08-03-2021, 01:42 PM
a bright and dangerous spark
A blossom that finds its place in the dark is still a bloom, is it not? And Cheri had wondered about him - the manticore from her childhood. Had he been real himself, much as he thought about the monster with the face of his sister? Had she really encountered such a strange and intense being during the end of their world? The years between that moment and this one had led her to believe that it might’ve been a dream, but facing him now clears up those old childhood suspicions. He is as real and magnificent as ever, Lord of the Forest that he is. A creature with no definite shape but an amalgamation of many things instead. And he’d treated her so kindly back then.
His reappearance confirms his reality, that he does exist despite her suspicions that it’d been a childhood fantasy all along. Cheri can’t deny the satisfaction of that truth despite the way he stares her down now, sending her waves of aggressive tension across the short, empty space between them.
He looked so ferocious in the dim light of the heartswood. So ready to kill her or be ended by whatever he assumed she was. Nothing of his previously curious nature remained; she wondered if he remembered the helpless bird they’d saved together. Without his encouragement she wouldn’t have been able to do it, but now he’s across from her and Cheri can see the deadly tip of that barb aiming for some soft spot of her skin. He means to end her, or to be undone by her. Why?
“You’re sick.” She stated as a matter-of-fact.
He was wounded physically. She assumed he must’ve recently engaged in battle with some other creature or some horse - just like she assumed that he was a horse underneath that strange, shapeshifting skin of his. Maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t matter. She was just as driven now as she’d been back then to cradle the broken things close and help them. They were the ones in need of her love the most, the things she could devote herself to regardless of the outcome. Even if her patients didn’t make it, Cheri never felt regret. She tried, and that was the best any Beqanna horse with an ounce of skillfully good magic could do.
“Let me help you Sorren.” Cheri asked, pulling her hooves close to another while she stared the King of Beasts down. “If you don’t let me, I’ll do it anyway. Without your consent.” The pegasus threatened, trembling even as she said it.
If he wanted, those iron-clad muscles could whip his body into motion and he would be on her in an instant. She would be physically powerless against the onslaught of those claws, that stinging tail. He would hurt her and she would heal herself, but it would be a battle of who could do the opposite quicker. Cheri felt like she would lose that war. But if it meant helping him? Making him healthy again?
All she had to do was remember the way he slipped through those glossy, black leaves of the Tephra jungle. Cheri just needed to hold onto that memory: the one where he came to lay flat on his lion’s belly in the dirt, watching her as she worked her craft. With that in her mind she could do anything, including repaying him for the kindness he’d given her when it seemed like such a thing had disappeared from their world entirely.
His reappearance confirms his reality, that he does exist despite her suspicions that it’d been a childhood fantasy all along. Cheri can’t deny the satisfaction of that truth despite the way he stares her down now, sending her waves of aggressive tension across the short, empty space between them.
He looked so ferocious in the dim light of the heartswood. So ready to kill her or be ended by whatever he assumed she was. Nothing of his previously curious nature remained; she wondered if he remembered the helpless bird they’d saved together. Without his encouragement she wouldn’t have been able to do it, but now he’s across from her and Cheri can see the deadly tip of that barb aiming for some soft spot of her skin. He means to end her, or to be undone by her. Why?
“You’re sick.” She stated as a matter-of-fact.
He was wounded physically. She assumed he must’ve recently engaged in battle with some other creature or some horse - just like she assumed that he was a horse underneath that strange, shapeshifting skin of his. Maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t matter. She was just as driven now as she’d been back then to cradle the broken things close and help them. They were the ones in need of her love the most, the things she could devote herself to regardless of the outcome. Even if her patients didn’t make it, Cheri never felt regret. She tried, and that was the best any Beqanna horse with an ounce of skillfully good magic could do.
“Let me help you Sorren.” Cheri asked, pulling her hooves close to another while she stared the King of Beasts down. “If you don’t let me, I’ll do it anyway. Without your consent.” The pegasus threatened, trembling even as she said it.
If he wanted, those iron-clad muscles could whip his body into motion and he would be on her in an instant. She would be physically powerless against the onslaught of those claws, that stinging tail. He would hurt her and she would heal herself, but it would be a battle of who could do the opposite quicker. Cheri felt like she would lose that war. But if it meant helping him? Making him healthy again?
All she had to do was remember the way he slipped through those glossy, black leaves of the Tephra jungle. Cheri just needed to hold onto that memory: the one where he came to lay flat on his lion’s belly in the dirt, watching her as she worked her craft. With that in her mind she could do anything, including repaying him for the kindness he’d given her when it seemed like such a thing had disappeared from their world entirely.
@sorren