"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
The labored breath is the only thing that gives him away here.
The only thing that distinguishes him from the darkness that gathers around him.
The wheezing, rasping breath. Because he had tried to summon a portal that might take him home to Pangea and it had failed. It had failed and it had left him drained and he feels like something less than as he sways here in the shadows. Beneath the cover of darkness. He may as well not exist at all.
And perhaps he might not have if not for the bright yellow eyes. And those traitorous lungs.
He should have walked. At least then he could have stopped to rest along the way. And why had he been in such a hurry to get back to Pangea? The fog curls around him, licking up his legs, hugging his sides, and any passers by would have been forgiven for thinking him fog pressed into the shape of a horse rather than tangible darkness. It brings him some comfort, his fog. Sometimes he swears it speaks to him.
But there is something off about him. Something not all there.
The fog is not speaking, he is merely imagining it.
The fog is not speaking, it is merely the sound of his own breath.
Like a living thing.
Something independent from the rest of him.
Something with a mind and a will of its own.
Because he does not want to admit that it belongs to him. Because he wants no part of it.
And yet it inhabits his chest. He carves out his lungs. And it feels strange and pointless that something as dark as he should have to go through the motions of living the way the rest of them do. It seems pointless that something as dark as he should have a heart and lungs and blood.
And he groans, too. Just once. But it is these things that give him away. The way he reacts to the pain and the exhaustion. And he should lie down to sleep but he does not want to risk being trampled. So, he stands and he breathes and he lurks and he waits for daylight.
His breath - that wheezing, rattling, disturbing breath is what draws the other to him.
Darkness had once been his solitude; a comfort amidst the trials of life. A friend, cold and welcoming. Now it is his master. They are no longer equals as they once were and the blue mottled stallion plays the dutiful role of a puppet to the darkness and its wishes, and all the demons that lie in between.
The cavern of cold stone where he and his demons sleep is far behind him. There are nights where he ventures beyond the damp dark and they allow the breeze to seep into his dull skin, gifting him with moments of clarity in the midst of the chaos that rages like wildfire in his mind. They are silent tonight, but the blue roan stallion is no fool; they are there, hovering in the familiar pitch of night, watching and waiting. They are never gone, not really, and a semblance of what he once was tries to claw its way to the surface in the quiet time he has been given without their voices whispering dastardly commands in his ears. How sad, that even in his time of quiet solitude, he is drawn to shadowy nightmares as if he cannot function without them.
They are not beside him, but he can hear their laughter far beyond in the deepest pits of the forest, gallivanting around within the terrible fog as they escort their pet on his nightly walk.
The breathing is what he follows - unafraid and blindly, like a moth to a flame - but it is the groan that causes the stallion to freeze, his icy blue gaze picking through the intangible darkness, attempting to sift through what is reality and what is his own nightmare. Little does he know that tonight, the two have merged into one.
His spine twitches, fear beginning to prick at the back of his neck as he inhales shakily, black-tipped ears pressing forwards. The fear is a familiar feeling but it is nothing like the foreboding dread that locks onto him, weighing him down and pressing so hard against him he feels as though his lungs might collapse. Within the darkness, two feverish yellow eyes hover ominously - almost like a firefly’s glow, but Balto is too smart (too broken) to believe it to be anything else but some type of monstrosity. He swallows hard, lost within the depths of the two eyes, fear rattling against his chest. And yet, strangely, he finds himself curious. Maybe tonight is the night he finally dies.
They laugh at his thought - he can hear them, trumpeting loudly yet with no bodies: You’ll never die.
His demons do not have eyes like this one - they do not have eyes at all, in fact. They are merely shadows that do not even take a shape, making sounds without mouths and without teeth. He stares at the being, fixated and unmoving, the sound of his own demons echoing through the forest like a chanting chorus behind the piercing yellow eyes. They too, are drawn to this being, for they are merely shadow themselves. For a moment he debates turning and walking away back to his cave, then realizes that it doesn’t matter what he decides - the darkness and the shadows follow him everywhere. This one would be no different.
