11-15-2017, 06:22 PM
<center><table bgcolor=000000 width="490" height="0%" cellpadding="15" cellspacing=”15" style="border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style: solid;"><tr><td align="left" valign="top" width="490"><DIV STYLE=p align="justify"><font style="font-family:times;color:#778899;font-size:10pt;letter-spacing:px; line-height:13pt"<p align=justify>Beneath the darkness of a full moon and an oncoming tempest is the only possible way the cave-dweller successfully could make it to the shoreline. He cannot remember the last time he had seen the sea, and it beckons to him, its black waters whispering to him with each frothing wave that crashes against his legs. The sound is familiar and he is drawn to it; it’s the call of his caves, a deep and haunting song that normally reverberates in the abysmal chasm of blackness that he lives, and now he hears it in the sea - guttural and ethereal in his ears.
He is not afraid, not even when the wind begins to shift and change, or when the thoroughly black sky begins to illuminate with the flash of lightning, nor when the thunder growls threateningly in rhythm with the sea’s mantra. The wind begins to tear through the blackness of his mane and tail, ripping wildly at him as if attempting to rake his blue mottled skin with invisible claws, sharp and unforgiving against his flesh. It makes him only feel more alive, especially when the pelting rain begins to splice into his skin - he only stares thoughtlessly into the heavens, the raging seas beneath him coiling around his legs with every rolling wave, tempting him to step out into its dark, familiar depths.
<i>“Balto.”</i>
His brilliant blue gaze flicks downwards, his attention on the sordid, festering waters. No emotion graces his face, merely a look of inspection as he curiously stares at the frothing, groaning waves.
<i>“Balto.”</i>
The voice finds him again and his eyes narrow - the darkness is more real than it has ever been, for the full vocalizing of his name has yet to grace his ears. But there is something horribly wrong with the voice - it is not the sultry, coaxing song of shadows and darkness that calls his name. No, it is a much sweeter voice, one that is misplaced within the tempestuous and raging storm that threatens to blow him into eternity. The voice is familiar, like a dream within a dream…
Then, within the constant crashing and breaking of waves, he sees the voice’s owner.
It is not shadow, it is not darkness, it is not emptiness that calls out to him.
It is his own mother.
He merely stares at her intensely, her face warbling in and out of focus with each crash of the waves. He hesitates for a moment - is it his mother? Can he even remember her face? Did he even remember her voice? But there is no mistake - there she is, beneath the water’s frenzied depths. She says nothing else, merely a sad stare looking out from black, churning water.
Suddenly he is not the cave-dweller, but he is the wolf-prince in the tall pines of his homeland, running through the forests and splashing in dark waters of the lake with his brother.
She need not say his name as third time.
The stallion thrusts himself into the ocean, shoulders breaking through the first few waves successfully but quickly growing weak with every leap forward. It does not take long for the sea to take him, to sweep him off his feet and whisk him away into never-ending darkness, a fate that is familiar and is greeted warmly - from darkness he came, to darkness he’d succumb.
<center>----------------------</center>
With a gasp his eyes open, and he stares out at a brilliantly glittering sea. Gulls float lazily overhead on the warm currents of wind, the sea’s salty spray spatters him gently, the crystalline waters wrinkling like elephant’s skin. At first he’s frantic - the sun’s light on his body should cause burns across his skin and his eyes to blind - his instinct is to scramble to the safety of the shadows, out of the warm light of the sun. He flutters wildly, his dark legs churning up the white sand beneath him, attempting to get his body upright and to flee into the darkness.
However, his body does not comply. He is weak and battered from the ocean’s rampage, and for a moment his heart wrenches wildly as he thinks of his sweet mother’s face, blinking quickly as he tries to place where he is and what is happening. He must find shelter, he must hide, he must find Faulkor, he must...
<i>“Hey, hey,”</i> a quiet voice breaks his concentration, his eyes rolling wildly as he finds the source - a pale golden mare, with a striking blaze down the bridge of her nose, meets his gaze. <i>“You’re alright,”</I>
<B><i>“No I’m not,”</i></b> he desperately wishes to say, but words do not come. The years within the cave limits his voice and he finds himself speechless, still laying haphazardly along the white shore. She frowns at him a bit and his gut sours. His head is throbbing, and in defeat, throws his head into the sand with a great sigh. He can hear her retreating and his heart pounds violently in his ribcage.
