i’ve been both a saint & a viper; any

[Balto]

He is disoriented and confused. The light hurt his eyes and made his head ache painfully. He leaps backwards, the shock of the sun’s light in his eyes and on his skin nearly causing him to fall. His pupils are like pinpricks and they try to readjust, but the reflexive instinct he should have had does not kick in. He is blind at this point, groaning in protest at the splitting pulse that begins in his eyes and splinters backwards into his skull. In attempts to soothe the pulsating throb in his head, he closes his eyes tightly, grunting as he staggers forward. His hooves, black and sharp as flint, seem unsure as they no longer click against smooth rock but find purchase easily onto the dirt that begins at the mouth of the cave. He decides to stop moving, his eyes seamlessly shut, drawing breaths in large gasps as his lungs try to inhale and exhale the thick air. He feels the sun’s light burning as it touches his skin mercilessly and he’s sure blisters are forming and bursting on his hide as he writhes painfully.
 
How long had it been since he had seen the light of day? How long had it been since he breathed in lungfuls of fresh air, felt the sun on his back, or the wind at his coat? How long had he called the twists and turns of his damp caves? Their dark and echoing walls call to him, the low howl of cold air hauntingly drawing him back inside, back into the depths…
 
Ten years, he reminds himself. Ten long years he’d been trapped in the chasm, where his eyes no longer attempted to see light but only were for seeing shadows. It was where he learned to listen to the faint drips of water splashing against smooth stone, where his survival relied on forgetting his sense of sight all together. It was where night and day were no longer marked time, and the only sound was that of hooves against the damp, wet stone.
 
He refuses to open his eyes. He staggers backwards a few steps, snorting confusedly as he adjusts to his surroundings. He feels the stoic, black stallion next to him – a somber anchor in his years of blindness. He feels a touch on his mottled blue shoulder, which was stained a shade darker with sweat. Without words he knew that he, too, was struggling as they attempt to leave what they’ve known for so long.
 
Unfortunately, a solid crack interrupts their struggle to reintroduce themselves into the world of night and day. He feels the ground beneath him shift and groan, and then – nothing.
 
 
 
When he awakes, his brilliant blue eyes open wildly. It is dark – but it was not the same dark he had grown accustomed to. This was not darkness – Balto has known true darkness of the deepest, pitch black and this certainly was not it. There was a hint of the lightest blue and silver, and even to this light he was squinting. He realizes slowly, that he is beneath a heavy full moon and thousands of stars. For a moment he remains still, breathing heavily, as he tries to figure out where he was. He was not standing up – he was laying on something. Something soft. He attempts to adjust his weight, feeling the softness that hugs his hips and shoulders, that gently caresses the sides of his ribs and neck. He snorts, as he understands that he did not remember the texture or smell of grass.
 
He wants to attempt to stand, but his body does not comply. He feels broken and bloody (that he was familiar with and could recognize – the caves were not gentle hosts). His body is crisp with dried sweat and the deep burgundy of blood. He tries to lift his head but he is too weak. Too vulnerable, he thinks to himself. His heart quickens at the thought, eyes rolling. As he glances around wildly, he realizes that he is lying beneath a forest.
 
A forest? He snorts and once again attempts to stand. He fails, but is able to draw his legs beneath him. He rests his chin on his foreleg, eyes closed tightly as he catches his breath. The air was so…different. It wasn’t stale – it was full of scents and life. It felt rich on his tongue as he gasps, memories of his life before the caverns took him playing in his mind. A forest. How poetic…
 
He does not know how he’s come to be here. He did not know where Faulkor was. Even in the darkness, he could tell that the black stallion was not near him (years together in tunnels and caves led to a certain intuition about each other).
 
Balto continues to try to steady his breath, eyes remaining shut as he debates his next move.

b a l t o

@[Faulkor]

[Faulkor]

 

