Skandar would love to see the world burn.
To crumble, to fall beneath the weight of his power - he couldn’t exactly explain why, though. Perhaps it is his childhood (undesired albeit well cared for, an afterthought, a product of something dark and terrible) and a mixture of meeting an equally self-righteous girl at just the right time. Perhaps it is the power he wields (uncontainable, limitless, disastrous) and its temptation; how it’s so easy to make others bend their knee, how the power over them gives him a sense of control and makes him unburdened -
A true god.
The galaxies and constellations that mark his skin tell of his heritage - the part of himself he claims. It is what is first noticed, but perhaps it is his ruthlessness that is remembered.
Meeting Aela has only allowed his powers to blossom to their full potential, giving him more desire and will than he could have ever found by himself. Had she not come across him, it is quite possible he would still be the scowling colt he was in Tephra instead of the stallion he has become - though he has never seemed to outgrow the rage that runs rampant within him since the day he had been born. There are things that Aela had shown him, had suggested to him, and he had followed willingly. When she had mentioned the Pampas it was only in his nature to go there and investigate for himself. Aela, whose ferocity nearly matches his very own (if not more), whose touch burns him like the plague, was not with him as he journeyed. Like in the past, she has asked and he will obey. It is not Aela, though, who had taught him how to become a shadow, to muffle his hoofsteps by turning himself into nothingness, to prowl amongst the world like a predator.
The monsters taught him that.
It is here, at the border of the Pampas, that the stallion sheds the cloak of shadow and air, reforming himself into solidity. His skin shimmers as if it is alive, like feathers brushing against one another as each blood vessel and artery become visible, reattaching with sinew and muscle and bone. His shimmering body continues to flutter, flays of skin clicking terribly until he is in his desired skin. Deep indigo spills into blossoms of burnt orange and brilliant violet, stars cascading across each part of his lean, muscular body.
It does not take long for him to be found. He does not have a name for the stallion that comes to meet him (a large brute, black and dark as night, with eyes that burn as red as Skandar’s can), but he still surveys him with an inquisitive gaze, wondering just what it is that interested Aela so much about the Pampas. Is it this man, himself? The idea makes something writhe angrily within his chest - flaring, pulsing, and then quelling. He swallows it and allows it to simper deep within him.
Skandar is not as eloquent as Aela, but despite this, he has learned some sort of diplomacy - and so he tries.
“What all men want,” Skandar begins with a slight tilt of his head, turning his bright orange eyes up to peer up through his indigo and violet forelock. “An opportunity.” Though it may not be what he wants technically, opportunity certainly seems to be oozing out of this place, ready to be grasped.
skandar
@Obscene