cut my teeth and made a killing; any

[insidious]

Burning, burning, burning.
 
Summer heat burns through the skin of the purple woman, and she feels as though her blood is boiling just from the sunlight. She has to move, move, move and get herself out of the sun before her innards begin to cook and her blood bursts from her arteries and capillaries and all of the other veins that create a complex web just under her skin. There is a copse of trees up ahead... no--a forest? She cannot tell from the distance but she knows she has to run, run, run and get there before she begins to end.
 
It is most definitely a forest, she decides as she grows closer to the looming pines. A forest she can get lost in, a forest she can lose herself in. She just has to get there first, before she burns up like an ant under a magnifying glass. Is there smoke? She doesn't smell smoke but that doesn't mean there isn't smoke. She is going to burn, burn, burn if she doesn't hurry up, and there will be nothing anyone can do to save her.
 
Why would they want to save the crazy, burning girl anyways?
 
She is in such a hurry she nearly stumbles over her enormous hooves as she enters the trees, desperate to get deep enough within them that she cannot feel the sun's oppressive heat threatening to strangle her any longer. Photophobia. Thermophobia. The words bounce around in her head, though she isn't quite sure of what they mean. They're words her mother used, years and years ago, when In was just a child. She had been born amongst caverns and forests deeper than the eye can imagine, and hadn't even seen sunlight until she was over a year old. Caverns are chilly, damp; can you blame her for fearing the heat, as well?
 
Finally, she is deep enough within the trees that when she looks up, she can no longer see the sun anymore. Good, good, good, she thinks, heart thundering as she slows to a halt. Her mother had warned her to only go out at night if the sun and heat scared her so, but In had never been good at following directions. Maybe she'll learn one day to stop chasing her fears, but clearly today was not the day.
 
There is a rustle nearby and In startles, but she is not afraid of another horse. They aren't scary, even the ones with draconic wings and fangs that want to rip her throat out. "Hello?" she calls softly, and she hopes she doesn't look like she's just been running for her life (spoiler alert: she does).

[sleaze]

I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife He’d burned, once or twice. He shows no scars for it – this took place in another world (another life, maybe – he’s never sure), but he recalls the feeling of it distinctly, the miasma of smoke, the heat licking and melting his skin. It had been horrible, but it hadn’t been the worst of the things (worst: the clown with the Glasgow smile, the way he couldn’t drown, she loves us--). (Worst: the madness that came haunting when he realized none of it was real, maybe. When the memories slicked into dreams and he couldn’t distinguish. Alive but how?) He isn’t thinking of fire when she comes crashing through the woods. He is thinking of nothing, as much as he can (memories dart and swim like silverfish, and he lets them – there are not many memories he likes to linger on). He startles when she comes crashing through the woods, a streak of purple and wild eyes, and he can hear her ragged breaths from here. He looks the way she came, looks for some monster, some menace chasing her, but sees nothing save for a few broken branches. Curious, but he is not one to judge – lord knows he’s seen enough invisible monsters. She calls out, and he decides he’d best make himself known before she mistakes him for a monster. “Hello,” he says, stepping closer, moving into her line of sight. He’s a regular enough horse, a dark purple (almost black, unless the light hits him right), no physical traits. “Are you all right?” he asks, as if he’s in any position to help her if she wasn’t. sleaze cancer x garbage

[insidious]

You're safe. Safe, safe, safe. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

In's chest heaves as she draws in breath after gasping breath, trying to fill her lungs and control her shaking. She should know better by now, honestly. This happens every time, and yet she continues to push herself and push herself to the point of a breakdown. She's just not ready; her mind isn't ready, her body isn't ready. When the sunlight touches her skin she feels as though she is going to go up in flames and she knows it is the furthest thing from healthy but she can't change the way she feels. 

Funnily enough, she had a normal childhood, a normal upbringing. Everything about her is completely normal if you look past her purple exterior and irrational fear of the glowing star in the sky. Sure, being raised in caves may not quite be the norm here in Beqanna, but where she is from it is the way horses are raised. Her homeland doesn't even have a name like this place does but that, too, was normal. Her dam and sire were normal, loving parents, though they didn't understand their daughter's eccentricities when it came to daylight. 

There's just something about her...

Turns out she was right--it was another horse she heard in the underbrush, though he is looking at her like she is crazy and she can't say that she blames him. "Um," she starts, unsure of how to continue without sounding absolutely insane. She's not insane. She knows what she's afraid of and why she's afraid of it (in her eyes), but she doesn't know how to convey it without sounding bonkers. He'll probably want to have her committed. 

The truth, perhaps?
"I'm, uh, In. Insidious. My parents called me In or Inny, so In has kind of stuck." Dear lord child, pick a name and stick with it. "Insidious after my fears, because my fears are insidious inside my head."

That's enough, girl. He already thinks you're crazy, no need to lay it on quite so thick.

[sleaze]

I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife They’re alike, in that way. Sleaze’s fears are a hundredfold, and all of strange things he cannot explain. Things that happened but didn’t. A world where he lived and moved and prayed and prayed and prayed and died. (One of Beqanna’s simple oddities, a quest that grabbed him by the throat and showed him madness. Toys and girls and other things. It should have been precious and light and whimsical, not full of awful things, drowning, smoke, a name carved on his belly.) He fears things that do no exist on this plane of existence, and the knowledge of that does nothing to quell them. (Because he went back, once – another quest. The same beasts to face. The same aching madness crawling over his skin like cockroaches.) He knows so – too – well how it is to fear the irrational, to have the knowledge nestled in every heartbeat. He doesn’t know her fears, of course. But he can recognize a kinship with her, especially in this obvious state. Especially when she speaks. My fears are insidious inside my head. He almost laughs, which would have been terrible and likely sent her running again. Not for finding any humor in her words – lord knows he doesn’t – but because it’s like his own thoughts, echoing. “My name is Sleaze,” he says, “and I confess, I have a few fears running around in my own head, too.” He tries for flippancy, and almost makes it, but his throat closes at the last word and it chokes out, betraying the truth of it. sleaze cancer x garbage