"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
He hadn’t wasted much time after the coronation. It had been enlightening to say the least and his head was still wrapping around the events from that little party. Yet the news coming from the lava pit of the West were troubled whispers and mixed with the lingering shadow of the quiet and still volcano… There is a look in the golden eye of his battered sister (whose bite marks had not been missed by the sharp eyed Prince) that he cannot refuse to see and so he finds the skinwalker and sets out sooner than even he had expected.
This is not going to be a pleasant trip, in any sense of the word. He does not inform the Pampas Champion of what they are going to Tephra for. Not until they are standing before the shadowy mountain of the volcano and the beckoning still jungle before them. Eerily still. The red-eyed Prince comes to a halt and pulls up before that invisible wall, scowling into the ashlands. “I fucking hate this place.” He snarls softly with the feeling that for once his companion and he are perfectly in sync on the matter. He hates this place and he hates the one thing they’ve come here to collect. With a sharp snort of dismay he gives a brief description of the mare they seek.
“In the jungle. I need her alive.” He says firmly, a soft hiss of warning from a temper that momentarily harnesses the serpent and takes the power for himself. He pauses for a moment, looking over at the creature beside him. For a moment, he thinks he sees a different version of themselves. These two lonely colts born in the shadow of fire and rage, abandoned and alone. It disappears just as quickly as it comes and he throws his dark gaze back to the task at hand. “If you run into trouble, you know what to do.” He says quietly and then slips into the cool shadows as he begins to search his way into the heart of the jungle.
Skandar’s skin itches, crawling eerily as if something was begging to be set free; or perhaps it is merely the sight of that lumbering volcano in the distance that sets the slender stallion on edge. He is a scowling mess at Obscene’s right, his indigo and orange head lowered as if the height could hide the angry angles of his face. He hated this place and everything it stood for - it represented how easily he had been forgotten, a blemish on an otherwise royal family. A son of disaster sent to hide in the shadows and hope that he would never reappear.
Twice he has come since that fateful day when he had finally found the nerve to leave the ashen landscape and never return. Once was for her (to guide her to the healing waters cloaked as his own father, to mend the scars laced across her golden chest - a path he would easily take again if only she would ask) and now because Obscene had come to him in the middle of the dying Pampas, desiring his company on the no doubt political venture. The Prince did not need Skandar as a bodyguard - the black stallion has enough bulk and height that he would find it odd if anyone would attack him outright. No, Skandar is here for other reasons entirely, he is sure.
Skandar agreed, of course, solely because of his own ambitions - to learn about those in power around him, to memorize their subtleties and behaviors, to sort through their past and their present, to become omnipotent.
The duo are standing at the base of the volcano and while Obscene maybe stares up at the grumbling mass of lava and rock and ash, Skandar refuses to gaze up into its sentience. There is a scoff that resounds in his throat in reply to Obscene’s comment, accompanied with a quick flick of his ombre tail that could only be interpreted as his agreement. Skandar did not know much about Obscene, but he finds that the black stallion is quickly becoming a story unraveled.
In the jungle.
Skandar raises his head for the first time, surveying Obscene with a silent gaze. Those burning orange irises flicker into the depths of the jungle that is swathed in darkness and humidity despite the bite of winter that has covered most of Beqanna already. Skandar’s jawline becomes terse as orders are given (and the orange of his eyes burn a glowing red, bright as embers, accompanied with the soft whistling hum behind his eyes), a nonverbal response that tells Obscene that he understood completely. The glowing of his eyes dies as the other stallion slinks off into the forest and as he moves to begin his own search, his galaxy-marked skin ripples and churns grotesquely, flitting against each other in slices until they settle on a more subtle color to hide him better beneath the jungle’s canopy.
Cloaked as a plain and easily overlooked bay stallion, he searches the jungle for the mare Obscene had described to him.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
He finds Skander first, the bay stallion skulking through the underbrush. To his credit, the shifter is an incredibly unremarkable creature, so plain that even Gale’s eyes attempt to glance off him.
But Gale, who has been making sport of hunting down the Tephrans, does not care what the horse looks like. He only wants to kill him.
He follows the other man for a while, drifting through the trees in a form that wastes an obscene amount of magic. He hardly feels the effort, and the realization of it makes him nearly giddy.
There is so much Power here that he can waste it.
The bay horse is clearly looking for something. Perhaps someone, Gale thinks. Family? Friends? The possibility of being so easily led to more keeps him curious, following along behind the stallion until he feels another one.
This one he knows.
The nothingness in the air is suddenly nothing just to Obscene’s left, which is within shouting distance of the bay he’d just stopped following. Whatever - or whoever - they are tracking, it must be nearby.
It’s not Sickle, so what has brought the Prince of the Pampas and his stooge to the jungle? Curious, Gale remains unseen, waiting for a more opportune time to reveal himself.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
It is not the first time he looks at Skandar and wonders what lurks in that swirling head of his. Only a fool would trust his ambitious court completely and it would be a surprise to him if they hadn’t spoken of ripping him from his seat of power one day for their own gain. The thoughts of murder that linger in the back of the skinwalker’s head wouldn’t have shocked him at all. The Fae part of him would have been disappointed if they hadn't considered that option. The serpent within him secretly hopes one day they will try, an easy release from the equine prison it currently resides in.
It won’t be today though. Today, Skandar is willing enough to play the part of Champion and assist him in his search. There is a moment when he thinks to offer the other stallion a mutual assistance, to ask if there was anyone he might want to find as well but the other vanishes quickly after the orders are given. The volcano holds too many memories for them both and the glance he gives towards the looming mountain before disappearing into the underbrush is one filled with loathing. It stays with him as he pushes past overgrown leaves and snaps vines caught around his neck with the strength of his movement.
He isn’t quiet on purpose. He wants to be found.
He can feel eyes on him and knows he is being watched. By what or who, he isn’t sure. But he banks on at least one pair belonging to the mare he seeks. He knows that Skandar is probably not far from him but it is hard to tell in this oppressive atmosphere and that eerie quiet they had found when stealing Sickle seems to have grown ten-fold now. Everything in Tephra felt plainly wrong.
There is a soft whisper behind him and he whirls to find exactly what he has come for.
She never would have appeared if she hadn’t wanted it to be seen. His red eyes find the harsh golden ones that he had tried to forget over the years, the ones that match his sister’s. “You came.” She whispers to him and now he can see the marks of age along her face, the gray of her muzzle that sprinkles into the dark of her wings. She is different and yet still exactly the same. She looks at him and sees that at first she had been mistaken. She had thought Offspring had managed to come back from the dead with the nightmares that had been following her recently and the terrible whispers that clung to the shadows. Now she realizes how wrong she is as she looks over her son, changed in so many ways. But it was him, there was no mistaking that. No mistaking those eyes.
Her defiant head is raised to him, expecting a rush of anger. But there is no time for that now and he is suddenly uncomfortable and it shows in the deep smirk that plays across his dark lips. Would he ever not be at the mercy of powerful women? There is a sharp whistle he sends to catch Skandar’s attention, one that means he’s found what he’s looking for, as they stare unwavering at each other. “Are you going to make this difficult?” He asks her quietly, fire blazing in the depths of red. Silence. ”No.” She says simply, frowning. She had already been planning to leave but couldn’t remember where Bardot had told her she had been residing. And then the nightmares had started and the jungle that she had called home for so long turned into something she no longer recognized. She had planned on leaving and simply had nowhere else to go. Until now.
As he waits for Skandar’s appearance, thinking once more how simple this had been, the feeling of being watched intensifies and he starts to scowl. It seems they had outstayed their welcome.
