search of greener, well-lit pastures.  Maybe she’d go with him? Nah, he thinks, disposing the idea as quickly as it had come.  There were too many ties that she had here, too many unanswered questions that he knew better than to poke at.

And the look on her face if he’d go and tell her that he was leaving? Ugh.
“Forget it,” he grumbled, loudly enough for someone to hear nearby, even though he thought himself alone. “Not worth it.”


@[ratty] rattattle here's a post if you're up for it ! and someone else too if anyone wants!

[Wight]

He's confused. He's confused by the dark, and the trees, and it makes him so, so angry. He doesn't normally mind the cold, but the air burns his skinless flesh, sickly yellow rime forming around his sharp-toothed snarl and at the corners of the softly moaning mouth that wobbles like a boneless thing over his back. Yellow capillaries have burst and black blood drips steaming down his legs, burning the dormant vegetation with a hiss as he walks.

Monsters jibber in all directions, and he responds with curses, raging in the darkness, the coal-bright glow of his single eye following the dim vision of a single white filly prancing ahead unharmed, unconcerned, fully aware of the murderous creature drifting inexorably in her wake. Struan growls; a hideous, rasping, sound that tumbles in his salt-burned throat, knuckles striking the earth. He will kill her, he thinks, one of these days.

And what is this place? What is the power of it that it can tie him to this foolish child? He can feel in the back of his mind that soft, strange, sore, spot in his brain where their thoughts collide, continually warring. He growls again, lower, and turns away from her to the sounds of other hooves in the night. He is as large as most horses, with too-long arms that end in grasping hands, sharp teeth, and breath that fogs yellow and surprisingly deadly to horses who, he has found to his glee, are the main inhabitants of this place. Struan turns away from Wight, his thoughts of murder slinking cat-like away from her (and if he is being honest, he is not sure if the connection they share will allow him to kill her, but he loves to imagine the ways he might, delights in knowing that their connection lets her see those many deaths) and finding the bramble-cut young stallion, grumbling sullenly to himself.

The moaning, eyeless, face above Struans back smiles its too-wide, impossible smile.

I disagree, the voice is the ocean crashing against rock, it is the cry of a seal pulled under the waves by an orca, I think this will be worth it. If I'm fast enough.

The nuckelavee wonders whether the stallion will understand him the way Wight does, or if the magic only extends between the two of them. He can already hear her crashing through the undergrowth after him, but with any luck, she will be too late.

Don't even breathe, Cyan, just run.

Image By Footybandit

hello, here is Wight's murderous companion animal come to mercilessly kill your character. It occurs to me that he probably shouldn't be able to talk to horses so uh, I edited the dialogue. sorry about multitagging you lol @[Cyan]