so long and good night; offspring

[Offspring]

lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all.
but lend me your heart and i'll just let you fall.

  It is within the shadows he feels most at ease. The eerie, spine-agitating sensation of its icy embrace so often envelopes him in a thick fog of disregard, allowing him to withdraw into himself and keep the darkness away from his mind. By becoming one with the shade, he wards off distant memories and tortuous thoughts with a black blankness, further pushing himself into oblivion as he tucks these things far into the deepest recesses of his mind. Today is not unlike any other; he has lost himself again.

  He is a stoic one most oftentimes, and he preferred silence to spoken word. The presence of others was most often craved when bathing in morning light, but as dusk nears and as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, quiet solitude beckons him to deeper depths. His dark, crimson eyes are unseeing - he peers out towards the falling sun, but does not see. His vision is unfocused, as is most of his body. He is breathing steadily as his heart rhythmically pounds against his tired ribcage, but he is detached. A living, breathing mechanism, massive in stature and mighty in thick, sinewy muscle, which twitches and shifts as a familiar ache of stillness begins to set in.

  He draws in a deep breath, shaking himself from his reverie, peering out into the clearing at the very border of the dark thicket of foliage. The coolness of the night air has draped itself across the land, blanketing the summer evening in its icy breath. He turns away from the star lit sky now and delves deeper in to the forest, away from old memories and ancient emotional scars, but finds himself overwhelmed by the soft, subtle scent of another. He pauses and listens warily, his muscles tensing beneath his heavily scarred, obsidian pelt as he observes a shadow figure lurking and loping through the brush.

  Quietly, he watches, drawn in by his presence but altogether unsure of why.

  He allows the rumble of his baritone to break the humming silence of the border, his dark red eyes still set firmly on his ashy blue shape and bright two-toned eyes as he speaks, "It is not often I find someone else in these parts," He murmurs, though it is boosted and echoed by the pines so near to him. "I very nearly didn't see you."

OFFSPRING