11-02-2018, 04:59 PM
Pangea had laid her blight on his constitution. Every breath was a needle in his chest, every step was sand in his joints. That hadn't prevented him from his headlong flight when all was done. No time for thought, no time for pain. Just black earth eaten up in long strides, keeping pace with another unseen racer. Dusk was coming, tinting the landscape with inky hues, resurrecting the shadows he'd hoped were gone. A tremor crawled up his spine. Dark, he had to escape the dark.
By some fortune the earth opened in front of them, swallowed them whole. After that, he didn't care how dark it was. There was only deep, dreamless sleep born of absolute exhaustion.
He wakes before her. The sun had only just begun to lighten the sky, sending tendrils of lavender across the indigo horizon. No birds sang as the landscape felt the touch of dawn. Somehow they had run from Pangea to some place he didn't recognize. Grassy, clean... better than the festering hellscape they'd run from. He glanced back into the cavern. As rough as he felt, was as rough as she looked. Bay and white, spattered with blood and muck. Had she caught a tree branch in her mane? Daylight began to leak across the stone floor, revealing that the branching shape was in fact a bloodstained crown of bone. Antlers. Little deer girl...
What was she doing so far from home? In such an awful place as they'd just come from? The buckskin watched as she slept, until sunlight fell across her face and turned his own mane and tail into a cascade of flames. Watched her eyes open, watched her leap unsteadily to her feet, trying to focus on him. Had she hit her head last night? Her voice rasps out. Asking the barest of courtesies, his name.
Licking his lips, he cut his gaze away afraid of what he knew was coming. Raul. One word. One damn word, but it wouldn't come out. All that passed his lips was a gust of air, pushed over broken vocal chords that couldn't quite bring themselves to produce sounds. He winced at the action, shaking his head in apology. There'd been no need to talk. Not since he parted ways with his brother so long ago. Now stripped of a voice, he wasn't sure how to go on. Two blood red collars and a blood red maw. That was all he had to show where Pangea had torn words from him.
@[Warlight]
By some fortune the earth opened in front of them, swallowed them whole. After that, he didn't care how dark it was. There was only deep, dreamless sleep born of absolute exhaustion.
He wakes before her. The sun had only just begun to lighten the sky, sending tendrils of lavender across the indigo horizon. No birds sang as the landscape felt the touch of dawn. Somehow they had run from Pangea to some place he didn't recognize. Grassy, clean... better than the festering hellscape they'd run from. He glanced back into the cavern. As rough as he felt, was as rough as she looked. Bay and white, spattered with blood and muck. Had she caught a tree branch in her mane? Daylight began to leak across the stone floor, revealing that the branching shape was in fact a bloodstained crown of bone. Antlers. Little deer girl...
What was she doing so far from home? In such an awful place as they'd just come from? The buckskin watched as she slept, until sunlight fell across her face and turned his own mane and tail into a cascade of flames. Watched her eyes open, watched her leap unsteadily to her feet, trying to focus on him. Had she hit her head last night? Her voice rasps out. Asking the barest of courtesies, his name.
Licking his lips, he cut his gaze away afraid of what he knew was coming. Raul. One word. One damn word, but it wouldn't come out. All that passed his lips was a gust of air, pushed over broken vocal chords that couldn't quite bring themselves to produce sounds. He winced at the action, shaking his head in apology. There'd been no need to talk. Not since he parted ways with his brother so long ago. Now stripped of a voice, he wasn't sure how to go on. Two blood red collars and a blood red maw. That was all he had to show where Pangea had torn words from him.
@[Warlight]