"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
An entire season faded away in the dark, and Cheri’s parents did not come home. She’d not seen hide nor tail hair of Targaryen, which worried her immensely, but she had confirmed that other souls clung to this realm of the living, most important of them being her twin brother Reynard. The shackled ball-and-chain of her failed quest to return light to the world still clung to Cheri’s body as well, though not as strongly as it had when she’d first landed on the beach some time ago. She was only part-ghost now, hair weighed down by gravity again and her hooves capable of tripping over unseen obstacles in the dark once more, but her voice and mannerisms had yet to return to any sense of normalcy.
She still felt hollow on the inside, even if she wasn’t on the outside, and Cheri’s voice was still light and airy when she used it. Deadpan, void of stronger emotions, but still a feathery pitch one octave above a whisper. The trauma of her grandmother’s death still sat like stone in the middle of her gut, weighing her down. Cheri was uncertain if it would ever lift again.
The world continued to sink further into despair regardless.
What was once novel horror, now was common occurrence: the activity of the things that’d spilled over into Beqanna seemed frenzied now, as if preparing for something. Cheri was senseless to leave Taiga but she did it often anyways, reasoning there wasn’t any use in pretending like things were going to be fine. Her heart had fully accepted the possibility that these were the final days to come even if her mouth refused to form the words it took to say as much. A switch turned on inside of her, and she spent her pointless hours floating off to see the things she might never see again.
“Pity.” She sighed with a lackluster flick of her tail, stopping on her journey to look over the meadow and its black expanse of nothingness. The past caught up to her, detaching her mind from the present so as to escape a certain anxious fear that always came when she was forced to face the reality of her world dying, and Cheri let the false comfort of her own memories sweep her up and away from this place for just a minute.
In the darkness, a figure broke free and outlined itself against the backdrop of the Eclipse, and Cheri came to her senses when she noticed it was another horse. Surprised, her wings fluttered open and readied themselves for escape, but her eyes remained curiously trained on the stranger and her ears remained optimistically upturned, almost as if she were hoping for any excuse not to fly away.
Roots withered, grass decayed, minds submerged to depression as the endless darkness continued unwavering in its dictatorship. For some reason, he seemed wholly unaffected by the proceedings. The dark had never scared him much, even as a newborn. It was all in how you perceived it, what you needed it to be. Darkness was a neutral entity, only switching to bad or good depending on who was manipulating it. To him, it was an old friend. The velvet darkness of his coat blended well with the shadows, the glow of his red eyes combined with the utter blackness assisted in intimidation when needed. The monsters that hunted the unnatural night were something to be wary of but not anything he lost sleep over. There were crueler things in this world then creatures with claws and teeth. No, what he was wary of were the monsters that lurked beneath the skin of his own species. The cruel words on smiling lips that could strike an arrow into the most vulnerable parts of a person, something he had taken as his own for protection against those very beasts that had tormented him.
It’s in the shadows of the Eclipse that he now hides, watching the young winged girl as she clips her way through the Meadow. She stops and murmurs something to herself. “Pity” with a flick of her tail. Embers of crimson break through the murkiness as he steps from his cover, disdain on his features and a slight frown tugging at the corner of his velvet lips. Her wings flutter, not expecting his sudden appearance and his nostrils flare with amusement that spread coldly in the flames of his iris’s. “A pity indeed.” He drawls drily, letting his gaze flick over her as if she was the decaying thing that was offensive to his eyes. She’s not, not really. There’s a brightness in her mane and tail that makes him think of Spring if the season had been amplified on steroids. The spots along her backside, the ethereal wings that now flare before him with a start. He can’t help but look at those wings, beautiful. For a moment he wonders what it would be like, to pull them off her like a pinned butterfly. Even that thought makes him shift in discomfort, he had always had a vicious streak in him but that was a little too dark for even his tastes.
