"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
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
She drifts away from Hyaline, feeling untethered from all the things that usually anchored her. Atrox, her children that lived there—they meant the world to her, but she is still a creature of habit. Her tameness has always been a peculiar thing—she could be content to yield to Atrox, to curb her previously licentious ways (almost), but there was still a daring part of her that wanted to push her boundaries. The dark was unsettling and exhilarating, and she did not have the strength to ignore it. It drew her away from warmth and security, as it so often did—every mistake she has ever made has been because of the dark, real or figurative.
She is not sure what she is searching for; never knows until she actually finds it. Her wants and desires are not so simple, cannot often be put into words—and even still when she finds it she cannot always explain why she wants it.
It is something beyond wanting what you cannot have, or wanting what does not want you.
She wants to find what it is that hides in the dark and see how sharp its teeth might be.
She follows a path in the forest, her pale glow radiating only enough to light the steps just ahead of her. A strange sight to be sure, to see the vividly white and golden form of an angel in this endless night, and yet she does not seem to notice. Like a beacon, she invites them in. She listens for sounds, waits for her skin to prick with anticipation; just as she could never resist the dark, she knows too there is a part of the darkness that cannot help but cave to the temptation of light.
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
Even though the unending night is gone, darkness continues to ravage him.
It spreads from the inky blackness of his legs and spills over through his chest and shoulders, splashed across him as it grows, nearly erasing any of the blue mottled coat he once had. Horns had begun to splice through his forehead, spindly and dangerously sharp - naturally aggressive and meant for tearing flesh. They are not even near their full height but still branch from his onyx forehead ominously.
He is hungry. He has been for weeks now. It keeps him from sleeping, making him wander all of the forest with a glazed look, forcing himself to eat but finding nothing to satisfy the pains that roil like thunder in his belly. The feeling agonizes him, along with the disembodied whispering that encourages him to find sustenance elsewhere.
Blood, they suggest with haunting howls.
As their voices ring in his ears, movement in the forest draws the stallion from his nightmarish reverie.
A soft glow, calming and inviting, draws the creature in.
The glow, however, is not what makes him continue following her.
He wonders if he is imagining the sound of her heartbeat in his ears (or if it is just his own) and the thought of blood rushing through veins is enough to make him salivate. Balto inhales deeply, shuddering, and halts his steps towards her. The voices protest, dragging their claws across his dark skin and snapping angrily in his ears.
“It’s not safe here,” comes his voice from the shadows, unaware if she has already noticed his presence or not. It’s not safe anywhere, they remind him, if you’re there. Balto wonders then how easily he might be able to splice her flawless pale skin - would it take only one swipe or two?
He winces visibly, groaning loudly. He takes a few steps back, swinging his head as if it would rid him from all the terrible thoughts that plague him - as if it would make the burning in his stomach disappear. Her blood, they suggest to him with laughter and the stallion champs his teeth at nothing. He attempts to forget her; to let her go into the night or for him to turn away, but is unable.
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
There is the feeling of not being alone, of eyes on her that she cannot see, and she stills. The air around them is eerily quiet, with a faint breeze that stirs the pale feathers of her wings, but all she hears is the familiar beat of her own heart (it’s a steady rhythm, still, since she is not one to startle so easily). Her vision shifts, something she rarely does—she has been blind so many different times over the course of all her lifetimes, she did not care anymore whether she was looking into the dark or not—but the twisted creatures that had been roaming and ravaging the lands had left her feeling slightly less confident. They were different than the dark and malice that she was used to; while she did not think everyone had good in them, she did not think they had anything in them at all.
In the infrared range she finds him, and she cannot say with any certainty that this was not one of the creatures she should be cautious of. There is something almost otherworldly about him, as if he is not meant to be here— as if he was trapped on the wrong side of the veil.
But once he speaks, she is reassured; he is just a regular monster, the kind that she has known her entire life.
She is afraid of him, but perhaps not as much as she should be.
“I have never been safe,” she tells him, her voice a gilded melody against the heaviness of the dark, and there is a smile that shapes around the words. She follows where his voice had come from, only stepping close enough so that she might see him better without the aid of infrared vision, making out his shape through the shadows. She angles a haloed head toward him, the softness of her aura illuminating the stretch of space between them, alighting the tines of his newly grown antlers. When he groans she cannot stop the look of concern that shadows her face, tentatively stepping forward when she asks, “Are you hurt?”
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
The breeze brings her scent to him and his paper-thin nostrils inhale deeply, his chest shuddering. His blue mottled neck curls as he presses his chin to his chest, attempting to control a sudden urge that he does not quite understand and refuses to give in to. Perhaps he is trapped, suspended between this world and the next, tortured each time he takes a breath.