A few moments pass and he’s found the strength to pull his legs beneath him, curiously brushing his dried and cracked lips against his skin, wondering why the sunlight did not bother him like it normally does - he can see just fine, and his body is not aching from the exposure. Now, the aches and pains in his joints and ribs he’s feeling are from his tumultus trip beneath the waves, as well as the welt just behind his ear that causes him to feel just a bit woozy each time he moves.
<i>“He’s over here,”</I>
Balto’s ears flick towards the sound of the voice that he had heard just a moment ago, eyes moving in the same direction to meet the palomino girl once again. She has returned, but there are more with her this time.
With widening eyes and flaring nostrils, the bruised stallion flicks his ears back cautiously as the group comes closer, uncertain and apprehensive beneath their stares. They circle him, the palomino standing before him with a concerned look on her face. A red roan stallion with kind eyes breaks the silence, stepping forward and lowering his muzzle to inspect Balto with a gentle <i>whuff</i>.
<i>“You must stand, brother,”</i> he says, his voice robust and deep, and Balto knew he must. <i>“Eridi,”</i> the roan says to the palomino, and she obliges. Frightened and with help from Eridi and the red roan, he shakily stands. His blue eyes fixate on each of the horses that stand around him, desperately wishing he could fall back into the ocean’s waters and disappear beneath its surface.
<i>“Take him to Aravis,”</i> says the red roan. With a solemn nod, Eridi presses her white muzzle against the blue of Balto’s shoulder (to which he shudders but is too tired to move from her touch) and begins to lead him away.
<i>“Ambrose,”</I> he hears someone say behind him as he allows Eridi to guide him, <i>“he’s the third one this month.”</i> A pause, and then a deep sigh.
<i>“I know, Corin.”</i>
<center>--------------------</center>
Aravis, Balto learned, is the small herd’s medicine mare.
A frail, gentle bay (who reminds him much of his mother), who spends her days at the mouth of a nearby cave, nurtured him and two others back to health from their mysterious dance from the sea. She would fuss over him and the others (Caspian and Jadis, who had also washed up on shore in the same fashion that Balto had), hushing them when they balked at her herbs and medicinals, forcing them to rest with a quick click of her tongue. Balto found her presence charming and despite his predicament, enjoyed the warmth that she shared by taking care of him.
Still without many words, Aravis quickly learned how to understand the quiet blue roan stallion, and most of the time spoke for him.
<i>“Caspian, do shut up,”</I> Aravis grumbles, eyes rolling as she checks Balto’s head, <i>“Blue-eyes hasn’t been here for even a week and I can tell he’s already sick of your loud mouth!”</i>
Balto says nothing, but a grin finds the charcoal of his lips and he flashes a smile to Caspian, who only laughs in response. Soon, the three horses would be allowed to leave the nurture of the medicine mare and venture with the rest of the herd, but Balto is not so sure he would leave the comfort of Aravis’ hearth.
<center>--------------------</center>
He’s lost track of time. Aravis quickly became Balto's guide into this new world, nurturing and caring for him as if he were her own son. Each day he would walk with her to gather herbs and plants, and on days when she was too tired to do so herself, he would do it for her. He would spend long hours in her cave, listening to the stories of when she was just a filly, enthralled by the magical way her stories were spun. Most nights (because that is where he truly is most comfortable) he would sleep in the cave - though it is not the same darkness here he had always been used to. Here, it is warm, it is loving, it is nurturing.
One morning, Eridi greets him at the mouth of the cave, quietly whinnying to him in the early light. Aravis is still asleep, snoring lightly as he creeps past as not to wake her.
They walk together through the jungle and towards the beach, speaking gently with hushed tones and tiny bits of laughter. As they near the coast and the sound of waves fills his ears, he hears the thrumming of hoofbeats.
A flash of red passes him, and with a grin towards Eridi, he leaps forward.
He gallops down the shoreline, Eridi close behind him. Her laugh is electric as she flies beside him and he whinnies happily, kicking his feet up in the surf. This is how he imagined it - the day he leaves his cave and never returns - and he finds all the happiness he can dream of.
<i>“Balto, we’re losing them!”</i> she cries gleefully, her legs working beneath her quickly as she speeds up. He does the same, his blue eyes fixated on the two figures before them - yearlings, testing out their speed. The chase continues down the long stretch of beach, the two chestnut twins finally stopping only when their trail was met with the large and craggy face of a mountain to stop them.
