Cobalt skies like midnight lies; any

[magnus]

you and I both know that the house is haunted
and you and I both know that the ghost is me

Magnus was, at the heart of things, a social animal. He found himself at his best when he was surrounded by others; it brought out his charm and tamed the more ragged edges of his personality. More so, he had learned a long time ago that he enjoyed the companionship of women. It was a fact that he accepted and appreciated. He loved their softness and their ferocity; he loved their strength and their complexity. Perhaps it was a simple result of being born to an Amazonian Queen and being raised amongst the vines, but he often sought out female companions, and he was softened by their presence. It helped him to tame the warmonger in his heart, and he knew it. He was simply the best version of himself near them.

“Cobalt it is then,” he said with a roguish grin, the corners of his lacerated lips rising and his gold-flecked eyes flashing with good humor. He could make a guess that was not her true name, but it wasn’t in his nature to second guess someone’s request—let alone one as simple as this. “Beqanna or the meadow?” he counters easily, settling into his position, one hind leg cocked as his tangled tail flicked his sides. The question was a complicated one. He was not old physically. In fact, the golden stallion was truly in the prime of his life. Scarred, but battle-tested, his body having been honed by years of fighting and too many wars. But the truth of the matter was that his soul was an old one. It had been decades, centuries even, since his birth.

“I am recently new to it,” he hedged his answer, teetering on the knife’s edge of the truth. “Coming home is a strange sensation.” Of course, his version of coming home was not that of a wanderer whose compass finally pointed North. His version was one of blood and loss and spitting up saltwater on a dark, stormy beach. His version involved death and dark magic he still didn’t understand—and was somehow tied up in the story of his brother, one long-lost to him. One who he had killed and yet whose life saved him.

Shaking the ghosts from his head, he smiled at her again, obsidian tipped ears perked forward in genuine interest. “What about you, Cobalt?” He considered her for a moment, “How long have you lived here?”

MAGNUS

once general. once lord. once king.