So he remains still and stoic, finding solace in the chittering of the familiar shadows in the background. “You’re not like the others,” comes the low and nearly inaudible groan of his unused voice, then clenching his teeth with thought. “Are you real?”Or are you just another part of me?
He stares.
Acutely aware of the things that move in the shadows. Almost like he feels them move through him, too. Because they are him and he is them, that impenetrable darkness, all that heavy air.
He sees the roan stallion long before he sees him. The thing in the dark watches, unblinking, as he moves through the forest’s underbelly, careful. And the shadow thing appreciates this because he is careful, too. Because his own movement is often stilted, stunted by phantom pain. (And he calls it phantom pain because he cannot say for sure if there really is bone and sinew beneath the surface of his shadow-skin, only assumes that there must be with how fiercely he aches, how feverishly he shakes with exhaustion).
It is almost certainly the rattling breath that gives him away. The eyes are almost certainly an afterthought, further proof that the shadows have come to life. They have gathered, hunched themselves into the shape of a horse, and spit him out. Spit him out into the fog that curls around his legs, licks up his sides. His constant companion. Where this roan stallion has his demons, the shadow thing has his fog. Although, of the two of them, only one of them has any semblance of control over the thing that follows him.
He watches, wheezing, as the roan stallion ventures closer. And the shadow thing’s spine bows in anticipation of what will follow. He thinks briefly of the creature he’d met at the river’s edge, how feverishly his exhaustion had sunk its wicked teeth into his neck, bled him dry of whatever strength he’d had left.
But this stallion does not try to touch him. He keeps his distance, though he’s still close enough that the shadow thing can smell him. He smells of darkness, too. Damp darkness. A cave, perhaps, of which the shadow thing knows plenty. And were the roan stallion to stretch out a curious nose, he would find nothing.
And he speaks and the shadows listen, gathering dense around them. No, he is not like the others. And no, he is not real. Not real like the roan stallion is real. But the shadow thing tilts his peculiar, featureless head, flashing those lethal teeth in a kind of smile. And when he opens up that ink-black mouth, it’s almost as there will be nothing but a rush of air.
“No,” he rasps, the voice thin. Weak. Tired. Sick. “I am an idea.”
He drags in another rattling breath. “Do you know much about ideas?”
He watches with unblinking eyes as the shadow beast tilts its head curiously. Balto’s jaw clenches at the gesture - so innocent, but it didn’t seem right on this being - and he feels his muscles tensing beneath his skin. Not that there was anywhere for him to go where he would not be followed.
The voice that answers him is nothing like he is expecting.
It is thin and strained as if the air itself is too thick for it to pass through. It’s a terrible voice, one that causes a visible shudder to spiral down Balto’s spine. It is so unlike the demons that plague his mind; their voices are full and strong, even in their diabolical whispers, that the blue stallion can do nothing but believe the pair of yellow eyes that hover eerily on a shape of what seems like another horse.
The horse-made-of-shadow does not rush to him like the demons do; it does not swathe his brittle and malnourished body with its presence. In fact, the only movement Balto can see is the gentle swaying of the fog and shadow, moving to occupy space and keep the shape of whatever it is before him. It may not be of his own mind, but he knows that it is not of this world - not the world he was born in, anyways.
Do you know much about ideas?
Balto remains silent and still, outwardly unphased by the writhing shadows and darkness, but could feel his pulse in every inch of his body. He wonders if the thing could hear it too, throbbing loudly in his ears and in his head, calling to it like a beacon in the night. He knows the shadow beast expects an answer, but the pause between them becomes heavy and dark with anticipation. Answer him, his demons threaten, their voices suddenly loud and commanding in his ears. He swallows hard, his gaze never falling away from those yellow irises as the hot, putrid breath of his insanity drips down his back.
Finally - it may have been ages that the being has waited - he finds his voice.
“No,” he confesses plainly, his voice almost a whisper, “I am only a puppet; my ideas are not my own.” As if to commend him on his answer, Balto feels a tongue lick at his jaw before the chittering of their fang-filled jaws click beside him, fading away until they are trapezing through the forest around them once again, always watching. He shudders visibly, but will not allow his gaze to fall from the being before him.