Breathlessly, Balto and Eridi join them.
<B>“You’ve improved,”</B> Balto says, obviously winded but with a smile gracing his lips.
<i>“Or maybe you’re losing your touch!”</i> Bree teases, while her sister Hwin giggles in response. Balto pins his ears against his neck playfully, wrinkling his nose as he pretends to be offended. Eridi laughs in unison with the twins, and Balto nips her shoulder gently - though he doesn’t mind her laugh.
A sharp neigh pierces the shoreline and Balto’s smile fades from his face. Ambrose’s voice splits through the air and all four of them look at each other quickly in confusion, before turning to race back up the beach towards their herd’s normal meeting place. He joins the crowd, leaving Eridi and the twins (who join their mother, Shasta, the doe-eyed bay) while his eyes fixate onto Ambrose - the leader of their small family. Beside him is Rilian, the stern black stallion who is beginning to gray around the muzzle, his second. Corin finds his place beside Jadis and Caspian, the tri-colored paint looking unsuitably worried.
Balto quickly scans the crowd for Aravis, though his stomach drops when he does not see the older bay in her usual spot. His brow furrows, his eyes clouding as he turns to watch Ambrose. He holds his breath, his gut wrenching for the first time since the day he washed upon the beach.
<i>“It’s Aravis,”</i> the red roan says solemnly, his kind eyes finding Balto’s sympathetically - Balto’s jaw clenches - has death already found him again so soon? How is it that his gentle caretaker, the motherly and stubborn mare, had passed? But Ambrose’s next words surprise him. <I>“She is missing. It is possibly the same thing that brought us all together in the first place.”</i>
Balto’s eyes glance upwards in surprise, though anger boils beneath the surface.
<B>“I’ll go find her,”</B> he says quickly and decisively, already heading out towards the shore.
<i>“No!”</I> A sharp cry causes him to stop and turn towards Eridi. <i>“No,”</I> she repeats, quieter this time.
<i>“We’ll all go,”</i> Ambrose finishes, with murmuring replies of agreement around him.
Balto nods to him, and Eridi finds her place at his side, her ivory muzzle brushing against his cheek. <i>“Together. Always together.”</i> she says, loud enough for everyone to hear, for it was the mantra for their tiny knit family. Then something a bit quieter, but meant only for him. <i>“We will find her, Balto. She’s strong. She’ll be okay.”</i>
To this he says nothing, and turns out to look ahead of him and begins to lead the way deeper into the darkness and shadows - a place he knew so well.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>
He is not afraid, not even when the wind begins to shift and change, or when the thoroughly black sky begins to illuminate with the flash of lightning, nor when the thunder growls threateningly in rhythm with the sea’s mantra. The wind begins to tear through the blackness of his mane and tail, ripping wildly at him as if attempting to rake his blue mottled skin with invisible claws, sharp and unforgiving against his flesh. It makes him only feel more alive, especially when the pelting rain begins to splice into his skin - he only stares thoughtlessly into the heavens, the raging seas beneath him coiling around his legs with every rolling wave, tempting him to step out into its dark, familiar depths.
<i>“Balto.”</i>
His brilliant blue gaze flicks downwards, his attention on the sordid, festering waters. No emotion graces his face, merely a look of inspection as he curiously stares at the frothing, groaning waves.
<i>“Balto.”</i>
The voice finds him again and his eyes narrow - the darkness is more real than it has ever been, for the full vocalizing of his name has yet to grace his ears. But there is something horribly wrong with the voice - it is not the sultry, coaxing song of shadows and darkness that calls his name. No, it is a much sweeter voice, one that is misplaced within the tempestuous and raging storm that threatens to blow him into eternity. The voice is familiar, like a dream within a dream…
Then, within the constant crashing and breaking of waves, he sees the voice’s owner.
It is not shadow, it is not darkness, it is not emptiness that calls out to him.
It is his own mother.
He merely stares at her intensely, her face warbling in and out of focus with each crash of the waves. He hesitates for a moment - is it his mother? Can he even remember her face? Did he even remember her voice? But there is no mistake - there she is, beneath the water’s frenzied depths. She says nothing else, merely a sad stare looking out from black, churning water.
Suddenly he is not the cave-dweller, but he is the wolf-prince in the tall pines of his homeland, running through the forests and splashing in dark waters of the lake with his brother.
