Dawns are heartbreaking - - anyone

[Khaedrik]

 
Khaedrik has nightmares.
 
He dreams of terrible things - figures in the dark, monsters and devils reaching for him with slender, clawed fingers. His mind is a freight train of sacrilege and obscurity. 
 
But nightmare turns to reality and reality to nightmare.
 
Khaedrik, with the coat of dying grass and a broomstick plume of a tail - too young still to know much of anything - but this he knows; he is cursed and his mother is afraid of him. 
 
He is not like other children, malleable and with an insatiable appetite for exploring the world, with exclamations of fun and play hanging from their lips.
 
Khaedrik is of silence and shadows and he does most certainly not want to explore anything. Not when there are monsters out there, with slathering jaws and moon-bright eyes, lurking in the shadows. 
 
 Khaedrik - a lanky fierce thing, with a little skinny body and jutting ribs and a pinched, malnourished looks. His eyes are dark, dark, dark -- in an average, but intelligent face. Intelligent? No, brilliant. All the time, every day, every little step he takes he is calculating, thinking, experimenting. All he wants to do is know know know -- everything, so that he might know nothing. So that it all can fit. So that he can close his black pretty eyes and sleep, really sleep. Surrender to that sucking, black, dreamless oblivion and when he wakes up he´ll be different. Everything will be different. 
 
Despite his aversion to exploring, he is out today, having left his mothers side with some half-hearted mumbled excuse of playing or finding new friends she only half believed but didn't question for relief of getting rid of him. 
 
He sticks to the safety of the riverbed - where there are no shadows save the one tethered to his own small frame. This place makes him cringe - the quaint little flowers, perfect old trees, generous swell of grass. It reminds him too much of his own fanciful little family and their happily ever afters. Khaedrik is no creature of pretty little fairy tales - no matter how much he wished he was. His own shadow turns its small head towards him - and two gleaming, yellow eyes remind him just how different he really is.
 
He shudders. 


KHAEDRIK

[Solace]

Solace

They have more in common than he may assume as she slowly approaches. 

Solace was well acquainted with nightmares, night sweats, and night terrors.
Figures in the dark and distorted versions of those she loved had frequently visited the pale girl during the long nights of her childhood. But it was not shadows and mysterious, fanged creatures which left her dreading rest - if she was lucky she would be the one running from the monsters.
In her most of her nightmares, she had been the beast. 

At least after she killed her brother.
At least after Kaiode died.

Dawn had always been a welcome sight for Solace, and she had often met it with sleepless eyes.

"Hello," she says cautiously. Unimaginative, yes, but it got the job done, and she half expects the crunching of her hoves on the gravel of the riverbank to scare the little creature away. Children were a mystery to the young mare. Svedka and Smoak had drawn the girl from her soul many times, but it was more common to find her scolding them than joining in on their reveling. Her voice remains soft and low as she speaks to the colt she has never seen before again.

"Are you lost?"

caretaker of hyaline

[Khaedrik]

Khaedrik was taken aback immediately by the first thing he saw. A mare. He adverted his eyes, not so much out of awkwardness but out of the fact that she was approaching him. He regarded her with suspicion, it was his experience that anyone who wanted anything to do with him who wasn´t his own family were usually things made up from his nightmares. But she looks nothing like those things – she is adorned with outlandish and vivid coloring, not whisper-black and terrible and thus he deems her company safe for now.

His eyes were as reserved as his thoughts; while he was quick in calculations he was slow in social situations. He was essentially a deer in the headlights, a boar stuck in a trench. He had no polished manners, no proper etiquette. Fundamentally he was an uncut slate. The mare, he thinks, might be safe for now, but he wonders if the same can be said of her shadow. With a flighty, twitching motion he side-stepped into a more proper location; where he could see both of them. (Making sure no moon-blind eye sprung to life amidst the ink-black of it.) With a certain air of induced incredulity he stood silent, his jawline taut with stiffness, staring at her shadow with two beetle-black eyes as she spoke.

