i’ve been both a saint & a viper
His breath - that wheezing, rattling, disturbing breath is what draws the other to him.
Darkness had once been his solitude; a comfort amidst the trials of life. A friend, cold and welcoming. Now it is his master. They are no longer equals as they once were and the blue mottled stallion plays the dutiful role of a puppet to the darkness and its wishes, and all the demons that lie in between.
The cavern of cold stone where he and his demons sleep is far behind him. There are nights where he ventures beyond the damp dark and they allow the breeze to seep into his dull skin, gifting him with moments of clarity in the midst of the chaos that rages like wildfire in his mind. They are silent tonight, but the blue roan stallion is no fool; they are there, hovering in the familiar pitch of night, watching and waiting. They are never gone, not really, and a semblance of what he once was tries to claw its way to the surface in the quiet time he has been given without their voices whispering dastardly commands in his ears. How sad, that even in his time of quiet solitude, he is drawn to shadowy nightmares as if he cannot function without them.
They are not beside him, but he can hear their laughter far beyond in the deepest pits of the forest, gallivanting around within the terrible fog as they escort their pet on his nightly walk.
The breathing is what he follows - unafraid and blindly, like a moth to a flame - but it is the groan that causes the stallion to freeze, his icy blue gaze picking through the intangible darkness, attempting to sift through what is reality and what is his own nightmare. Little does he know that tonight, the two have merged into one.
His spine twitches, fear beginning to prick at the back of his neck as he inhales shakily, black-tipped ears pressing forwards. The fear is a familiar feeling but it is nothing like the foreboding dread that locks onto him, weighing him down and pressing so hard against him he feels as though his lungs might collapse. Within the darkness, two feverish yellow eyes hover ominously - almost like a firefly’s glow, but Balto is too smart (too broken) to believe it to be anything else but some type of monstrosity. He swallows hard, lost within the depths of the two eyes, fear rattling against his chest. And yet, strangely, he finds himself curious. Maybe tonight is the night he finally dies.
They laugh at his thought - he can hear them, trumpeting loudly yet with no bodies: You’ll never die.
His demons do not have eyes like this one - they do not have eyes at all, in fact. They are merely shadows that do not even take a shape, making sounds without mouths and without teeth. He stares at the being, fixated and unmoving, the sound of his own demons echoing through the forest like a chanting chorus behind the piercing yellow eyes. They too, are drawn to this being, for they are merely shadow themselves. For a moment he debates turning and walking away back to his cave, then realizes that it doesn’t matter what he decides - the darkness and the shadows follow him everywhere. This one would be no different.
So he remains still and stoic, finding solace in the chittering of the familiar shadows in the background. “You’re not like the others,” comes the low and nearly inaudible groan of his unused voice, then clenching his teeth with thought. “Are you real?” Or are you just another part of me?
Balto
@[jamie]