It’s weird, that he cares enough to even be distracted by her. To even have a moment of self awareness that he actually doesn’t want to hurt her, not like that. It fuels his temper slightly, not liking the strange emotions that writhe in his chest. Instead, he sneers at her beneath the long tendrils of sable that lay wild over his scarlet eyes as his pupils narrow, the words building on his tongue. “You don’t seem very smart, parading out in the open like that. Don’t you know there are scary things lurking in the dark?” He chuckles softly but it lacks warmth or even humor. There’s a hint of a warning in it, a caution to be careful but it’s hard to decipher if it’s referring to the monsters or to himself.
Eyes: the strange stallion who pulled his dark body free from the endless shadows had a pair that were pointed and glowing red, expressive in a way Cheri couldn’t ignore. They didn’t have love for her, though they did seem conflicted for a moment. As if the mind they belonged to disagreed on the level of scathing Cheri deserved. She couldn’t be certain; like herself, the rest of his expression was lost to the oppressive dark since his inky pelt blended in so well. He seemed to despise her, but all Cheri could wonder was, “Why waste the energy?”
She had little value beyond her gift of healing. If his threat was a thinly veiled one he’d find that out soon enough anyways, and Cheri knew better than to wait around and let him discover as much. Her wings stayed aloft a minute longer, outspread and caught mid-air while he berated her. She shouldn’t entertain this, nothing she'd done warranted it despite the level of stupidity he placed her under, and though she knew the best response to this was no response at all, something inside of her hardened like resentment.
She thought him a proper bastard and would’ve told him so, if Cheri had been a lesser sort of horse.
Decision made, her wings snapped shut audibly despite their being made of pure light. Against her side again they lit up her body, showing how every soft muscle and sculpted bone tensed with barely restrained anger. “You know better.” She told herself, “He’s not worth it.” Her conscious tried to keep her restrained, but it was his chuckle that cemented the brute’s fate with her. That noise grated her: how cocky! How utterly annoying and… and smooth! Smooth? “Confident, hideously confident.” She corrected herself.
Heat rose to Cheri’s face. “I know well enough how it feels to have those things shred my skin. They did it easily, like pulling grass out of the dirt.” She spoke softly, head rising. “And perhaps you’d be worse.” She granted him that much, assuming his intimidation meant that he was to be considered as dangerous as them. Everything could always be worse. Every horse was capable of killing.
She took a bold step toward the bigger stallion, surprised at herself when the hoof didn’t tremble from fear. “Or,” She paused, wet from the sudden burst of a spring rain dropping out of the red-black sky, “perhaps you’re not, and I’m the last horse you should be threatening.”
The withering fields and their decaying crops soaked up the rare watering silently, and Cheri held her breath (and her ground) for the time being. “Remember,” her eyes flashed pridefully as they blinked away the moisture, “no scar he leaves can stay forever.” No amount of damage he did to her couldn’t be undone, in time. She felt a thrill despite the danger, thinking she was going crazy because she wanted him to prove evil was as real and tangible a thing as goodness. Confusion tormented her, tore at Cheri’s breast when it rose and fell unsteadily.
He was crude and deserved a lashing better than the one Cheri could give him, and she felt insufficient enough to really be any sort of threat to him. She suddenly wished for the strength of ten horses, and then she hated herself for allowing his petty insult to turn her heart the way it did. Hating felt wrong but in a small way it also felt … refreshing, exhilarating. The way she felt about herself in the moment contorted until it was turned against the strange horse instead, and at that moment all of Cheri’s goodwill and kind consciousness couldn’t have stopped her from transforming into the perfect reflection of a spoiled, insecure brat of a mare.
“My protectors would have your head displayed on a tree limb if you so much as bent a single hair on my neck.” Cheri’s soft voice curled with indignation.
@[Obscene] you pressed her buttons so now you get a novel, lol.
For a moment, he thinks she will flee. Her wings seem to catch the slight brush of wind and there’s a moment of disappointment that flares within him. Once again, he’s unsure about its origin. Is it displeasure on a missed opportunity to mess with her? An irritation that he would have to find another source of entertainment? Or maybe… Just maybe.. It’s because he wouldn’t mind her company. The second that thought flickers in his head he banishes it immediately. He doesn’t need anyone least of all a pampered prissy young thing that had probably been coddled and protected her whole life.
