[private] this ain't no place for no hero; colby pony

[Volos]

I've been waiting for the tides to change,
for the waves to send you my way

He is still coming to grips with himself.

He had been such a bold and confident boy, exuberant in his play and eager to make new friends.  On both the island and beyond, Volos had been quick to explore, to test boundaries, and to push further than he should.  His parents had praised his precociousness rather than stifled it.  They valued bravery and courage above all – especially Titanya – and he had been keen to make them proud.

There is still that part of him somewhere inside, he thinks, but it is tucked away in the same darkness that once blanketed the land. 
 
Almost dying will do that. 

Dawn breaks over the forested horizon.  Volos raises his golden gaze to it just as the sun climbs over the far treeline and begins to pool in the thick, dewy grass.  It is already hot despite the early hour, and it won’t take long before the grass is completely dried out.  He imagines what it would have looked like with the eclipse still hanging in the sky above.  He pictures the stunted, dying grass and the ribby, starving horses scrounging for anything they could find.  Haunted and hunted eyes look back at him in his imagination.  The sound of screaming and snarling and suffering all plays back through his memories. 

Now, there is only the sound of birds and the soft swishing of tails as early risers find their first meal. 

He tips his chin down to partake himself, feeling his companion gripping tighter to his withers as he does so.  His mind wanders as he grazes.  He redirects his thoughts when they turn too grim, tries to remember happier, carefree days before everything changed.  It is a herculean task, he finds, and it is easier to blank his thoughts instead.  It becomes quiet – hypnotically so, even – and a great deal of time passes before Volos snaps out of it and realizes that he is no longer chewing.

When he looks up again, the crowd has grown near the edges of the trees and it is no longer so quiet.  Still not ready for small talk, Volos heads towards the same line of trees he had watched the sun rise above.  It is cooler under the interlocking canopy.  Darker, too, and he is unnerved by his relief in both facts.  He considers leaving and is about to slip through the trees when he hears someone.  He lifts his head and shifts his body to intercept whoever has wandered so close.

volos

@Colby

[Narya]

It has been years since she first began to hear the whispered voices of the dead, since her waking and sleeping hours became haunted by their existence. She had thought figuring out what they were would have made things easier; she had thought that someday she would learn to coexist in a way that did not constantly leave her nerves feeling frayed and her mind on edge.

In a way, she was right.

Because the exhaustion had worn away at her, so gradually, like the rock might eventually give way to the sea. It had happened so slowly that she did not notice when the fire-edge of her nerves turned so cold that she went numb, or when she no longer could muster a reaction to a whispered voice or a spectral vision in the corner of her eye.

She wonders sometimes if this is what it feels like to be a ghost; aimless, and right on the edge of apathy.

The forest had remained a favored place of hers, though she isn’t sure why. Perhaps because the warm sunshine of a meadow felt as though it was shining a spotlight on all her flaws, that it might illuminate her false smile and deepen the shadows that have taken up residence in her dark brown eyes. Here, where darkness wove through the trees and dimmed whatever light managed to strain through, she did not feel the need to hide.

She is alone, as she always is. The chatter of the horses that linger along the edge of the forest mingle with the threads of whispers of souls, and they all come together to create a quiet hum in her mind that seems to block out all other sounds. She is in her own world, drifting mindlessly through her thoughts, when she realizes a movement out of the corner of her eye is someone very much alive. “Oh,” the word is startled from her mouth as the fog dissipates from her gaze, and she turns those quietly haunted eyes to the stranger's face. “I’m sorry,” the apology is softly spoken, her delicate nose drawn in towards her chest, and anything else she might have said dies on her tongue.

N A R Y A

@Volos