08-09-2020, 08:38 AM
Whispers hiss in her ear, but they are unsure, little more than indistinct murmurs. They don't read him as they read other things, and perhaps it's the magic that makes him too bright for them to see, or perhaps it's just the shadows being true to their nature and hiding information. She is not a perfect diviner of the darkness that stretches its fingers towards her in this awful place, but she suspects that what is following her is not one of the hard-shelled hunters that frightened her so badly as a child, and that - though she does not want to admit it - frighten her still. The golden mare thinks the shadows would not hide that from her, but just the same, she gathers them in the grip of her power, ready.
She does not need to run faster than a Xenomorph, she does not need to fight more savagely, she only needs a bit of darkness well in hand.
With no more information than that someone is watching, she listens to the soft grinding of hooves on the sand and fine gravel, her coffee-dark eyes flicking up at the sound of his voice. Her muzzle still hovers just above the torn limb, her breath imparting life into rotten feathers that will not feel the sky beneath them again. He materializes nearby in a corner of the red canyon and irritation licks the back of her throat - what about him kept the shadows from speaking more clearly? - and she does a poor job of hiding the vexed frown the drags down the corners of her grey lips. Horns, wings, the shadows are not afraid of these shapes. She wants to ask him why, then, they skimmed him like oil over water, but she only lets his words hang in the thick air between them unanswered for a moment too long.
If the shadows couldn't tell her about him, he may be stronger than she is. Her heart skips, but she is not the same helpless filly that jumped here by mistake before, lost, confused, crying out for her piebald dam. Instead, she lifts her head high atop her long neck dark eyes cool as they trace the lines of his ageless face, and she does not pull the darkness around her as she so desperately wishes to do. Rather, she is the sun, light radiating away from the burnished gold of her back and the glimmering stars that drip down her shoulder.
"I hadn't assumed it of you," she says, softly, wary, "but now that you've denied it, it seems distinctly possible that you did."
How much do you tell someone when you are trespassing?
"I am looking for somebody, yes," someone she has never met, "'Red mare, blue eyes, gold flame on the shoulder.' No mention of wings. Seen anyone like that here?"
She does not need to run faster than a Xenomorph, she does not need to fight more savagely, she only needs a bit of darkness well in hand.
With no more information than that someone is watching, she listens to the soft grinding of hooves on the sand and fine gravel, her coffee-dark eyes flicking up at the sound of his voice. Her muzzle still hovers just above the torn limb, her breath imparting life into rotten feathers that will not feel the sky beneath them again. He materializes nearby in a corner of the red canyon and irritation licks the back of her throat - what about him kept the shadows from speaking more clearly? - and she does a poor job of hiding the vexed frown the drags down the corners of her grey lips. Horns, wings, the shadows are not afraid of these shapes. She wants to ask him why, then, they skimmed him like oil over water, but she only lets his words hang in the thick air between them unanswered for a moment too long.
If the shadows couldn't tell her about him, he may be stronger than she is. Her heart skips, but she is not the same helpless filly that jumped here by mistake before, lost, confused, crying out for her piebald dam. Instead, she lifts her head high atop her long neck dark eyes cool as they trace the lines of his ageless face, and she does not pull the darkness around her as she so desperately wishes to do. Rather, she is the sun, light radiating away from the burnished gold of her back and the glimmering stars that drip down her shoulder.
"I hadn't assumed it of you," she says, softly, wary, "but now that you've denied it, it seems distinctly possible that you did."
How much do you tell someone when you are trespassing?
"I am looking for somebody, yes," someone she has never met, "'Red mare, blue eyes, gold flame on the shoulder.' No mention of wings. Seen anyone like that here?"
@[Eight]