She need not say his name as third time.
The stallion thrusts himself into the ocean, shoulders breaking through the first few waves successfully but quickly growing weak with every leap forward. It does not take long for the sea to take him, to sweep him off his feet and whisk him away into never-ending darkness, a fate that is familiar and is greeted warmly - from darkness he came, to darkness he’d succumb.
<center>----------------------</center>
With a gasp his eyes open, and he stares out at a brilliantly glittering sea. Gulls float lazily overhead on the warm currents of wind, the sea’s salty spray spatters him gently, the crystalline waters wrinkling like elephant’s skin. At first he’s frantic - the sun’s light on his body should cause burns across his skin and his eyes to blind - his instinct is to scramble to the safety of the shadows, out of the warm light of the sun. He flutters wildly, his dark legs churning up the white sand beneath him, attempting to get his body upright and to flee into the darkness.
However, his body does not comply. He is weak and battered from the ocean’s rampage, and for a moment his heart wrenches wildly as he thinks of his sweet mother’s face, blinking quickly as he tries to place where he is and what is happening. He must find shelter, he must hide, he must find Faulkor, he must...
<i>“Hey, hey,”</i> a quiet voice breaks his concentration, his eyes rolling wildly as he finds the source - a pale golden mare, with a striking blaze down the bridge of her nose, meets his gaze. <i>“You’re alright,”</I>
<B><i>“No I’m not,”</i></b> he desperately wishes to say, but words do not come. The years within the cave limits his voice and he finds himself speechless, still laying haphazardly along the white shore. She frowns at him a bit and his gut sours. His head is throbbing, and in defeat, throws his head into the sand with a great sigh. He can hear her retreating and his heart pounds violently in his ribcage.
A few moments pass and he’s found the strength to pull his legs beneath him, curiously brushing his dried and cracked lips against his skin, wondering why the sunlight did not bother him like it normally does - he can see just fine, and his body is not aching from the exposure. Now, the aches and pains in his joints and ribs he’s feeling are from his tumultus trip beneath the waves, as well as the welt just behind his ear that causes him to feel just a bit woozy each time he moves.
<i>“He’s over here,”</I>
Balto’s ears flick towards the sound of the voice that he had heard just a moment ago, eyes moving in the same direction to meet the palomino girl once again. She has returned, but there are more with her this time.
With widening eyes and flaring nostrils, the bruised stallion flicks his ears back cautiously as the group comes closer, uncertain and apprehensive beneath their stares. They circle him, the palomino standing before him with a concerned look on her face. A red roan stallion with kind eyes breaks the silence, stepping forward and lowering his muzzle to inspect Balto with a gentle <i>whuff</i>.
<i>“You must stand, brother,”</i> he says, his voice robust and deep, and Balto knew he must. <i>“Eridi,”</i> the roan says to the palomino, and she obliges. Frightened and with help from Eridi and the red roan, he shakily stands. His blue eyes fixate on each of the horses that stand around him, desperately wishing he could fall back into the ocean’s waters and disappear beneath its surface.
<i>“Take him to Aravis,”</i> says the red roan. With a solemn nod, Eridi presses her white muzzle against the blue of Balto’s shoulder (to which he shudders but is too tired to move from her touch) and begins to lead him away.
<i>“Ambrose,”</I> he hears someone say behind him as he allows Eridi to guide him, <i>“he’s the third one this month.”</i> A pause, and then a deep sigh.
<i>“I know, Corin.”</i>
<center>--------------------</center>
Aravis, Balto learned, is the small herd’s medicine mare.
A frail, gentle bay (who reminds him much of his mother), who spends her days at the mouth of a nearby cave, nurtured him and two others back to health from their mysterious dance from the sea. She would fuss over him and the others (Caspian and Jadis, who had also washed up on shore in the same fashion that Balto had), hushing them when they balked at her herbs and medicinals, forcing them to rest with a quick click of her tongue. Balto found her presence charming and despite his predicament, enjoyed the warmth that she shared by taking care of him.
Still without many words, Aravis quickly learned how to understand the quiet blue roan stallion, and most of the time spoke for him.
<i>“Caspian, do shut up,”</I> Aravis grumbles, eyes rolling as she checks Balto’s head, <i>“Blue-eyes hasn’t been here for even a week and I can tell he’s already sick of your loud mouth!”</i>
Balto says nothing, but a grin finds the charcoal of his lips and he flashes a smile to Caspian, who only laughs in response. Soon, the three horses would be allowed to leave the nurture of the medicine mare and venture with the rest of the herd, but Balto is not so sure he would leave the comfort of Aravis’ hearth.