Encumbered by the weight of humidity, the bay Skandar moves carefully. Thick and rubbery leaves of jungle plants move away with the broad push of his chest, dampening his shoulders and hips, darkening him further as he travels deeper. The feeling of the moisture against his skin brings memories to his forefront, when the fat and broad leaves would slap against his face instead of his chest as he ran, blinded by anger and the insurmountable weight of loneliness despite being a colt in one of the most heavily populated kingdoms. He was forgotten and purposely so, tears streaking down his orange and indigo face as he would run until he couldn’t any longer.
The memory heightens Skandar’s emotions and in an attempt to quell the way it made his blood boil and his heart race, he grasps at magic that is not his. One that is familiar and comforting, used so often on himself that he only feels as if it is an extension, not a mere mimic of her ability to sense emotions. In doing so in this brief and barely conscious moment, Skandar feels an emotion that is not his own.
Curiosity.
He stops suddenly, throwing his head up wildly as his now dark and plain eyes peer through the dark jungle. He is quite certain it is the mare that Obscene had been looking for, her emotions close by. He turns his head left and right, uncertain how to follow emotion (was it even possible?). But instead, his concentration breaks at the sharp whistle that resounds through the jungle, the emotion slipping from the loose grip of his mind.
Skandar scowls, his eyes shadowed by a furrowed brow as he turns towards where he would find Obscene and his mother. He falls into place behind the woman, though it seems as though she is more than willing to come along with them. Skandar’s muscles grow tight beneath his auburn skin, shining with moisture from his searching through the sweltering jungle.
The stallion’s ears pin against his neck, snorting loudly as his dull gaze flickers to Obscene. The woman before him, frowning and possibly even confused, did not seem a bit curious at all. The realization settles against him with a cloak of cold, his eyes flashing a scarlet red with a silent warning that he hopes Obscene would understand.
Time to go.
He hated this place, somehow even more than he had moments before.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
There’s a bay mare ahead of them, and Gale recognizes her. He does not know her name, but he has fed from her before, taking delight in the misery of so many old, sad memories. He’d come closer to killing her, though she probably remains unaware. Just before he’d leapt down on her from his position in the trees, a flock of parrots had taken flight from the underbrush where they’d been feeding, startling her away with the flapping of jewel-bright wings.
Obscene is here to steal her, Gale realizes, and has brought the whistle-summoned bay with to help him.
There’s tension between the pair of them - he can Feel it. The invisible presence is unaware of the games the pair of trespassers are involved in: political, romantic, or otherwise. His unlimited access to power has not come with omnipotence, and he’s decides that needling Aela is more intriguing than what has transpired between the two other men or why this pegasus is worth coming to Tephra to steal .
“Tell Aela I’m hurt she didn’t keep her souvenir,” he tells Obscene, and when he flashes the image of the open wound on his sister’s chest that has since become a grisly scar, it is to all of those assembled and not just the long-eared Prince. Perhaps they’ll flinch.
Perhaps Obscene will bristle at once more being used as a messenger between the brindle stallion that materializes now beside the bay mare, and his golden youngest sister. Gale does enjoy the taste of frustration.
Not his own though, so he asks as he runs his navy muzzle possessively across Tantalize’s mottled shoulder and holds her bones so he might feel her quake for a moment: “Have you returned Sickle to her mother? Or should I come back to the Pampas and collect her, along with what you owe me for trying to take this?” At the final word, he gestures with his dark head at Tantalize, speaking of her as if she is no more than a shiny bit of stone or tropical fruit.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
A plain reddish stallion appears behind his mother, scowling, and he almost snarls until he sees the flash of scarlet and remembers what Skandar is. He doesn’t need the warning in the Champion’s eyes as his own glitter with ferocity the moment a voice, taunting and low, sweeps through the air around all of them and an image is pressed into his head. The jaguar mare snorts at the unexpected intrusion, her own mouth matching the scowls that creep over the stallions around her as the image of a golden mare with the gaping wound lingers in her mind. She remembers the way Gryffen had once tied her up, the silvery flesh along her withers a reminder of where she too had once been peeled open and devoured by the whims of a madman. For her son, it stirs different memories.