For a moment, his thoughts are intrusive and she is fleeing. Until she snaps them shut with a flourish, bringing her glowing wings to brush gently against her side and he wonders… Wonders how soft the fur must be there. Like velvet. Shaking his head slightly, tossing his silky forelock with a confident gesture. He must still be drunk, thinking like that. He almost missed the subtle cues of her annoyance, lost in the thought of touching satin, but he sees the tightening of her jawline and responds with a bright grin. Takes in the illuminated strain in her body, unable to catch the heat in her face. When she speaks, her voice is soft but stronger than he expected. Words of knowing how the monsters could hurt, that they had hurt her. The thought of her silky flesh falling apart excites him as much as it infuriates him. Why does he even care? Drunk, ‘Sce, you must still be absolutely plastered. Why does he feel so clear-headed then?
There’s a flame in the depths of ember as she talks, as she boldly takes a step towards him, and he finds himself thrilled at the prospect of being closer to her. His pulse thrums in response to the quickness in his chest. The smug grin doesn’t fade on his soft lips, his bright red iris’s never leaving the pale green of her own. Challenging her, daring her. “Perhaps.” He repeats back to her, slightly mocking with a hint of thoughtfulness. “Perhaps.” He says again as the sky opens up above them. His dark mane clings to his even darker coat, he does not flinch from the rain that drenches them both. “So many maybe’s.” He pauses, still regarding her with morbid fascination. At the way water droplets slide down her neck. There’s a thrill running thick in his blood, he hadn’t expected this at all. No, he had anticipated some show of fear or tears, some words about what a jerk he was. Not this. He hates it. He loves it. He doesn’t let his conflicted emotions show through his mask, his features always schooled in that cool disdain, his demeanor one of indifference despite the way his eyes bore straight into her.
Muscles have grown taunt beneath his own sable hide, his breath caught for a moment in the back of his throat. Caught in the exhilaration of her next move…. And then completely let down as she finally comes at him with the predictable response he had expected in the first place. The mood suddenly feels different, he feels himself retract within himself and the sneer replaces the teasing cocky grin, tugging the corners of his mouth into a frown. “I would expect nothing less Princess.” The last word said with a hiss and a sigh, not bothering to hide his contempt on what he thought of her and just how disappointing his conclusion was. Burrowing his own slight hurt deep within his small heart but he can’t help but bite back, to engage her again and hope for whatever it was that had tethered between them to resurface. “So which one is it?” He finally asks her calmly, perhaps a little too calmly. His voice flat but with a slight edge, his tone low. Baiting. “Which do you think I am?”
Winds, she was a fool to think that anything could’ve swayed him. To think that standing up to him would break his confidence, that the soft steadiness of her tone would humble a creature beyond the ability to be humbled. Who the blazes did she take herself for? A threat? How could she ever be a threat to someone like him? And it’s so obvious to her; he’s perfectly composed and she’d been falling apart, tearing at the seams from a little goading. He had her right where he wanted her, and she was the prey caught in the grasp of his taunting. It truly, honestly made her want to scream and Cheri hadn’t felt like screaming since she’d fallen through that portal on the mountain and plummeted through the gullet of a shadow monster to an early death. She hadn’t felt like screaming when Memorie had told her Lilliana had died, hadn’t cried over the thought of her mother never returning home again.
But he makes her feel so much. It’s unbearable.
Half of her wants to pop the indignation off his smug face with a well-aimed kick. The other half wants him to — “No, not that.” She stopped herself from thinking it, breathing heavily through the rain until her gasps came out as curling wisps of foggy smoke. They stand opposite one another and Cheri wants to invade his space the same way he seems to have invaded her thoughts, and for a second she wants him to overpower her because at least that would be better than empty threats. She actually thinks he might, and her whole body is tensed to the possibility of that happening when he moves toward her. “I should be afraid...” She realizes somewhere in the back of her mind, but her eyes are focused on the oily sheen of his water-slicked coat and how it betrays his larger bulk and strength.
