09-25-2015, 06:49 PM
I am not the boy who saved her.
Although, his ghost likes to visit me. It has anchored itself to my reflection, so that every time I look, I see his sad little face staring back at me; it hurts to think about sometimes, but Drow tried his best to console me after Else ‘died.’ The rest of our family tried even harder after I discovered her alive and well in The Deserts. I would have none of it. And for several long, lonely years, I wondered what might have happened if I didn’t intervene—if I had just let that stallion smash that little girl into tiny, broken and bloody bits. If I hadn’t told Else, if I had just kept everything to myself.
I convinced myself that things might have been different.
Else would have stayed with me.
But then I met Elanor and Rune.
I hated them, at first; I’d be a liar if I said otherwise. I thought about eating them. I thought about leaving their little bones at the border for their mother and father to find. But I didn’t. I kept my distance, kept an eye on them; I protected them the way I was not able to protect her. And then I couldn’t keep my distance anymore. I taught them things, I played with them, guided them away from trouble. And I loved them—love them—both, as if they were of my own blood.
I am not the boy who saved her, but I do not regret his decision anymore.
“Around,” I reply, grinning. “And you? Where have you been?” I shift my weight and the rest of my body contorts, ripples, changes fluidly from hellhound back to horse. It hasn’t occurred to me until, well, now, that this might not even be what I’m meant to look like; Mother shaped me in her image because I didn’t have one. I wasn’t born in the sense that everyone else was, so how would she know anyways? She’d needed a body to twist me into and this is the first one that came to mind.
Funny, innit?
“I never knew your name, but I suppose you never knew mine either—it’s Tarnished, or Nish,” I shrug, studying her carefully. She looks the same—better, but still very much the same. “Immortal?” I wonder.
@[Fiasko]
Although, his ghost likes to visit me. It has anchored itself to my reflection, so that every time I look, I see his sad little face staring back at me; it hurts to think about sometimes, but Drow tried his best to console me after Else ‘died.’ The rest of our family tried even harder after I discovered her alive and well in The Deserts. I would have none of it. And for several long, lonely years, I wondered what might have happened if I didn’t intervene—if I had just let that stallion smash that little girl into tiny, broken and bloody bits. If I hadn’t told Else, if I had just kept everything to myself.
I convinced myself that things might have been different.
Else would have stayed with me.
But then I met Elanor and Rune.
I hated them, at first; I’d be a liar if I said otherwise. I thought about eating them. I thought about leaving their little bones at the border for their mother and father to find. But I didn’t. I kept my distance, kept an eye on them; I protected them the way I was not able to protect her. And then I couldn’t keep my distance anymore. I taught them things, I played with them, guided them away from trouble. And I loved them—love them—both, as if they were of my own blood.
I am not the boy who saved her, but I do not regret his decision anymore.
“Around,” I reply, grinning. “And you? Where have you been?” I shift my weight and the rest of my body contorts, ripples, changes fluidly from hellhound back to horse. It hasn’t occurred to me until, well, now, that this might not even be what I’m meant to look like; Mother shaped me in her image because I didn’t have one. I wasn’t born in the sense that everyone else was, so how would she know anyways? She’d needed a body to twist me into and this is the first one that came to mind.
Funny, innit?
“I never knew your name, but I suppose you never knew mine either—it’s Tarnished, or Nish,” I shrug, studying her carefully. She looks the same—better, but still very much the same. “Immortal?” I wonder.
@[Fiasko]
equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity