i’ve been both a saint & a viper
He is a monster. The fact that anyone would think him anything else would mean their undoing.
Perhaps he is also death - some kind of twisted version, an omen to those who fall into his path. Maybe he is suspended between life and death, some sort of terrible undying beast that haunts the silent, sentinel trees of Sylva. But even death does not want him and life itself continues to abandon him. He doesn’t belong here, nor beyond the veil. The way her eyes fall to him - a spectacular blend of concern that melts into uncertainty - he wonders if she can sense it as much as he can, or if the voices have already whispered the truth into the trembling curve of her ears.
The light that so cautiously protects her skin is gentle and soft against the gauntness of his face, the hollowed points created by his cursed body now much more prominent as the shadows deepen and grow, spreading across him greedily.
Her response is only met with a sharp snort, exhaled from paper-thin nostrils. His ears fall into the tangles of his dark mane, wondering how much hope can be within her voice despite the chilling howls of the monsters around her (and the eyes of the one standing right before her). Balto’s wide, hungry eyes bore into her as if searching for something in them, but the only answer he receives is her beckoning him to follow, tempted all the more by the brush of her mouth against the sharp, ugliness of his jaw.
The stallion reels back as she pushes past him, surprised by her boldness and the quickness in which she takes off into the darkness of Sylva. Despite the thinness of his overall appearance, the stallion is surprisingly quick to snake his head towards her, not quite realizing that he is attempting to let the sharpness of his teeth cut through the delicate blue of her skin. His reaction is pure impulse, the quickness of her fleeing bringing the carnivore to the surface. His teeth snap on emptiness and Balto is left in the deep darkness alone, his mind reeling as the echo of her hoof-steps become quieter and quieter.
He shudders, closing his eyes briefly, before with surprising agility, the skeletal stallion begins to follow her.
“You’ll never outrun them,” he calls out into the darkness beyond him, his footfalls eerily hollow against the forest floor. You’ll never outrun me.
Balto
@dark