If he were to take her right now, there’s very little Cheri could do to stop him. So she slings a threat of her own, and it shatters the moment apart.
His disappointment in herself is a mirror of her own self-loathing, though Cheri would rather die a second death than admit it aloud. It’s too late to retract the statement anyways; time always marches on, regardless. “I’m no judge of character, sir.” She spat back on the level, finding her rhythm again by reminding herself of her worth. He is a strange flame, a dangerous sort of animal for her to continue playing with, but she’s equally as hopeful that the moment from before might return. It twists her gut in strange ways, so that she considers him not as a thing but as a possibility instead. “He should be so lucky to touch you.” She tries (and fails) to convince herself. “It would entirely depend on your actions, and my response to them.” She swallowed some of her pithy, and the reaction was that her body softened and her ears lifted, slowly.
Cheri found it impossible to look away from the rim of crimson light that gave expression to his face. Those eyes… She felt their heat and relied on them rather than the sneer she could just barely make out through the rain. She wondered if her own were just as telling, and then blinked at the thought, embarrassed.
“You either are, or you aren’t.” Her chin rose. “So show me. I’m ready whenever you are, devil.”
She was nothing. Just another spoiled brat of a girl who flutters her lashes and wings and has the world handed to her. Regardless if that was true, he figures he knows her type. Knows exactly what she is. There’s something though just out of reach, simmering beneath her dark speckled skin. As if she’s capable of more. It’s not that he finds her weak, no he’s the weak mortal fool in this situation. He just hates her for everything she is, everything she stands for. Everything she has that he doesn’t. And the fact that he’s somehow manipulated power over her, he shouldn’t be thrilled by it but he is.
He hates her so much he wants to taste the droplets of water that drip seductively along the curve of her shoulder. He hates her so much that he wants to touch her and see how she would respond, the thought of her gasping in surprise making him incredibly uncomfortable. He knew how foals were made, had seen it or heard about it from others. It wasn’t something he had yet experienced for himself. But now, now he can see himself doing all those things with her. To her. Not see… Wants.
This realization hits him. Hard. And it only makes him sneer harder, the corner of his lip curling into a snarl. He will not let this… girl… get the best of him. He hates her. He HATES her. As she spits at him and snaps her tail, god how he hates her. She snaps at him about character and his response is no less scathing. “Yet here you are, threatening me with your…protectors.” The last word is drawn out. ”But you’re not judging me?” A brow raises as he mocks her, mocks her bullshit coverup even as he knows he doesn’t blame her for the assumption. A thought that’s fleeting and disappears as quickly as it came. There’s a strange glimmer in the depths of red as he watches her, noting the subtle softness of her body relaxing, and he dares himself to move closer. Just two simple steps that bring him close enough for him to reach out and caress her cheek, if he wanted. His nostrils flare as his muzzle slowly extends out, his breath steaming through the rain that continues to drench them. Not touching but dangerously close. “Is this the kind of action you expected?” A pause, bringing his muzzle down as if he might press it just against her jaw.
A lot of things happen in a short amount of seconds. He realizes in her words, what she’s expecting him to do. It sickens him in ways he didn’t realize and it bothers him… Bothers the man who doesn’t care, that she would just accept such a fate. It’s in that moment, as she looks deep into the depths of red, that he realizes why he hates her so much.
So he does what he does best. He is cruel. He lies.
Disgust flares back in his face, dilating his pupils as he laughs low and soft and pulls his muzzle from where it had hovered so close to hers. “As if I would lower my standards for the likes of you.” The smirk is back on his lips, crimson iris’s dancing with a dangerous flame as he doesn’t step away from her. Instead he bathes in the result of wherever his insult may have landed. And while the thrill of hurting her still pulses through his veins, something else pulses there too. She wanted him to be a devil. He was happy to comply to whatever she wanted him to be.