He is peculiar, the roan stallion.
How rare it is that something so thoroughly piques the shadow thing’s interest. How rare it is that something makes him curious. In the silence that swallows them up, he can hear the heartbeat. And there, in that first instant, he thinks that it belongs to him. But if there is a heart buried someplace in all that darkness, there is nothing for it to rail against. So it must belong to the roan stallion. How ragged a sound it is, Jamie thinks, as he sinks closer. Beckoned by the sound of it.
He does not require sustenance, the shadow thing. There is nothing to feed. The darkness feasts on itself. But he has a memory of his sister sinking her teeth into the flesh of a rabbit, feeding on the blood. Perhaps if he gets close enough he will be able to smell it, the life force careening through the roan stallion.
He move so slowly, Jamie, the joints – real or imagined – aching as he goes. Each step coaxes out a swallowed groan, sounds that get all dammed up in his chest. He must rest, the shadow thing, if he has any hope at all of making it back to Pangea.
Then again, being trapped here would not be the worst thing, because the creatures here are infinitely more interesting. Again, he tilts his head. A puppet, the roan stallion says. Merely a puppet. For whom, the shadow thing wants to ask but doesn’t. He imagines the power it would take to dip fingers into the mind of another, manipulate them. What a thrill it is to imagine it. It fills all the empty space within him with the thrum of something winged and brilliant and dark.
Close enough now that he feels the shudder that steals through the roan stallion and he smiles his ink-black smile.
His father gave him a name but it feels so terribly far removed now. Jamie, such an ordinary name for so dark a thing. So he exhales a dark breath and asks in that same sick, sick voice. “What name would you give me? If your ideas were your own.”
Sinks closer still, like he’s going to curl himself around the roan stallion, swallow him up in all of his darkness. “And whose puppet are you?”
The shadow thing is inching forward on silent hooves - moving as if it is only pretending to be real, an act almost. It attempts to appear how it should but cannot truly do so because it is made of darkness and shadow, pieces of him spiraling from the center in inky tendrils - like fingertips, Balto muses, that perhaps wish to stroke the gaunt skin of his face. He wonders if he’d let it and for one wistful moment, he almost hopes the beast would.
It smiles at him and Balto finds himself hoping that it is pleased with him. The thought brings a furrow to the stallion’s brow, dark creases of shadow falling across his confused face, hating himself for desperately wishing for the approval of this thing that has no name. Behind the comforting twist of it’s shadows, Balto can hear the familiar chittering of his own demons who giggle excitedly over his plight, for they have always found his inner battle to be the most delicious part of torturing him.
He tries to think of Keeper - her soft skin, warm and welcoming while her lips press into each of the cold parts of his body, bringing light into his darkness - but his icy blue gaze falls onto the piercing yellow and she is forgotten, a dream of a dream in the back of his broken and blurred mind. It speaks as it closes in on him, feeling uncannily like prey being cornered, shivering but frozen in place. They stand before each other - one a shadow of the other - and Balto cannot help but feel he is staring at his own reflection, his true self; all blackness and shadow and darkness.
“You’re me,” he tells it weakly, lips trembling. The part of him that he denies, the part of him he fights every single day. “You’re darkness.” Not evil, not wicked, not immoral. Simply the embodiment of darkness and shadow, twisted and broken and weak; the mere absence of light. Closer still Darkness comes and Balto’s eyes flutter closed, a rattling sigh leaving him - not in fear, no, but in hopeful resignation that Darkness would swallow him whole, engulf him until he too is nothing but shadow and pitch. Please.
I don’t want to fight anymore.
‘Whose puppet are you?’
They whoop and cackle in his ears, brushing themselves against his trembling body that is theirs to control.