”Hello” he echoes, in his lilting child´s voice.


He pauses, unsure what to say. He has never tried to make conversation with anyone outside his own family before, and is mostly thankful that his voice knows how to work. There is a silence in which he is comfortable, but he doubts as much of his companion. Few social creatures are at peace when the only sound is the wind whistling in their ears.

”I´m not lost…I…” he starts – I what, came here to escape the shadows?. Even Khaedrik, in his young age understands that living shadows is probably not a subject fit for first encounters.

In due time, he remembers what mother has thought him of manners.

”I am Khaedrik” the cantankerous child says.

Help me those too-dark eyes beg.


KHAEDRIK

[Solace]

Solace

Solace's gaze changes from cautious to bright and inquisitive as the colt begins to speak. She halts when his gaze locks onto hers, allowing him his space, and her sky-blue wings remain neatly folded over her back. His suspicion is almost tangible, but as a silence grows between them and she remains poised and unbothered, she had never been one to be made uncomfortable by stillness. She can see he searches for something to say, and instead of prompting him she holds her tongue, curious to see what he comes up with. He offers the first half of a sentence which she would love to know the end of, and his name. 

"Well, Khaedrik, it's nice to meet you," she states with a hint of amusement. The child was so serious, with all the confusion and angst of a travel-worn nomad roiling in his little dark eyes. She sympathizes with him and the way he searches for the right words, but her response comes easily when he finishes speaking. "I'm glad you're not lost...I wasn't planning on leaving Hyaline today to escort little colts back home," she chimes lightly trying to sooth away some of the tension which had visibly altered his stance once he caught sight of her. 

"I was planning on patrolling the northern border, you know to make sure no monsters sneak in. Would you like to come along?" Taking a step away and to the side, she turns perpendicular to him, her gaze returning to the craggy mountains. 

"Unless, of course, you have other things you need to attend to." She adds, her voice fluctuation between tones of seriousness and amusement. It had been nearly a week since she had last visited the ocean, to search for new tracks in the sand or any signs of visitors, friendly or otherwise, on the often forgotten side of her kingdom. She had intended on sweeping across the northern foothills on her way to the coast, but she wouldn't mind some company, even if he did lessen the miles she could cover.

caretaker of hyaline

[Khaedrik]

Khaedrik is not particularly fond of shadow-lands and the tired impressionist lies that promise some archaic prowess nestled in the motley drama of moving shade and thick gloom. No, he finds few things to embalm his soul underneath canopies of pale stars and shadow-beasts; but nevertheless he considers sifting through the half-gloom that lingers beneath the trees and between the winding, age-old roots to keep her company on her patrol. If she is their protector, he is no more than the prying, wandering boy who cannot possibly understand why the world has been left in such a state, who does not know the meaning of things and delves far too deeply into the contractions of how the world works. That; and he is monster too.

Part of him; the part that hisses and cracks under his skin, wonders what she will do to the monsters when she finds them.
What will happen to them when you find them?” he asks – the embodiment of childlike innocence and anguish all at once.

She is more than just any ordinary horse residing in these lands, he realizes in a pang of angst. And here, at her doorstep beneath the vines and murky undergrowth he is humbled by the presence of her. Though he cannot explain why (as with so many things) she has rendered him stale and insignificant, and he bends like wilting grass to her.

”I would like to come with you,” he braves the uncertainties in his chest with pretended filigrees of steel; does he know that his voice does not bear him as well as he would wish it to? The smile he offers is cement-grey and far from ripe with boyish, golden assurance. But he meets her eyes with a craven abdication of his pretended joviality; he is child – aflame with the motley drama of pry and terror. ”But please don´t kill the monsters” he mutters, surprised to taste the truth of that statement on his tongue.

Somehow it fits him.