The sting of his words are magical. Truly, Cheri doesn’t know how he does it, but the strange stallion finds a mark with them every time he opens his mouth. She understands that she’s lost this ‘battle’, if that’s what they can call it. She lost the moment she threatened him, which he sees through as clear as crystal glass. Her protectors… where are they now? There’s no one out here but them, and her father (or Yenny, or even Rey and her sister) are moving in their own directions somewhere far away from this unfolding scene. Cheri is apate; a planet suspended in the void of a starry universe. The black stallion is a moon orbiting her, pulled by a gravity she cannot put a name to. She wants only one thing: him, closer to her.
Even if it would be cataclysmic.
“No, not at all what I had envisioned.” The smaller mare thinks, powerless in the face of a true threat to her peace. His tongue is like a nettle sting, and it pricks her skin with its harsh warmth. Her lips are dry despite the downpour, though she raises them to speak. Cheri has nothing to say. Her thoughts are tangled now, too occupied by the smell of his rough-worn skin as it mingles with the spring rains. The pit of her stomach clenched pleasantly, spreading the heat from her cheeks down her neck and into her limbs, burning and somehow… heavy. Only a young mare still, not yet flowered into womanhood, Cheri had never known desire. She’s more familiar with the cool and giddy feeling of puppy love.
He could’ve had her then. She would’ve given in with a trembling uncertainty, cast off her resistance and plunged into the overpowering nature of erotic curiosity. Whoever he was, (however much of a bastard he might be) he’d not hurt her physically. “Perhaps I misjudged him.” She even considered, her eyes tracing the round curve of his jaw so close to her face.
But they’re planets, after all. Celestial bodies who circle and never, ever touch. As if he would ever lower his standards for the likes of her.
Cheri’s thumping heart stuttered to a stop. The pain she failed to disguise was made all the more obvious by the arc of lighting forking across a black sky, tearing asunder the cloud cover with a silent white rage that's soon followed by the sound of trembling thunder. She can feel the weather in her bones, the way it rattles up through her skin and shakes her senseless - rather, it seems to shake some sense back into her, and blinking through the water in her eyes she jerked back, astounded.
“Coward.” She barely whispered. Cheri felt like it was hard to breathe. Her expression betrayed everything: how ashamed and belittled she felt, how he’d succeeded in making a fool out of her for the benefit of proving a point. He’d used his attractiveness against her judgement and come out on top, and Cheri felt played. The confidence built up in her by so many wonderful encounters came tumbling down in an instant. In the span of a dark moment she’s allowed a total stranger to knock her down, and she has to admit to herself that it hurts. “Standards…” She tried to speak louder. “The sta-standards of a … of a rogue nobody. They don’t exist.”
“Winds.” She bit her lip to keep from crying. Her wings grasped the sides of her body as if they could cover up her shame, pressing tightly to her slender ribs and tickling the white spots covering her hide with their illuminated feather tips. She took a step to the side and avoided looking at him anymore, while the sky crackled again. “Tacky, ill-bred beast.” Cheri’s voice broke. Her ears curved against her neck again, angry. “You’re cruel.” She closed her eyes. “Just go away.” She thought. “Go find some sick thrill elsewhere. You’ve satisfied yourself with me, and I’m determined not to entertain you anymore.” The pegasus hugged herself, lacking the strength to tell him as much.
Lightning cracks across the sky and illuminates her face, he can see the moment when his words strike true. As they burrow deep into her heart and fester like a sickness. Something within him recoils at the hurt in her eyes, the open sadness and pain at his rejection. However, the thrill of his cruelty outweighs it, curling himself into the rough folds of the protective blanket his words created. That moment of uncertainty (regret?) doesn’t reach his own features, the smirk never slips and the red of his eyes only seem to glow brighter.