Her glow casts itself onto the growing darkness of his skin and he turns his face from her. Had her eyes been able to see the terrible gauntness of his face and the cruel blood that stains his skin, perhaps the fear she felt would be more intense, more warranted. But she cannot, so even with her beautiful light falling across him, she cannot see the way his antlers’ shadows splice across his thin and malnourished face.
He wonders if she can sense his hunger, his necessity for something to calm the quell in his belly. Can she sense that he is trying to keep himself from hunting her as he trembles in the light of her glow? His dark mouth twitches at her reply - no emotion is there, but perhaps there is a chuff of laughter garbled in his throat. Was he in agreement, or perhaps entertained by her naivety?
She steps forward and he immediately backs away. His monsters bite at his flesh, urging him forward. He relents, for whatever sickness has overtaken him has not quite become powerful enough for him to be unable to resist fully. The look of concern that falls across her lovely pale face makes his stomach clench; she already shows so much compassion for a stranger.
How sad it will be to watch her die. The voices share with him uncaringly, kissing him coldly on his temple. Balto grimaces, grinding his teeth together furiously.
“I am not,” he lies as his body groans for her - imagining the taste of her blood and muscle on his teeth and tongue, sickening himself at the thought while simultaneously lusting for it. He swallows hard. He used to be misleading; a stallion plagued by mind only. But now, he is becoming the monster within physically, his intentions now for all to see. “Are you not afraid?” The question is genuine, unthreatening. He already thinks he knows the answer - if she were truly afraid, she would not linger before him as she does now.
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
He steps away, melting back into the dark, and she feels a sting of almost hurt flash inside her chest. It felt like rejection for him to move away like that, and even though she does not know him there is still that deep-rooted need to appease him. Her head lowers, the light of her halo mixing with the dark around them to cast strange shadows across her face, sharpening the otherwise soft, ethereal angles. When she looks up there is an apology in her eyes, though it does not reach her tongue.
She is full of apologies and a bone-deep need to please, but she fights it away, for now.
She is already fractured into so many pieces, scattered like broken glass, and whatever was left her already belonged to someone else.
“Are you sure?” she says with another thin, hesitant smile, looking at him in a way that suggests she does not believe him. Despite her earlier caution, she finds herself once more closing the space the two of them had left with their respective steps back, ignoring the nervous way her heart flutters—a warning, the kind that she always ignores. “If you’re hurt I could try to heal you.” She does not always offer such a thing so freely to strangers, but something about him pulls at her; it is not pity, as she is not really the type to pity anyone.
It’s a magnetic pull, the darkness of him drawing her out of the light. The kind of pull she can’t ignore.
“What makes you think I am not afraid?” She asks, and this time there is a smile and a laugh evident in her question. She is afraid of him, but perhaps not for the reason that he would think. She is afraid because she does not know him, does not know his limits and boundaries, does not know what could set him off. And maybe a small part of her is afraid at the most base level—afraid that he could hurt her or kill her, but that’s nothing new. “I must admit though, I am more curious than afraid.”
Always the curious, beautiful fool, who never learns when to walk away.
“I’m Ryatah.”
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
His face distorts when she asks him again, clarifying with such an apologetic gaze that he feels his insides turning into ice. He wants to scream in agony, but nothing comes from the darkness of his mouth (where his teeth are slowly turning sharper, a dull and terrible pain that cannot be soothed). The light of her halo illuminates that terrible twist on his gaunt face, sharp cheekbones creating ugly shadows across dull skin, rage igniting in whatever muscle he has left while confusion softens the burning of his sunken eyes.
Despite his warning, despite the low hiss that crawls grotesquely from his cracked lips, she creeps towards him hesitantly. His ears fall into the dark tangles of his mane, mouth gaping in a warning. He isn’t sure what he would do (what he was capable of doing) if she were to step any closer. Her very scent leaves him dizzy, along with the headache that pounds incessantly from his sprouting antlers, blind with the blood that drips slowly into his eyes.
His stomach roils and with trembling steps that she will mistake as an invitation, he comes closer for reasons he chooses to ignore. “No amount of healing will fix what is already inside me,” he whispers darkly to her, his icy gaze fixated on the gentle thrum of her throat and how it pulses rhythmically.
“Curious?” He repeats the word with disbelief, sinister laughter that only he could hear echoing in his voice. His nose wrinkles and perhaps there is a scoff in his throat, but it is quelled by the offering of her name. He jerks his head away from her, closing his eyes briefly as if regaining composure, before simply turning a single ear back towards her. “Curious for what, Ryatah?” Balto murmurs into the darkness, unable to turn to meet her just yet. “Wondering my name, perhaps? Or maybe something more ominous?”
His sharp teeth grind against each other as he robotically turns to face her again, eyes narrowing. He is unsure if it is truly himself speaking now, or if his demons have entered his mind once again. “You can call me Balto.”
Knowing my name won’t matter, comes the intrusive thought in his head, once she is dead.
