the dead are coming home; tarnished

[Tarnished]

We were young and wild and free,

fightin' in a love we couldn't leave.

He has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his late mother. She isn’t infamous anymore, there is no longer a dragon flying over Beqanna—just birds and the odd pegasus, and he supposes everyone old enough to remember finds the skies now to be quite empty without her. Or they’re grateful, because dragons and all tend to be rather terrifying to the average horse. If there is such a thing as an ‘average’ horse in Beqanna. He never had her ambition, never wanted a throne; he could have stayed on as the Deserts’ heir if he had even the slightest interest, ruled alongside Yael after his father’s passing—perhaps even longer, even after she stepped down and left the dunes and the red rock and all that called them home at his mercy. But alas, probably much to his dead parents’ displeasure, he’d never shown an interest in any of the kingdoms they admired and slaved over.

Interesting, that.

How one little message can change everything.

Tarnished comes quietly, little more than a thick body of fog that gently flits between the trees and glides eerily quick over the ground. It’s gray today, cold; too cold for summer but that’s typical of the kingdom; there’s too many ghosts, too little room to house them all. They’re bitter and like to make their chilling presence felt rather than seen. Or so he likes to think, especially on days like today. After all, he will never forget the Murder Pits.

Mother saw to that.

The shape-shifter knows The One Who Called by his glowing, orange marks, and it isn’t until the fog is some five feet from the strange male before it starts gathering itself together to form a rather large horse. It’s his bones that take shape first, then the organs, and the muscles, and the tissue—Demian is practically given an entire anatomy lesson before Tarnished decides enough is enough and quickly ends the whole process. He cocks his head once the transformation is complete, grinning. “You’re not much of a welcoming party,” Tarnished says. “But I suppose you’ll do.” Rolling his shoulders, he glances around before his golden eyes dart back to Demian’s face. “So what’s this about, eh?”

.tarnished.

vanquish x nocturnal

Even on the way down, even on the way down.