Drip, drip drip… These hollow caves cry mineral tears - the kind that harden into stoney, ancient teeth. How long they take to grow - seeded by one heartbreak, one wrongdoing, and left to fester in grief for millennia. Alone.  Drip, drip, drip… Only, these catacombs are not alone. Not entirely. They’ve kept the company of two stallions for some ten years.  Faulkor has all but forgotten the sensation of sight or the touch of light on star-strewn flesh. The only warmth he has felt these long years spent in darkness is that of his companion, Balto. Such a strange pair they make; a would-be king grown old and his apprentice grown much too strong. Faulkor knows how the tables have turned, and he is certain Balto knows as well, but neither dare mention it.  Drip, drip, drip… Time’s teeth shred through youthful flesh and lets rot the joints of a once mighty warrior. But, in the darkness it doesn’t matter.  Drip...drip… The rhythm fades into sudden silence. Faulkor halts. There is light. He looks to Balto wordlessly before they both stagger forward together.  But, something is wrong. In all the years spent in quiet darkness, the hollows have never been so still. All of thirty seconds pass before the earth splits above and below them. Those ancient stone teeth close in on them, as if the cavern itself were reviling against their departure into light. They had been hers for oh so long.  For one last moment he and Balto are together, though the younger blue stallion has seemingly lost consciousness. They fall into darkness. But this darkness is sulphuric and hot, like that of new earth forming. Finally, the heat chokes the breath from the black stallion, and he whispers just before joining Balto in slumber: “Is this death?” ------------- It is not death. Hell is too full, and heaven had denied him long ago. His nostrils crinkle at scents long forgotten long before his eyes reveal tiny slivers of themselves. How had he fallen out of the earth? He groans, ribs creaking as he lifts his head.  Stars?  How generous of the earth to spit him out in the depths of night. Daylight very well may have killed him.  He finds his feet, albeit more shakily than he would like to admit. The silvery moonlight reveals a gaunt shell of the beast he once was. He grits his yellowed teeth as he searches the night for the blue stallion, though he is not sure he could recognize him based on appearance. Years spent together in the dark tend to skew how one perceives the other.  Faulkor is sure that Balto can’t have gone far - especially if the roan felt anything the way Faulkor’s ribs did.  There is something strange and heady amongst the air, and though it has been years since Faulkor has known life beyond the blackness of underground caverns and labyrinths, he recognizes most scents for what they are: pine, grass, afterbirth, life, and death. But, there is something in the air he has never felt before - something bewitching.  He finds his companion beneath the towering pines, sprawled out like a dead man.  “Get up, Balto.” He whispers in a voice not unlike the rasp of cold wind through the jagged treetops. “There is magic here.”  F A U L K O R

@[Balto]

[Balto]

He does not know how long he lay beneath the stars.  A familiar voice rouses him and brings him to the edge of consciousness, steely and vicious in its sound but to him, a comfort. He blinks heavily, groaning as his stiff and aching muscles attempt to let the blue stallion stand. His knees buckle and shake, but quickly they regain their strength and hold him upright. ‘There is magic here.’ The phrase was foreign on the dark, peppered lips of Faulkor. He snorts in response, the blue of his eyes roving the darkness that shrouds the forest. The sounds of night were clear and crisp, not muffled by smooth, wet stone. Balto cannot remember the last time the word magic had found his ears, but as he stands in the moonless night beneath the shadows of spindly, finger-like trees, his heart stirs in response. He can feel it, roiling and bubbling beneath the surface, breathing life into the very place they stood. Magic seems like a distant memory to him, blurred around the edges and almost dreamlike, as if it had never really been his memory to begin with. Even the darkness that night brought upon them in this unfamiliar place gives him no relief. It is unfamiliar and almost unforgiving against his skin, the way the faint starlight coils and turns onto the blue-black of his coat, the shadows of nightfall attempting to comfort him.  All he knew were the caves and their dark, twisting mouths that he now longs for, feeling vulnerable and strangely chilled for such a warm summer’s night. He a trespasser, thrown unwillingly into a world that he is not a part of, and he wonders if the magic that thrums just beneath the surface recognizes them as intruders. He turns to Faulkor. They will not be here long enough to find out. The darkness – true darkness – calls to them. It is hauntingly beautiful, crooning to them as they begin to walk wearily through the dense forest. It is summer – Balto can feel it on his skin, the warmth and the humidity, though the actual meaning of the word is lost in his mind. Summer means longer days and shorter nights, which means sunrise cannot be too far off. His skin shivers at the idea of sunlight searing and burning his flesh, causing his eyes to ache terribly and his head to pound – they must find shelter at once, before they become trapped beneath the golden glow of daybreak. Unfortunately, they cannot walk quickly.  The new world they have entered is unfamiliar beneath their hooves, their bones bruised and bodies battered from the shattering of their caverns they so expertly haunted. The younger stallion does not let his mind think for a moment that their slow and tedious pace was set by Faulkor; their wounds were unforgiving, and that is what causes their travel to be sluggish and painful. His mind could not even fathom that the shadow king would be any weaker than he was - it was impossible. Relying only on their sense of smell, the two limp with stiff legs and joints through the underbrush of the forest, waiting for the comforting scent of damp and stale air to fill their nostrils. -- once the king of beasts but now they feast on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.

