no matter what they say, I am still the king
What is it about that dark that makes moral creatures fear it? The unknown stretches before - an ache of unknown wants and desires and needs and fears. The story is in the smothering that breaks before you - the story is not in the saving from the dark, but in being enveloped by it. Perhaps now, the little salt child would see. Eight can see it in his eyes - the way he revels in his ability, the way the dark becomes a bit more like a friend and less like a fiend.
The smile splits across Crowns’ face with something so easy as a fallen feather- a vast crevice in the history of such a dark past. Such a simple reciprocity in the darkness of it all. His body is a thrumming of excitement - of what could (and would, and maybe, should be). It pricks at the solidity of Eight’s heart - there are so many possible emotions to feel, and yet he has none.
There is not much that Eight will do for others. He is always selfish - or perhaps, just unfeeling after too many years. But the small burst of light in the pit of his charred body spurts fourth the compassion. The child wants such a decrepit thing in his hair - something so small and blighted as a fallen feather. Who is he to disregard such simple pleasures of a simple mind? How could he say no to a request that is too easy to pass up?
Eight slightly tips his nose southward - the feather plucks itself from Crowns’ lip and floats laboriously towards the apex of his mane. There it settles, as if fallen from a rushed run, or a furious fight with the darkness - aching downwards towards the floor of the forest. “It will stay with you, if you will it.” And the magician parts with a bit of magic, throwing it to the feathered gift in Crowns’ hair. Should the child want, the dark imprint of a feather would remain with him (so dark - it is almost the blue of the deepest depths of the ocean).
He looks towards the child, giving a rushed breath towards the feather in his mane - “Crowns - I will teach you anything that your little heart may desire.’’ The magician dips his head in parting. His dark body turns away, his black wings unfurling, his back hooves pushing sharply off the ground (steep grooves that will stay forever not unlike the meeting of boy and man that just unfolded). His wings soak in the air below them, pushing him upwards as he throws one last look and a call to the ocean-boy: “Flying too, my saltwater son.”
(now, the storm is coming in)