Balto knows Darkness does not wish to know so that he could save him, but he cannot deny him. “Theirs.” The stallion’s eyes wearily open and fall into the deep blackness of the forest behind, where he can hear their gallivanting and howling. The Darkness may not be able to see or hear them, much like everyone else, but Balto stupidly hopes that maybe there would be a knowing look in the yellow irises - compassion, even. He doubts he will find it there but he meets the sharp gaze desperately, remaining perfectly still despite the want (the need) to reach out and bury himself beneath the shadows like a cloak; to succumb to the willowy and intangible darkness.
This is the first time he has ever been accused of such a thing. He holds the accusation like a marble between his teeth. He lets it slide like bile down the long column of his throat. He has believed himself to be a figment of their collective imaginations, but he has never believed himself to be them. But perhaps the roan stallion is right. The shadow thing does not pretend to understand magic beyond his fog and shadows, only knows that his mother’s is far greater. He does not know what she is capable of, Anaxarete.
Perhaps he is right.
And the shadow thing grins, all those sharp teeth in that ink black mouth. How it pleases him to think it. Because it means that the pain is not his.
“I am you,” the shadow thing muses. The breath rattles and the ribcage aches and the heart – real or imagined – chugs something painful. There is no relief in it. Knowing that the pain is not his does nothing to alleviate it. He grits his teeth with the realization, closes up his mouth, and there is nothing left of him but the eyes as he studies the stallion.
He has never contemplated murder, Jamie. But the pain is unbearable.
“Are you in pain?” he asks the stallion. Because he is not rash or impulsive. He is measured, methodical, this shadow thing. And he tilts his peculiar head and sinks a little closer still. Until he can smell him. The fear and the sorrow and the murky darkness. And the fog twists through both of their legs, snakes its way up the roan stallion’s back, spreads down his shoulders. Jamie can feel its embrace, because they are the same.
“If I am you, my pain must be your pain,” he wheezes, blinking those big yellow eyes. There is something sinister in the voice and he makes no effort to conceal it.
He drags in one long rattling breath, studying him through the dark. He tries to touch him then but finds that being two parts of the same whole does not make him any more tangible. His edges go soft where they touch the stallion’s shoulder. He feels nothing. He is vapor.
“Aren’t you tired?” he murmurs, almost wistful. “I’m so tired,” he whispers and closes his eyes, disappearing altogether.
The wind howls ethereally through the spindles of pine tree branches, haunting and lonesome. It trickles through the thick and tangled mess of the stallion’s black mane, twisting it soothingly through bony fingertips. Their voices are in the wind, hushed and terrible, whispering in his ears and sending sweet kisses across his blue mottled neck to the bridge of his nose. They are here with him, hungry and waiting and curious, drawn to the Darkness just as Balto is himself, more of them patient and brooding within the deeper parts of the forest.
The rattling breath of the beast draws his attention from his own shadows and onto the very real one before him, once again captivated by the piercing yellow eyes. The terrible mouth closes, its grin disappearing into fog and darkness. Are you in pain? A question with a simple answer, though the soft look of surprise is not lost on the gaunt edges of Balto’s face. No one has asked him; no one has cared.
How poetic that this embodiment of darkness and shadow is the one to ask, to peruse, to pry.
The fog twists through the stallion’s legs like an old friend and even in his fear, the taut muscles grow relaxed subtly, finding some sort of horrifying comfort in the way it holds him, slowly trickling across the warmth of his skin. He does not resist and instead remains still as the darkness spreads across him, running like a cloak as it drips across his back, knitting together at the seams. There is no warmth in this embrace, only coldness and chills, and feels very much like a coffin in the way it grips him.
If I am you, your pain must be my pain.
The voice is foreboding, ominous, and Balto’s bright blue gaze comes to rest wearily into those calculating yellow eyes. He does not speak, only listens, as he realizes how trapped he has truly become.
In the near shadow, laughter floats to his ears.
Balto’s eyes close as it reaches to touch him, but the shape of him dissipates into the mottled blue of his shoulder. The stallion’s eyes then open slowly, glancing down at his shoulder then back up to the shadow just as its own eyes flutter shut.
Tired.