The rain is relentless, he is soaked to the bone but the chill of the air doesn’t seem to register. Everything is focused on her. “Coward” If her emotions hadn’t betrayed her already then the softness of her voice would. The small stutter of uncertainty. He chuckles softly as she grasps at straws, trying to find some advantage in wounding him the way he had wounded her. Failing miserable. "Rogue nobody, ill mannered beast." Her insults irritate for only a moment but not enough to dig deep. “If I’m such a nobody then why are you so bothered?” He whispers with another sneer, truly curious but not wanting to give away too much. It registers that he doesn’t even know her name but desires it as much as he craves the fae nectar that helps him escape reality.
“You’re cruel” Yes, he was. It comes to him then that despite his mortality and supernatural absence, he really did have his own superpower. The way he wielded his words like a knife could fell even the largest giant. Look at the magical girl before him, how easily he held a dagger to her throat and made her into nothing. Made her weaker then him. And yet… It also makes him angry. How easily her voice breaks, the wings wrapping like a shield around her. The way she doesn’t even bother to fight like she had seconds ago. She had everything that he lacked and in a matter of seconds let herself be reduced to rubble.
“Would you like to see my other talents?” Comes the smooth retort, wanting her to look at him again. Wanting that fire he had seen to spark back to life. Surely he hadn’t been mistaken, when his boredom had vanished in a moment of intrigue. There’s a million reasons, good and bad, for not wanting her to shut down. He wants her to hate him as much as he hates her. Wants to see her hatred and drown in it. This girl who had been given everything that had been denied to him, who had nothing to be angry about. Maybe he just wants to see himself for a moment in somebody else, thought that he had recognized something in her that spoke to a dark lonely place pushed deep in his soul. Wants to escape from that thought that still lingers on why exactly he despises her so much, finding it easier to hide in this thick armor he's created for himself.
04-27-2021, 04:13 PM (This post was last modified: 04-27-2021, 04:17 PM by Cheri.)
The light that meets the dark
She wasn’t bothered, was she? She was hurt. She was a young thing, the makings of a fine mare that would someday gleam in her own right. Years would pass before Cheri could find the confidence he wielded so casually, because it was a harsh type of world they lived in and she was still dependent on the opinions of others, even if the opinions were the crass, outspoken thoughts of a worm. He was good at what he did, and she was a wounded sort of bird now. Her wings could carry her away but if she left right now, Cheri would truly consider herself unworthy of being considered ‘brave’. What she wanted, more than anything, was not to be a coward like he was. “What you wanted was to take his breath away, like he did yours.” She grit her teeth.
“I would like to never see you again.” She said hotly, glad that her emotional tears could mingle into the rainwater streaming over the bridge of her lowered nose. Her mane, once gleaming, was now plastered against the arc of her neck and stuck awkwardly between the cresting ridges of the white crystals growing out from her forehead. She sniffed and doubled down on her promise not to entertain him, keeping her gaze firmly squared away on the dark soil beneath them though they badly wanted to rise and glare back.
She could almost picture him anyway, just by the timbre of his husky voice.
The imagination of him in her mind flashed like a red bolt through her fluttering chest. How sloppy he really was, how unkempt and opposite of everything she was used to back home. What would her father think of her, consorting with a type like this? Had she really only been moments away from letting herself go? Across the heavens, fingers of electricity buzzed, radioactive. The simple spring rain had turned into a downpour, making it hard to hear or see through the veil of so much water. Cheri panted, building up the image of the black male in her mind - crafting that jaw she’d had the pleasure of nearly touching moments before, mimicking the sincere cockiness of his mouth half-turned into a smirk, feeling her pulse race and her fury peak at the remembrance of his eyes and how it felt to be under their momentary spell.
Her head turned then to look back at the brute, and she let him have the best of her.
“Take your standards and shove them right up your ass.” Cheri snarled, so unlike herself. She felt emboldened, and the storm weathered like her emotions: wild and stinging, lashing against them both and thundering with danger. “I can satisfy another; I… I can.” She stumbled through the declaration, but shook her forelock out of her eyes as best she could, flaring her wings above her to blot out the rain.
