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

Time was both friend and foe to Magnus.

It had been kind in the preserving of his body—keeping him at his prime although his soul was covered in dust and soot—but it had been harsh in the loss of everyone that he held dear. Yes, he had returned to life, but at what cost? Except for his golden son and ghost of his panther father, there was none that he remembered. He was a relative stranger in his own home and the sensation was at once comforting and alienating. Comforting in the anonymity, but he could not deny the gaping hole that it left in his heart.

“That sounds like a lonely existence,” he muses, his gold-flecked eyes flashing as he considers her lightly. Then he laughs, and the sound is both rare and rich, Magnus enjoying the humor as he gave her a quick ghost of a smile. “Am I?” He glances upward at the sky, thinking for a second. “What an honor.” And indeed it was. There was nothing that the buckskin enjoyed more than easy conversation such as this. It was easy, when talking to someone he just met, to forget all of the horrors of his past. It was simple to pretend that he had never changed—that he had never died. That home was right and the same.

“I’ll make sure to be worthy of it.”

Her next observation though sobers him a little, and he reflects on it with a flat mouth, his lips pressing together in thought. “My version is different than most,” he concedes, although he did not think the retelling of his tale would be particularly fun conversation. It did not seem like the kind of meeting that called for the spilling of dark truths and bitter reality. He much preferred the current, smooth gloss of the encounter—simple and sweet. “But who is to compare versions?” He brightens. “Would you like to take a walk?”

MAGNUS

once general. once lord. once king.