[Solace]

Solace

Childhood is not an easy path to navigate and power only made the trail more treacherous. Power turned children into beasts, if they wanted to be or not, Solace knew this in the deepest parts of her soul - Khaedrik knew it too. 
But anyone could learn to tame the beast inside.

"Not all monsters are wicked," her tone drops to match his, as she is captivated the combination of anguish and innocence he is too young to hide. The pale Queen knows the conversation is no longer focused on metaphorical invaders - this is far more personal. "Sometimes we need a few monsters on our side...because there are plenty of them out there," and she gestures out and beyond their sanctuary with a furrowed brow before returning her steadfast gaze to his.  "I just sure want to know about them if they are here."

Please don't kill them

The sincerity swirling in the endless pools of his eyes wrenches her heart, but she will not lie. "I think we all have a little monster in us," she replies with a gentle nudge to his shoulder.

But she doesn't promise not to kill them - she would do anything she needed to for those who called her Queen. 

"Is there something you would like to show me before we go?"

caretaker of hyaline

[Khaedrik]

Oh cursed art of deception!

He could lie to her. He could be child - innocent and pure of heart, far from shadows and monsters.  Khaedrik ponders this possibility for a moment – as her gaze locks with his, but there is a quiet insistence in her eye that springs from concern. For him, for her people, her land and he abandons the fallacy that would have so easily slipped from his tongue. He tears his gaze from her then, turns his black black eyes towards the shadows. He could always delve answers from the darkness; and maybe that is a curse rather than a gift.

”I could show you” he offers flatly; defeated, deflated. That thin line upon which he is constantly balancing squeaks and chirrs in protest; monster or no monster, black or white – for the greyscales in his short life has been few and far between. Darkness is a sly accomplice, and Khaedrik knows this better than most, and yet, he strains not to yield to it. Oh, it would have been all too simple just to let go, to let himself be consumed by shadow and monsters, perish into a life that is no life, an existence that isn´t. Maybe someday, he will. But today he bends to her will – simply because he still holds enough influence over his own mind to do so.

The moon casts shadows on the ground – beckoning the ghosts to rise from their lonesome sepulchers. Imagination played a major role to the fulfillment of their whims; without it the ruse was nothing but mere parlor tricks in the candlelight. Tonight, it is a wolf that emerges from the shadows, eyes like glowworms in the dark, ribs like piano-keys and a flash of fangs in its mouth. It is a grisly, ghastly thing – shadow-spun and unnerving and it seems to grow before their eyes – festering on the feeble tendrils of Khaedriks mind. His own eyes turn fever-bright and glassy with toil and sweat breaks from his brow. The low snarl that falls from his lips matches that of the wolf as it stalks to his side; like an obedient dog to his master. Only monsters could produce such a sound, he thinks, as he commands the predator back into its shadows.

”My sister helps me keep them at bay” he admits, and there is no emotion left in his voice. He wonders if Solace knows the blood-bond he shares with the brown and white dreamwalker. It matters little though – and he hangs his small head, childlike and frail once again, ready for whatever rebuke the queen-mare has in tow for him. Surely, she will chase him from her lands. Surely, she will not harbor monsters in her sanctuary.

It is a risk, he decides, better taken sooner rather than later.

[Solace]

Solace

He weaves shadows the way she weaves light - but better.

Ghosts, wolves, and red-eyes monsters have taken up much of her time recently, so when a wolf manifests before her it seems only natural. The young queen does not flinch, she trusts the child, though perhaps she shouldn't. Any instinctual aversion to this darkness is suffocated before it can form - she wanted to trust him, to believe he could control the shadows around them as well as inside himself - Hyaline needed a guardian of the night.  

Solace was a creature of light. It lived within her, seeping from her pours during her most euphoric or painful experiences, and as the fangs flash in the suddenly small spaces they occupy together she considered summoning her light, to render the darkest if shadows a memory in a world of cerulean brilliance. But brightness can be dangerous too - her light had killed a boy. 

Instead of evaporating his monsters for him, she holds fast - he doesn't need to know everything about her just yet.  "Impressive," she smiles, despite the slight tension which draws her wings tight into her topline. There is something reassuring in knowing Kagerus also is aware of his dark talents but his apparent inner turmoil keeps her from rewarding his behavior further.  He knew more about these shadows than she ever would, and if they scared him, she would remain on her guard. "Have they ever tried to hurt you?" 

No matter what he thinks, she can't bring herself to believe this boy could be a monster.

Not yet, at least. 

caretaker of hyaline

[Khaedrik]

There are few things in which Khaedrik wields mastery – perhaps he is yet too young, too ripe to truly rule some aspect of himself with such terse, automated precision. He still clings, coyly, impatiently to the simpler means of his existence; he breathes, he lives. And yet, he remains discontent and ridden by some sighing, ulterior motive of bitterness—grapes of wrath, a sourness that binds him to a genetic mishap.
Once he recalls, it will all become a thousand travels easier, he half-believes, half-wishes.
Somehow, the particles of him grow unruly with electricity, translating into a frenzy that only lasts, courses momentarily through him; an enhanced, gregarious heartbeat, a whim, a wish.

Her question has his mind reeling. It is only just that she should ask such a thing, he thinks, for what place would he have among them if he was a liability. Perhaps if he had known the intricacies of her own abilities, he would not judge himself so harshly.
His shadows twitch around him like a second skin, obscuring the bright-gold of his body. He remembers his fears, the nightmares that made sleeping unbearable, their whisper-voices in his head. There had been a time where he would have given it all up, had someone offered him a way out. He would have given up his power, his curse if someone would have offered to take it from him.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as forgetting what he knows, unfortunately there are no do-overs, no tides of making things undone. And thus, the electricity travels from bone, to flesh, to bone and cuts like venom through his mind. And the boy senses but cannot decipher the contingencies that transform into the meagre, aimless substance he has become.

”They would, if they could.” he answers truthfully – and there is a yearning in his eye, to be something more than monster and shadows. They would hurt you too he doesn´t say. I won´t let them he doesn´t either. But his wolf-beast dissipates into thin air, a mere memory of smoke and iniquity.  The shadows in his eyes, however, still burn as brightly as ever. He hasn´t told her how they are part of him, part of the black hole that simmers in his chest, threatening to swallow all that is good and pure about him. But he cannot, not when the golden hairs of his body stand in revulsion.

”I want to be good” he says instead, and this too is truth – though a less volatile one.

[Solace]

Solace

"Well you're not going to let them" she replies matter-of-factly to the yearning in his eyes, to his spoken and unspoken questions. "I believe you're strong enough."

Time would tell if she would be smart enough, strong enough to help him tame these shadows - she was going to give it her best shot. 

But in the end, he would be the one who decided his own fate

I want to be good, he confesses in a tone which is a little too wistful for her liking. But she does not falter. She sympathizes with his inner turmoil, each of his pained looks hardening her resolve. Solace would help him be who he wanted to be, and she thought she had an idea. 

"Then you will be good," she urges with sincerity. "I think maybe I can help. Not many know this about me but..." as she speaks there is a slight haze forming along her topline. She focuses the particles of light which live inside of her, bringing them together, and the haze begins to glow brighter a pale blue light seeps from her pores "Well, I think it may be easier to show you." Around her chest the light is strongest and in front of her it begins to solidify into a solid beam. Light fills the world around them, radiating out from the concentrated spear of light leaving her. She holds it only for a breath before allowing it dissipate. 

The darkness swallows them again, but she is glad to see his golden pelt is still visible and not shrouded in shadow as it had been before.

"We both need practice, so maybe we can help each other. If you make a shadow that starts to get out of control my light will drive it away, or at least weaken it enough that you can. In the meantime, I get to practice my light magic - I'm ashamed to say I haven't really ever practiced much." 

Maybe if he got a better feel for what he could and couldn't do he woundn't feel so helpless. 

caretaker of hyaline