i’ve been both a saint & a viper
Jamie speaks his name again and he visibly withdraws, turning away from the sound of his own name and the voice that speaks it. The blue-black stallion lowers his head, the thick darkness of his forelock hiding the bruises and blood that stains his forehead, where two protrusions begin to form just on either side.
He shudders and shies away from the touch but, weak and starving, he allows it. Balto ignores the rampant hunger that gnaws at him more intensely now, the scent of Jamie’s solidified muscle and blood attracting something even darker, something that Balto cannot recognize or name.
Fog curls around them, passionately wrapping around the black of his legs and almost tracing where the deep black now reaches into his shoulders and flank, as if he had swam within the darkness. It’s enough to stir him momentarily, his crystal eyes opening to peer at the familiar tightness of darkness and shadow as it drapes around him like a comforting cloak.
His breath is a rattling sigh in his throat, his gaze slowly lifting to Jamie though he cannot find the strength to raise his head at all.
Death, Jamie says, and at the name, his own monsters writhe somewhere in the shadows. Balto can hear them, always just a breath away, feeding him intrusive thoughts that make him sick to his stomach; make him feel vile and corrupt as if he is one of them. Drink his blood, they whisper to him heatedly, and Balto winces.
“How?” comes the feeble reply, strained and broken. “I deserve death,” he croaks painfully, “but I cannot die.”
In his ear, a disembodied voice chuckles.
Balto
@[jamie]