[open] just to feel what it's like to pretend

[Skeleton Ghoul]

He finds some solace, though not much, from the blazing scorch of the shimmering sun. 

Standing with his hip cocked beneath the spread of a flowering tree, the black titan's lower lip droops as the sweat dribbles off of him in fat, slow drops. The heat here, and most everywhere he's been, is nigh unbearable; Skeleton Ghoul is a heavy beast, and hairy even in the hottest months. Oh, how he pines for the snow and the bitter breeze and biting frost. How he longs for the unearthly silence that comes just after a heavy snowfall when the world is blanketed in a soft coat of white.

Hmph. Summer can go fuck itself. 

White eyes open halfway and he shakes his head, chasing away biting flies from his ears, not that it helps much. The damn things just resettle and resume their bloodsucking lifestyles, and there isn't much Skeleton Ghoul can do about it. They're everywhere, gnawing on his legs and haunches, but his bob of a tail is too short to help him there, either. He swings his heavy head slowly to look with consideration at the glimmering river not too far away. If it is shallow, it could be a good place to go roll and cool off.

There's no time like the present. Ghoul's joints crack once as he heaves himself into motion like a great steel monolith, little bobtail swishing around his haunches. Once at the riverside, he surveys the water critically, eyeballing the rushing water and trying to gauge the depth. It's not the biggest or widest river he's been across, but he'd just as soon avoid nearly drowning if he can help it. The stallion figures he can make it, and plows into the water with certainty. 

Thankfully no one else is around, because his decision is a mistake. He ends up a quarter mile downriver by the time he clambers up the other side of the bank, water cascading down his legs and off of his belly. Pausing, Skeleton Ghoul sticks his upper lip out and shakes off, mane flapping everywhere ... and looks up. The thick fog shrouding his surroundings is finally beginning to clear in the breath of delightfully cool breeze that is whipping up from nearby, exposing what appears to be the biggest god damn tree he's ever seen. Another appears, and another, and another -- it's an entire forest of trees as thick as Skeleton Ghoul is long. 

He is fascinated. Twelve years on this miserable earth, and this is the first place that has ever made him feel so small.

SKELETON GHOUL

the black tyton