It is salt to a wound that is just barely healing.
He does not expect the indigo stallion that appears next to her and as he runs his muzzle over her shoulder, he schools his handsome face into that mask of indifference despite the fresh layer of scales that begin to wind up his obsidian legs. “You know your sister.” He responds casually, as if he could care less that Gale was now holding his mother with magic. “It didn’t match her esthetic.”
It is only her eyes (and the fact that she hadn’t launched herself at that unwanted touch) that gives it away, molten and filled with a fire and brimstone that she hadn’t felt in years. Her head is still raised defiantly but it is no longer by choice, her skeleton locked into place by the magician beside her. Who was this man? And what did he want with her? She is aware of the stallion still standing behind her but cannot catch him out of the corner of her eye. She can only stand and watch.
Obscene, to his credit, smirks at Gale even as the pupils of his eyes begin to narrow. “I don’t recall us ever making a deal regarding mothers.” He says quietly, those red eyes darkening with a restless hunger that begins to spread inside him and shoves those splintered pieces a little bit deeper, adding fuel to the fire. “Nor do I recall agreeing to bring her back to Hyaline.” Wording was everything after all. “A silly miscommunication.” His smirk deepens (that intentional miscommunication) and his gaze barely shifts from Gale to the stallion behind him. There is no ability for telepathy as Fae but he hopes that Skandar will realize what he is doing and be prepared to take the mare with him and go. With or without him.
“Your daughter seems to be quite enjoying the Pampas.” He continues, taking a few steps until he is mere inches from the cursed creature who still stands far too close to what belongs to him. “And I’m sure your sister would love to catch up with you again.” He can feel that thing within him trying to push against his glittering skin as that endless hunger grows. “It seems you’ve got quite a mess to clean up here though.” He grins at Gale, if he wanted this shit stain of land for himself then he could have it. Good riddance, really. “Come by in a few days and you can see them for yourself.”
The voice that permeates suddenly through the stagnant and humid air is unfamiliar to Skandar. The black-tipped ears he wears as a bay still remain hidden beneath an equally black mane, pressed against his neck fervently. The mention of Aela brings his heart to rattle against his chest viciously, adrenaline and the heat of anger simmering in his blood. He can feel the fire that blossoms within him, threatening to spill in an aura around him. Skandar swallows it instead, quelling it with a steady breath.
His expression remains terse and sharp, the only reaction as the brindle stallion becomes visible, recognizing him from Aela’s many memories that she has shared. The view of her wound - fresh and bleeding - brings a dangerous heat to his eyes, feeling the impulse to strike what would be two slender beams of red light in a sweeping motion across Gale’s throat, releasing head from the body in one single gaze.
Skandar doesn’t act (though once he might have, when he was a bit younger, a bit more uninhibited, out of control) and instead settles on the now-King of Tephra with a darkened, silent gaze. This situation is not his to evade or weave through; he is there only to assist the growth of the Flower Court, however that may be. Currently, he begins to memorize Gale - his behavior, the way he holds himself and caresses the shoulder of the mare (searching for a reaction, baiting Obscene). He’s committing the pattern of his skin to his own memory, only having seen Gale through Aela’s eyes, each marking and intricate change in color. Even his voice Skandar attempts to digest, that ruthless (almost bored) tone that somehow makes the air seem thicker than it already is.
The bay-cloaked stallion can hear the flitting sound of scales wrapping around Obscene’s skin, but his concentration does not break - the tension between the group is electric and at any moment could shatter.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
Gale intended to hurt the Prince eventually, though his plans for doing so had been insubstantial and distant. He’d get to the fae-touched Obscene sometime after he’d picked off his host’s kin, whenever that might be. They are a long-suffering lot, and he means to drain them for all they are worth, however long it takes. With the magic he takes from them, he will make short work of the glittering black stallion, as well as the rest of the world.
Obscene offers a witty retort regarding Aela, and Gale tilts his head curiously, peering with genuine interest at a creature bold enough - foolish enough? - to bait the metaphorical bear.
