[open] scattered in the mud; any

[Arka]

and every spell and scourge of god may be obedient unto me
thou spiritual sun: satan, thou eye, thou lust.

There was a difference between the stallion that stood on the edge of the Field and the man he'd been a few years prior - years where someone might have recognized the rhino's horn that rose from his forehead and split at its end like something electrocuted. Not better, certainly not better. But perhaps less willing to show his hand as early. Age brought wisdom but not a lengthening of temper, and Arka had only grown more poisonous.

The stallion he'd once been would have resented standing there, seething at the implication that he was directionless and needed to be scooped up. He might have foregone the ritual entirely, instead continuing to wander...but that had been what got him in trouble in the first place.

No, instead he stood and waited, a hind hoof cocked behind him to shift his weight.

He'd been here before, when the land had been shaped a little differently and the Chamber had still held sway. He'd recruited. He'd walked these same paths, in the crispness of winter and humid grip of summer. The beauty of autumn didn't escape him, but there was very little that could be read from him outwardly. He looked bored.

His eyes scanned over the herds of mares grazing together, occasionally giving him a glance as if waiting for him to make a move. In another life he might have, gathered some others and unfurled some lecherous retreat. Gone, he thinks.

He can't resent the implication that he's directionless, because he is.

ARKA

the wandering scumbag