<center>--------------------</center>
He’s lost track of time. Aravis quickly became Balto's guide into this new world, nurturing and caring for him as if he were her own son. Each day he would walk with her to gather herbs and plants, and on days when she was too tired to do so herself, he would do it for her. He would spend long hours in her cave, listening to the stories of when she was just a filly, enthralled by the magical way her stories were spun. Most nights (because that is where he truly is most comfortable) he would sleep in the cave - though it is not the same darkness here he had always been used to. Here, it is warm, it is loving, it is nurturing.
One morning, Eridi greets him at the mouth of the cave, quietly whinnying to him in the early light. Aravis is still asleep, snoring lightly as he creeps past as not to wake her.
They walk together through the jungle and towards the beach, speaking gently with hushed tones and tiny bits of laughter. As they near the coast and the sound of waves fills his ears, he hears the thrumming of hoofbeats.
A flash of red passes him, and with a grin towards Eridi, he leaps forward.
He gallops down the shoreline, Eridi close behind him. Her laugh is electric as she flies beside him and he whinnies happily, kicking his feet up in the surf. This is how he imagined it - the day he leaves his cave and never returns - and he finds all the happiness he can dream of.
<i>“Balto, we’re losing them!”</i> she cries gleefully, her legs working beneath her quickly as she speeds up. He does the same, his blue eyes fixated on the two figures before them - yearlings, testing out their speed. The chase continues down the long stretch of beach, the two chestnut twins finally stopping only when their trail was met with the large and craggy face of a mountain to stop them.
Breathlessly, Balto and Eridi join them.
<B>“You’ve improved,”</B> Balto says, obviously winded but with a smile gracing his lips.
<i>“Or maybe you’re losing your touch!”</i> Bree teases, while her sister Hwin giggles in response. Balto pins his ears against his neck playfully, wrinkling his nose as he pretends to be offended. Eridi laughs in unison with the twins, and Balto nips her shoulder gently - though he doesn’t mind her laugh.
A sharp neigh pierces the shoreline and Balto’s smile fades from his face. Ambrose’s voice splits through the air and all four of them look at each other quickly in confusion, before turning to race back up the beach towards their herd’s normal meeting place. He joins the crowd, leaving Eridi and the twins (who join their mother, Shasta, the doe-eyed bay) while his eyes fixate onto Ambrose - the leader of their small family. Beside him is Rilian, the stern black stallion who is beginning to gray around the muzzle, his second. Corin finds his place beside Jadis and Caspian, the tri-colored paint looking unsuitably worried.
Balto quickly scans the crowd for Aravis, though his stomach drops when he does not see the older bay in her usual spot. His brow furrows, his eyes clouding as he turns to watch Ambrose. He holds his breath, his gut wrenching for the first time since the day he washed upon the beach.
<i>“It’s Aravis,”</i> the red roan says solemnly, his kind eyes finding Balto’s sympathetically - Balto’s jaw clenches - has death already found him again so soon? How is it that his gentle caretaker, the motherly and stubborn mare, had passed? But Ambrose’s next words surprise him. <I>“She is missing. It is possibly the same thing that brought us all together in the first place.”</i>
Balto’s eyes glance upwards in surprise, though anger boils beneath the surface.
<B>“I’ll go find her,”</B> he says quickly and decisively, already heading out towards the shore.
<i>“No!”</I> A sharp cry causes him to stop and turn towards Eridi. <i>“No,”</I> she repeats, quieter this time.
<i>“We’ll all go,”</i> Ambrose finishes, with murmuring replies of agreement around him.
Balto nods to him, and Eridi finds her place at his side, her ivory muzzle brushing against his cheek. <i>“Together. Always together.”</i> she says, loud enough for everyone to hear, for it was the mantra for their tiny knit family. Then something a bit quieter, but meant only for him. <i>“We will find her, Balto. She’s strong. She’ll be okay.”</i>
To this he says nothing, and turns out to look ahead of him and begins to lead the way deeper into the darkness and shadows - a place he knew so well.<BR><BR><center> -- <font color=777777><BR><i>once the king of beasts but now they feast<BR>on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.</center></font></i></a></center></font></table></center>