rhonen
molten eyes and a smile made for war
She steps away from him and for a moment he doesn’t breath, self-loathing sweeping through, as he assumes she draws away because she can somehow feel the anger and fear that has settled in his chest and is rejecting even the tenuous thought of friendship, but the words that follow make him reconsider, frown again, but before he can even ask ’who’s watching’, there is a snarl of words and he instinctively jerks away from her, staring at the creature who has appeared, cursing himself for being so absorbed in his admiration of the filly that he didn’t hear or see him coming.
And he is a creature, a monster. As beautiful and bright as Atrani is, her copper and white and flaxen, this thing is dark and bone protruding from his very being, and Rhonen sneers in distaste at the metallic scent of blood even as his eyes trace the remains of it coating his black in viscous, sticky liquid. On the heels of his instinctive, powerful fear is more: fury at the threat from the stranger, revulsion at his appearance, fear for her rather than himself which threatens to choke him as it rises up. A vision of his twin in her place, falling beneath the dangerous hooves of this monster.
As if a switch is flicked, when his fear for her overwhelms his anger at his own circumstances, he feels the uncomfortable power that he associates with Conquest’s deathly touch flow through his veins, and the weight of the seal settles once more in his chest. It is heavy, he forgot how heavy, and he struggles to breath around the overwhelming power of it for a long moment of silence, watching the stranger press himself to her (imaging the blood scraping off of him and staining her bright coat), and then as she steps forward towards Rhonen, a protest on her lips.
Shaking his head, he forces himself once more to breathe through the pressure, the shock, and form a response of his own. “Don’t threaten me,” he says the words in a nearly flat tone, a far cry from his bubbling anger and spitting spite from earlier, but it is because he is no longer the helpless boy he had been when he found her.
He knows that he can cause real damage with the power that once more runs in his veins, and he struggles to keep it contained as his feelings threaten to send it frothing over.
But he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to make such snap judgements, and he doesn’t want to hurt the monster if he is really is just trying to protect Atrani? Though Rhonen finds this hard to believe, given the blood, and the fact that she had been alone. And he? He is, to all appearances, a barely-grown young man, one many would consider half a colt still himself, and certainly wasn’t threatening her in any way. His control, too, leaves something to be desired, and he doesn’t want to hurt Atrani by accident. Anything but that. Breath in – breath out. Don’t lunge at him, don’t start anything. Act like an adult.
Rhonen can’t help it, though, when she steps forward past the monster towards him, uncertain as if she doesn’t know if he is still there, he reaches out to touch her copper shoulder with his own copper nose, just the briefest of touches. “You’re pretty,” he says gruffly, quickly, struggling to force out the words past the other seething feelings. “You might be beautiful when you grow up.” Beautiful like his Aubri, but he doesn’t say that. He rushes on, before the creature can try to separate them again. “Do you want to go? If you have to go, perhaps I can come visit you.”