At the mention of mothers, Gale glances back at the bay mare beside him - this is Obscene’s mother? An interesting tidbit, though given that the other claims to not recall an agreement to bring Sickle to Hyaline, Gale only half believes it. Well, Gale supposes, that’s not even his fight anymore.
He’ll leave the recovery of his daughter to the parent who’d wanted her home in the first place. He’d no interest in Sickle, only in Mazikeen, and now he has no need for her either. Let the Pampas deal with the white alpha.
“A silly miscommunication,” he repeats, and at the final word he is almost smiling, bemused at the triviality with which the red-eyed horse speaks. When Obscene steps closer, still smirking, Gale doesn’t move. He remains still, his blue eyes flickering with the same lightning that dances along his skin.
The fae Prince is either quite assured of his own abilities or a raving lunatic. Gale is quickly becoming more interested in finding out which it is, and decides he will include the southern leader the next time he makes his round of nightmares. There’s nothing to gain from killing him now, not when keeping him alive might yield even further gains. Not to mention the sharp eyes of the bay stallion beside them, the one who has been silent, the one who thinks of slicing Gale to bits with his eyes.
Gale will take those later, he decides; there’s no point in risking decapitation to keep a Tephran he hadn’t even wanted.
He’s thinking of what he knows of the black prince as Obscene invites him to visit in a few days, and Gale declines with a smile that is practically beatific.
“I’m afraid I have plans already,” Gale says, and flashes another image. This one he means only Obscene to see, and is a quick flash of Gale collecting green quartz crystals and crushing them to powder before ripping another from its bloody black-and-white spotted base. “But I appreciate the invitation. I’ll take you up on it someday.”
Or perhaps he won’t. Perhaps he will simply enjoy the dark anticipation and worry that the promise of such a visit might inspire in the Pampas. He smiles at the thought.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
In that slight shift of his gaze, he can barely make out the shape that Skandar has stolen this time. Only his eyes catch in the dim night and with the intensity of them, he can guess what he might be doing. Or thinking. Gale’s voice calls him back, repeating his words with a smile, and Obscene gives him his trademark smirk in response. A fool he may be. Even a lunatic for allowing himself to get dragged into this mess to begin with. It matters little to him when he’s in the thick of it now. All he sees is another bully hiding behind an array of magic, just like the foals of his youth. A coward. He has never folded to cowards. Besides that… He’s not sure what exactly Gale is, only that he is different then the brother Aela use to know. Different and dangerous.
But Obscene was also changed. He hadn’t collected Beqanna’s magic from ripped chests or sampled hearts but he was altered all the same. Changed by the sister birthed by the mare that stood next to the navy magician. Changed by Aela’s hands. And Revelrie’s. And Obsidio’s. Even Skandar’s. When he had taken the Pampas as his own he had mostly been bored, looking for nothing more than another fun distraction. He hadn’t expected the place to effect him as much as it did. It wasn’t the land, he could have picked any territory, it never would have mattered (with perhaps the exception of the kingdom they currently stood in) where he had chosen. What mattered was what had been built within it.
None of it would have happened if a young green and onyx mare (that still refused to simply let him be) had not frustrated him enough in the first place. The one that had changed him most of all.
And then she is pressed into his mind (broken, bleeding, crushed) and he forgets the other two horses near them as he suddenly grows cold and the world around them is suddenly deathly silent as he zeros in on Gale. There is ice in his veins (the snake losing traction again) when he gives a serpentine smile to Gale, malice glittering in the dark red of his eyes. “Oh no. I must insist.” He says slowly, his unwavering malevolent gaze holding the electric blue of Gale’s. “It’s not that far after all.” He adds, unable to shake the forbidding grip clawing at his star lined chest. “However if you can’t be swayed, then I’ll accommodate my plans to yours.” His voice is barely a low grumbling murmur but there is no mistaking the threat that it is.
Gale 
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}