“I’ve made a stallion laugh before, I’ve slept curled against him. I’ve taken his pain away and heard the sound of my name on his lips like a prayer to the fae, so I know… I know that I can.” She shouted above the cacophony, taking back the distance between them with each memory she recalled. “Targaryen,” She reminded herself of his name, “is a stallion grown. He counts.” She tried to convince herself, if only to fool this arrogant male for a moment. The pied stallion who’d followed her home from the river was nearly double her age and had always been like a brother to Cheri, but that last part about calling her name… Targaryen hadn’t been acting like a brother then, had he? “No.” Her heart thundered in her chest, and the forks of unnatural light in the sky came cracking down to strike the earth in the distance. Cheri caught her breath, momentarily distracted, and she jolted backwards in fear at how close it’d been. Her senses seemed dulled by the natural phenomena, so loud that for a moment she heard nothing at all. Then the thunder rolled under their hooves and she shuffled to catch her bearings.
Her vision was swimming, as if she were being dragged under by the rain. Her wings faltered and fell again to her sides, haphazard and unable to help her balance. She could feel her skull splitting in two almost as if the lightning bolt had struck her forehead and not the earth half a mile off, and for a moment she forgot about the stranger in favor of trying not to lose the contents of her stomach.
What she sees is confidence, not the illusions of his insecurity and pain and years of abandonment issues masked by his harsh cruelty. He hadn’t realized just how good he had gotten at pretending that the lies he lived were real. If only he could see the thoughts that flashed through her head (how he wasn’t good enough, how beneath her he was), maybe that mask would slip. It’s the barb that could settle and fester in his stone heart as much as his words had burrowed into hers.
She wants to never see him again and the corner of his lip curls even more, red eyes flashing because he wonders if she’s lying. Maybe hopes that she is. Water glistens over the crystals on her forehead and he instantly hates the way they sparkle. Another sign of how extraordinary she was compared to the dullness of himself. He’s about to say something else, something mean and sharp and finally walk away as boredom threatens to close in.
He doesn’t expect the rage of anger that comes unexpectedly as she finally faces him, snarling. It catches him off guard enough to lose the smirk on his lips, staring at her for a moment in a rare open moment of astonishment. Something flickers across his face, flares in the dark deep depths of his crimson eyes, when she mentions curling up next to another as well as the mention of the fae. Jealousy? Desire? Hurt? It’s gone in a flash and in the darkness maybe she had missed it. “What name would that be exactly?” Comes his deadly whisper in a brief respite of rain and thunder, as he takes control of himself again. Refusing to allow her to see any further that she had slightly shaken him. And god damnit he needs to know her name.
Her sudden anger makes his heart expand and grow in the flames of his renewed hatred and resentment and he meets hers with familiarity and gladness. Something he can finally understand, something that feels better then the cold dark heaviness that ached constantly in his chest. “You know nothing of the fae.” He snaps, ears lacing back and the snarl within his chest finding purchase on dark lips. How dare she talk of his family as if she knew a thing about them or their prayers. Hating even more that he had no idea if her name really did sound as magical as their rituals.
Thunder rumbles beneath their hooves and even he starts having a hard time keeping steady, the crack of the weather ringing in his ears. It was becoming unsafe but he didn’t care, didn’t give one flying fuck about anything but this burning sensation in his chest and the spark of anger in her eyes. Except that fire suddenly becomes blinded by pain in her gaze as it breaks from him and she stumbles, the land beneath them seems to shift and he is just a normal creature that can do nothing. It pisses him off enough that his anger refocuses on the situation instead of her. Almost instinctively moving closer to her, as if to prove to himself that he isn’t worthless, to allow her to find her balance with the help of his thick body. His neck snakes out, teeth seeking to find a rough grasp on her mane to steady them both.
Never forgetting though how much he absolutely hates her and letting go of her as quickly as he had held her, if he had managed to hold her at all. An act of trying to hurt her to hide the truth of his intentions.