@[Faulkor]

[Faulkor]

 

He waits, patient as ever, as his companion finds his feet. He keeps his bleary eyes trained on the shadows. His ears swivel to catch sounds in the underbrush. They are too far from the safety of the darkness. Still, despite gritty joints and shocked senses, Faulkor stands guard over his only friend.  He can almost feel the sun prying at the seams of the night, ripping through the stitched up stars and toothy tree tops. His magic will have to wait.  Balto finds his feet, and the pair stagger deeper into the forest. Their pace is painfully slow, but they both feel the urgency of the waning night. They need the darkness. They need the dank, hard stone. They are prisoners to the shadow.  He does not know how long they traveled through thick trees before the ground suddenly sounds hollow beneath their hooves. Faulkor steps more deliberately to be sure, and muffled echoes confirm. Relief washes over him. This cave is none like the ones he and Balto knew, but perhaps this is a blessing. There is a world that calls for conquering here, and they have spent far too long hidden in the dark.  They find the opening, a garish, toothy mouth that yearns to swallow them up, and they enter. Faulkor pauses, looking back into the faintest glow of morning.  “I will have it.” he decides. Magic will be his.  F A U L K O R

@[Balto]

[Balto]

It is silent in the deeper, murkier parts of the forest. Even the crickets do not play their nightly melody among the dense parts of the underbrush, their voices hushed as the evening begins to grow richer and darker. The chill of autumn has scrubbed away the once bright green of the forest, bringing forth profound colors of maroon and brown, with streaks of brilliant gold and orange thrown in. A mist, lazy and unmoving, hangs near the trunks of the towering pines, creating a scene that is both beautiful and haunting. Beneath the thick cloak of dried, brittle vines and the harboring cloud of mist, shrouded beneath the heightening obscurity of nightfall, the scattered boulders and rocks give way to a great, yawning blackness. The cavern is small, hidden by the thick bracken and foliage that surrounds it.   A rattling sigh can be heard as Balto exhales, his breath clouding before him as it leaves the blackness of his lips. He lumbers forth, following obediently the only companion he has ever remembered – Faulkor had brought him into the world of darkness before, only Faulkor could do it again.   Their hooves are hollow as the sound reverberates from somewhere deep within the caverns’ stone cage. His hooves click against the smooth, damp stone beneath him, accompanied by the soothing sound of water dripping rhythmically.    Drip, drop. Drip, drop.   He lingers within the protection of coiled darkness that surrounds him, his figure barely traceable within the shadows that soothingly press against his blue mottled skin – but he is there. As they settle within their darkening world, his searing blue gaze attempts to stare out into the world beyond, though his pupils do not allow him to see much. Even within the night sky and the brush of dawn on the horizon, the world outside of the cave it is still too bright, and he is far too vulnerable to look any longer.   A breeze alights against his face, the cold and frigid air entering their dark tomb and running quiet, icy fingers through the tangled mass of Balto’s thick mane and tail. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, the scent of the forest and crisp, outside air filling him. Memories flood him, distant and blurred ones, of a forest – they’re almost unfamiliar in his mind, like they were someone else’s memories all together. He attempts desperately to place the distorted faces that flash in his mind, but the details are all too hazy. Wolves, a lake, a pale golden face.   But all he knows is the darkness, is the caves.   His memories fall away as the breeze dies. He is met with the darkness once again, crooning shadows that are like family to him, twisting and turning lovingly between his legs with soothing strokes, coaxing him to stay. He wonders what the sun feels like. What of the ocean’s salty spray? The stinging rain of a thunderstorm?   It’s been so long…   His distant gaze clicks back into focus, a single ear flipping backwards to listen to the stirrings of the one beside him. The black stallion’s voice is raspy and rattling as it leaves his throat, though to others the statement may have been unclear, Balto understands. He snorts, vapor billowing around his face as he finally turns his gaze slowly to the shadow that lingers beside him.   “And so you shall.”   The magic that groans beneath the lands they have stumbled upon is unmistakable. It brings a familiarity over the blue roan stallion that he has not felt in nearly a decade. The magic stirs and boils, fervent in its prowess. His bones ache for it.   “Tell me what to do.” -- once the king of beasts but now they feast on thoughts beneath his vacant crown.

@[Faulkor]