i'm torn from the truth that holds my soul
i'm down in the grave where I belong --
He has tried to forget about what transpired on the mountain; or rather, whatever hellscape he had walked into after climbing it.
Perhaps he should be grateful that his mind did not seem to work the same as most. There is still a semi-feral side to it, and he did not ruminate on things the way others might, focusing instead only on the present—on staying alive.
Still, despite that, he felt changed.
He is not haunted by nightmares, but something has changed, something to the very marrow of his bones, and he couldn’t say that he likes it. Even if he did not feel emotionally broken, he did not like learning what it felt like to be stripped to his core and remade, to know that there are things out there that not even his armor can fend off.
He could have almost convinced himself that it all been a wretched nightmare if not for the swirling dark that snaked like smoke around his feet, occasionally billowing up around his tall frame. The shadows had not existed before ascending the mountain, yet now they followed him everywhere he went.
As always, he still preferred the forest.
The quiet and the solitude is a welcome respite from the cacophony of voices in places like the meadow, and less eyes to attract the stares he still sometimes garnered. Here, in the dark of the trees, his shadows blended in, though the soft, white glow that radiated from the galaxy-sheen of his body made it impossible for him to fully fade into the background. He rarely encountered anyone out here, though, and those that he did often caught a glimpse of him and diverted their course.
Her scream splits the air, and his head snaps instantly in the direction where the sound of it sends birds fluttering frantically into the sky.
Without thinking he slips forward, seeking out the source of the sound. The monster inside him coils taut, as if preparing for a fight—and though he may not be haunted by it, the image of the shadow-demon that wielded fire intrudes into his mind before he can stop it.
When he finds her hovering over the surface of the pond his jaw is locked tight, his wings pressed to his sides, and his knife-tail poised as if waiting to attack. He takes her in—the way her dapples shimmer like firelight, the vivid red of her eyes—and for a moment the contrast of what almost looks like sparks against darkness causes his adrenaline to surge. His black eyes narrow, but the curve of his horns and shape of his armor mostly hide the way his ears briefly pin before he deduces that she is not a threat. “Why did you scream?” he asks her, and from his mouth—his voice sometimes a bit too blunt, too mechanical—it nearly sounds accusatory. He has enough self-awareness to catch that, and he tries to soften it. “Are you hurt?”
-- f r e t
