that's the last time i'll compromise - anyone

[Errant]

when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth Even after all these decades he still sometimes dreams of the desert. Contained entirely in his mind, the golden sand and blue sky swirl together, warmed with heat until they are nothing but energy singing through his bones and forcing him to wake, gasping for breath, in a world comprised entirely of snow and ice. The mornings after those dreams are never pleasant, full of sweat-soaked fur frozen as soon as it was expelled, a leaden mantle upon the shoulders of the stallion. He sees it in the corners of his eyes for hours afterward, little glimpses of turquoise oases and frilly-fringed palms, the sweet give of prickly pear fruit between his lips and the salty tang of his own copper blood from when he fetched the mouthful. Then there are the little flashes of memories that are not his own, of a time before time when there was nothing but matter and energy and the sweet things they cooed to each other in the darkness, of green veins and light energy and a rosebud from which grew a girl with branch limbs and bluegrass skin, of the expression of a thousand different hearts into a single mind and the way in which a life can never revert to what it has never been. There are those who wield magic in Beqanna and bend it to their will, and there are those that serve only as the magic's host. It helps Errant from time to time by making his life easier - and by default its own. His continued, healthy existence is in the magic's own interest. So when his physical heart was shattered by something metaphysical and he was unable to heal, the magic intervened. It took some time of course, because magic cannot fathom the emotional pain of a broken heart, but the intervention did occur (now the stallion's memories of his fire-eyed mate are only hours old instead of years). Most of the arcane skills he has mastered are bits of the magic that are not currently of use to the entity itself: changing his physical shape, the imprint of past contact with others, shifting matter through time and space, strolling through the mind of another physical being. What use are those petty skills when the magic has far greater pursuits? He is pale today, an equine interpretation of the ice flows that cover the northern ocean this time of year. Here are there fine lines crisscross his hide, darker white like the cracks in the ice. Sometimes, if one looks closely, there are swift shadows beneath the white, the black backs of orcas as they prowl the waters in search of wayward seals. Errant’s scars remain despite his other coloration, a dark crown on his hip and snowflakes on his chest and neck, most of which are covered by the dreadlocked strands of his long white mane. The stallion had not chosen this color, but rather had fallen asleep on a hill overlooking the sea and had awoken no longer black. Perhaps Gaea had liked the frozen ocean. The Meadow is warmer than the Tundra but he is not here for physical comfort. There is only so much one can learn within the confines of a kingdom, and Errant has not left the Tundra (save for his visits to Lea) in months. He’s not exactly looking for company, but he has no intention of turning it down were it to find him. e r r a n t no grave can hold my body down i'll crawl home to her