resurrect the saint within the wretch
Something had changed.
He rose with the dawn, not ashamed that he does so only because he enjoys watching the sun’s rays filter through her ruby skin, making tiny rainbows and gentle fractiles as it moves across her sleeping body, all lit up with endless rays. It’s beautiful and though he’s told her, he’s unsure she truly grasps what he means.
Perhaps it is because of her (and this intimacy and emotion that they are racing towards each passing moment) or maybe it is because his visions have only gotten worse - fire sears the back of his eyelids, charred earth intermingled with blood and bodies, the face of a dark God sending strangers into the afterlife (and back again?).
Whatever the reason, something had changed.
Warden, the silent Watcher, feels it thrumming within him as he watches the sunlight set Flower aflame like a molten gemstone. He touches his pale lips to her shoulder, not in order to rouse her awake but to ensure that she is a living, breathing being beside him and not some figment of his imagination. He often forgets and needs the reminder.
Something like a flutter of wings catches his attention - the sound is nothing like when his own wings beat against the summer-like air, but is reminiscent of feathers, perhaps like lashes against the skin. He turns his great horned head, their dark blue color sparkling in the morning’s light, his own cobalt eyes fixating on a tiny, fluttering thing that zips to and fro before him like a hummingbird. The stallion snorts softly, tipping his head forward and stretching the length of his auburn neck towards it, nostrils flaring.
It wants you to follow it, comes to her sleepy voice, and it is like she is speaking into his heart.
With a kiss to the crook of her jawline and then one to her brow when he had stood, Warden follows the spirited bird in gentle silence from the warmth of their shady nook.
The little avian brings him to a clearing with a kiss to his pale pink nose before diving away and up into the canopy that rises overhead. The moisture here is thick and trapped, but Warden does not notice the way his home seeps with heat and humidity. He knows nothing else. The stallion watches it disappear, his ocean eyes rising into the trees as his head tips forward, those spiraling horns nearly touching his neck. That is when, of course, he notices the shape of Isilya, porcelain and stoic, with purple flowers draped across her withers.
He comes towards her and the younger filly, his head now lowered in a gentle greeting. “Good morning,” His voice is deep and slow as it comes from his mouth, his dark eyes flickering from each of them. For a moment he is confused as to why he had followed the flower-bird, his brow furrowing slightly as if deep in thought.
And then, that same feeling pulses within him as it had done this morning and - as he had mused only hours ago - something changes.
His expression softens and with a slight tip of his chin, he tells Isilya: “Tephra has been our home for generations. A legacy now lives and breathes on its shores and beneath the shadow of the volcano.” Warrick, the once-King and Warden’s father, cherishes Tephra still to this day; titles did not matter and for Warden, it is much the same. The stallion pauses, taking in a quick and careful breath, a wary eye on the younger girl before continuing: “I am done with the torture my ability plagues me with. I am ready to not only foretell the darkness but to use its terrible knowledge to better protect those I love - to stop any violence before it begins.”
The stallion does not go into further detail - he is sure the Magician understands his ability (that his visions only foretell death and destruction) and if she did not, she could easily flip through his mind to see the unfathomable and gruesome scenes that have unfolded there since Warden’s first breath.
