Set
" There's a black bird perched outside my window, I hear him calling. I hear him sing. He burns me with his eyes of gold to embers. He sees all my sins. He reads my soul. "
They won't know him anymore.
Not many of them, at least.
The Beqanna he had returned to - the Chamber he had returned to - ... it is a different place. He could be angry that the fickle land had promptly stripped him of his magic, hard won in battle so long ago. He could be furious that no longer can he shape the world to his every whim ... But somehow he cannot muster the emotions required. He pauses, scratching a shoulder on the rough bark of a pine, stripped of its lower branches by some creature before him. His gaze is shrewd, searching the snow-dampened forest for signs of life. A small bird forages among the exposed roots of another evergreen, picking through what pinecones the squirrels had missed. Such a simple life. He sighs heavily, exhaling through his nose, his breath rising in a thin vapor, bustled quickly away by a shift in the wind. Salomea had left them first, hounded by Niklas' hellcreatures. The demon had eventually peeled off from their group as well, muttering something about the Valley, though no such thing exists anymore. Perhaps forever. Father and daughter had chosen to return to their birthplace but that, too, was gone and so they had drifted, like so many bits of flotsam caught on a wayward swell ...
The soft crunch of hooves in the snow draws his attention outward, yellow eyes shuttered briefly behind mismatched lids. He reaches for his magic without really considering it, clutching instinctively when it does not answer his call, a moment of frustration flaring in his gut before he remembers. It's gone. One corner of his mouth twists up in a wry grin - it would take some getting used to, this fitting back into his old skin. At least his immortality seemed to have remained intact, his physical shape no older than it had been when he'd won the alliance and magic had infused his bones. Snorting softly, spurred to motion, he darts down the path, intent on cutting her off. Muscle long used to physical exertion stretches and pulls, his steps surefooted and fleet beneath him - regardless of his magical capabilities, the piebald was always well-conditioned. Ducking a snow covered bough, he gallops up behind her, her salmon-colored tail a beacon in the bleak browns and whites of winter. Laughing, yellow eyes glinting, fully expecting to have startled the contemplative mare, he shifts his weight to his haunches at the last moment, dodging around her to avoid collision, a spray of slushy snow flung in his wake. Breathing hard, he circles up and around a small copse of trees, doubling back and sliding to a halt next to her - wherever that might be. Cheekily, a pink-snipped muzzle stretches out to give her the briefest of touches on the shoulder.
"You're it."
And he's off again, his throaty laughter hanging in the air.
SET
alliance winner, once king, magician