09-03-2016, 06:22 PM
The air had been thin where he had been born.
His mother had not expected it; the strange magic that pierced through her negation armor like a knife through paper. The trauma of the earth rattling and the air going dark and then finding herself on top of the mountain. It had all been too much, too painful, and contractions had seized her stomach before she had known what was happening. Etro had barely had enough time to find a quasi-shelter before she had been forced to the ground, before the minutes stretched into laborious hours. Pain exploding like constellations behind her eyelids.
Screams, sweat, exhaustion, screams—and then, miraculously—a son.
Silver and gold and ink with horns that curved beautifully from behind his ears.
She had loved him, as she loved all monsters, but fatigue had eventually claimed her, and she had slipped wordlessly into a slumber that looked suspiciously like death. The colt had waited for several hours before the pangs in his belly became more than he could bear. He nudged her, but she did not move. He cried and pleaded, but she had not budged.
Finally, he had gathered what little strength he had and pulled himself to his feet, helped by the remnants of his gift embedding him with strength and agility. Were it not for the traces of that gift, he is not sure that he would have made his way down the mountain. Even now, hours later, he is not sure how he managed it, except his cloven feet had been surefooted and it had seemed like a game. When he had reached the bottom, he had found a mare the color of cream with a belly that curved with child still. She had ushered him toward her.
He had lifted his head up and latched on, suckling hungrily—selfishly, eagerly. Teeth had clamped down and the mare had yipped. “Careful! she had cried, pulling away. She had bent her head back toward him, face beautiful with large, clear green eyes. “Oh, that’s going to bruise.” she had murmured, and the colt felt a faint thread of something familiar in the air.
The same thread that had run through the air like a live wire when his mother had screamed bringing him into the world. Something intoxicating. He reached up and yanked on it clumsily, watching as the mare’s eyes went wide and then glassy, her breath hitching. “What are you?” she gasped before her knees buckled. That was his first true taste of Fear.
It was heavy on his tongue as he left the mare on the ground, drunk with the memory of it. He had not realized when it began to fade from him. Perhaps it was the second when he first stumbled, his agility having bled from his body. Perhaps it was that moment when he felt the weight upon his head shift, the two horns dissolving to be replaced with a single one in the center of his forehead. Either way, he found himself on the edge of the meadow—young, alone, confused. Things that had once felt permanent having filtered between his grip like sand in the wind. The wind blew across his back, and he shuddered.
Bruise
head like a hole; as black as your soul.
@[Pollock]
look, i don't even know what this is, but here you go.