His age should have long since brought peppers of grey to his muzzle and eyes, and cause his bones to creak and his back to sway. But it does not. Age and time are endless, stretching so far into the future that the roan stallion can see nothing but what is before him now: darkness, shadow, demons. There is no end to his plight; a recurring nightmare that rises up like a mountain only to crumble on top of him, then rise all the same. In this way - in this living but not really living - he is so very tired.
“All I want is to rest.” A pause, a sharp intake of breath, a thought.
The darkness has no conscience.
The shadow things feels no flicker of guilt, no tremor of remorse, when surprise registers on the blue stallion’s face.
The shadow thing had not asked because it cared.
No, the shadow thing is implicitly selfish. He had asked only because of his own pain. Because he wanted somewhere to place the blame. He is the blue stallion and the blue stallion is him and their pain is shared. The shadow thing does not want it anymore.
How keen he is to shrug it off.
There is some wicked stirring at the very center of him.
Some monstrous thing that trembles in the cavern of his chest.
He is no monster, Jamie.
Except that he so often is.
He can no longer convince himself otherwise, no matter how he tries.
But his efforts have been weak as of late.
He is a monster.
He is this blue stallion’s monster. He is the darkness that plagues him and the blue stallion is the pain in joints that he does not know are real. This blue stallion is responsible for the rattling in his lungs when he draws breath. And there is some brilliant flash of anger, blame. A sharp spike of hatred before it is gone and it is just the two of them and the blue stallion’s demons. He’s got his mouth pressed against the stallion’s shoulder but there’s nothing there but the idea of touch. His breath like some soft gust of wind when he exhales.
The fog grows denser as it curls itself sweetly around them, ducking under the blue stallion’s neck, splintering down his chest and then it comes crawling back to Jamie. They are intertwined. The fog is every bit as tangible as Jamie, which is to say hardly at all, but it shackles them together all the same.
Will he help? Still, the bold yellow eyes are closed. If not for the fog draped loose around his neck, he might as well not have been there at all.
Ordinarily the answer would be a resounding no, the shadow creature is a selfish thing. But it is precisely because he is a selfish thing that he pries open his eyes and nods his featureless head. Such a peculiar thing they make, the two of them in the dense darkness. Again, Jamie exhales a ragged breath and brings his cheek to rest against the blue stallion’s. Still barely there at all. The idea of touch instead of the real thing.
“We will rest,” he wheezes and he commands the fog to tighten its grip. It slips up the blue stallion’s neck and administers a steady pressure to the windpipe.
He feels himself disappearing, piece by piece, encompassed and enveloped by the fog and its master, shuddering beneath its deadly yet oh so delicate fingers. Balto sighs desperately, as if air wasn’t enough to keep his own heart beating and his lungs breathing; dark lids fall over crystal eyes, so tired, so very tired. He can no longer put up a fight against their howling chants that accompany the haunting spectres that surround him, just like he can no longer resist the promise of rest from this Darkness that he has found within his forest.
The shadow dances between them intricately, tangible but gone in a breath, fixating around his body and vibrating with life. A life that Balto knows nothing of - only of darkness and damp stone and putrid musk, of blood and shattered bones, and the warmth of her against him and beneath him and all around him.
There is nothing but subtleties of touch against the blue of his skin, gentle wisps of darkness and shadow that perhaps press a bit more intentional than the rest of the swirling fog. But Balto hears him, his Darkness, despite being unable to truly understand how this Darkness has come to be, and he is nothing but a willing servant.
We will rest, comes the reply and Balto breathes out heavily in relief. Finally.
His own demons are risen awake in a deafening chorus in response, not at all appeased by the events that now unfold before them. They clamor their way through the darkness of the woods and fervently move their way across him, attempting to pull him away from what they once wanted him to be a part of. Despite his demons and their tortures, they selfishly wish for him to remain alive.
Balto smiles - a smile that is tired and distant and muddled - as a sudden pressure takes hold across his throat, his breathing becoming rasping and wheezing. Soon it brings him to the ground and despite the way his lungs cry out for oxygen and how his muscles begin to ache with lack of blood, the smile remains.
Even when the world all turns black, his smile does not fade.
jamie
