i’ve been both a saint & a viper
Darkness lives, it breathes. With the eternal night, creatures roam without any attempt to hide. He is one of them, canvased by the insidious ring that hangs heavily in the sky above the trees. His cavern is cold and empty, filled with the mournful howls of the winter’s wind and the chitter of monsters. Their claws incessantly scrape against stone, clicking morbidly as they pant in his ears, licking their shadowy lips. He is no stranger to the monsters that flourish in the dark (he is one of them, is he not?) and though years had gone by without seeing them (he had felt them though, and heard them), there is no expression on his face as they writhe around him, their haunting whispers filling the cold and damp cave.
When he breaches the cavern’s mouth, they scatter from him as if something more interesting had caught their attention - or maybe they merely enjoyed the cold darkness against them. Either way, the stallion is suddenly left alone and a sigh heaves from his chest.
Ever since returning from the Plains, the blue mottled stallion found himself growing gaunt - his bones seem to pull at his skin, stretching too thin across his entire body. It made his icy eyes all the eerier, sticking out of his face most prominently. The deep obsidian of his legs grow more every passing day, stretching nearly to his shoulders and flank. His face - worn, tired - is nearly completely black, the deep blue of his jawline still visible with that deep blood-red V that nestles gently against his throat.
The worst, he believes, is that despite his hunger there is no satiating him - the roots and grass normally would quell him of the terrible rumblings in his stomach do nothing. Even now, he digs a single black foreleg into a chunk of muddied snow, searching for anything edible underneath. Food is scarce in winter, he muses to himself, reasoning that his weight loss is merely a seasonal thing.
Somewhere in the depths of the forest that surround him, there is a howl. Not from a wolf, no. He lifts his head, dark ears pressed towards the terrible sound with sad, unrested eyes. The creatures are everywhere, it seems; little does he know that it is not a hallucination.
His head throbs suddenly and he snarls, his black lips pulling up to reveal even blacker gums with yellow teeth nestled within. His tongue does not notice the gentle sloping sharpness that has begun to take shape on his once blunt teeth - the change is slow and painful, barely noticeable. Two black lumps press from his forehead, hidden mainly by the thickness of his forelock, causing pain and discomfort almost constantly - especially when he tries to sleep.
Rage still nestles like a child against his breast; quelled and silent in his solitude. Instead, sadness seems to find the too-largeness of his eyes. He wonders if whatever plagues him will kill him.
You’ll never die, the voices mock languidly as another pang of hunger ripples through him.
Balto
@[dark]