"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
Twilight creeps across the pampas, bringing a deep chill that is reminiscent of winter’s callous bite. It seems to settle across the golden grasses with a shudder, the normal gentle swaying of the wildflowers and their stalks coming to an eerie halt as if readying to keep a silent vigil while the peachy gold of the sun slowly relents to the shadow of nightfall.
The young stallion lingers by the stream, his handsome face emotionless and illuminated by the dying sun as it crosses into the beyond of the horizon, silvery patterns from the water gently moving across the deep indigo of his skin. The water is warmer than the air around him, lapping against his ankles with gentle, wet kisses from the slow current. He had kept to himself since his arrival in the Pampas, getting used to the vulnerable openness of this new land he now resided in. He doesn’t even think to call it home - and nothing has ever really been - but there is a simple ache in his bones for the windswept caverns of Pangea (the dust, the barrenness, the shadows that were never-ending) and perhaps even for the deep darkness of Tephra’s jungle.
He cannot hide here - at least, not in the ways he likes best.
Instead, he has hidden among the wildlife - a rabbit, a silvered fish in the stream, and once even a tree - watching and listening. He has even dulled the extravagance of his coat, opting for a plain mousy brown (not without a horn twisting from his forehead, a curious weapon he had once seen in Pangea) so as to blend in far more than his regular appearance would allow.
Tonight, however, he does not hide. Perhaps it is boredom that allows him to stray from his usual habits of trickery (though more likely it is his untethered anger that has come from loneliness) as his star-dotted mouth hovers just over the slight warmth of the stream, his breath a gentle fog with each exhale. His skin flickers and shifts, as if anticipating the want of change as he dips his lips into the water to drink, part of his face becoming the crystal liquid.
When he raises his head it is only water, shimmering in the starlight. It drips from his now-liquid jaw loudly, splashing onto the bank beneath his hooves and running in tiny rivulets down his muscled chest, dampening his skin. With a snort, his clear and watery face gurgles and churns, replacing itself with the orange and violet of his skin that glitters with unknown constellations and galaxies.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
Darkness calls and he follows it swiftly. A glint of gold catches beneath the silvery waves of light from a slow rising moon as the last streaks of color fade from the sky. Much had changed in the last short weeks of autumn, the chill in the air seeming to invigorate the kingdoms and territories of Beqanna from the slumbering summer they had fallen under. He moves easily through the tall grasses that sweep gently against his broad shoulders. His pace is calm and collected despite the dark expression on his face.
From the upcoming meeting with the North, the stolen girl of Tephra, his recent discovery of fatherhood (and the grief he pushes deep within him of the daughter lost), not to mention the whispers of change in the air… His mind is a whirlwind and seeks nothing but peace. For the first time in his rulership, the circlet feels just a little bit heavier than it had before. He stops for a moment, adjusts the weight to slant lazily over a finely tipped ear, and then carries on his way.
He would not fall beneath the pressure, not like his father had done. Stepping down, buckling beneath it. No, they would have to pry his crown from his cold dead hooves before he would let that happen. He had come too far to ever give it up willingly… or easily.
As always, his thoughts turn to the golden mare of the Pampas. He feels the old familiar flare of jealousy and hatred, possessiveness and pain, that he’s come to associate with the first person who had taught him how to care a little. They still work seamlessly, despite the thread of tension that worked its way from him and tethered somewhere to her. He barely noticed how often he wore a cloak of scales or the way his pupils were nearly always slitted. Despite it all he remains, for all intensive purposes, exactly the same. Bored, callous, and perhaps a little sharper than usual.
It is only around the various children does his edge seem to dull momentarily. The remembrance of his own childhood imprinted for eternity beneath his ebony skin. He had been seeking the colt Aela had brought home but instead he finds an unexpected face. One made of crystal liquid that drips slowly from muzzle to the shallow pool below.
It had been awhile since he had spoken with the Champion. He had thought of seeking the stallion out to join them in the Tephra mission. They worked against the clock and in the end there had not been time to find him. Luckily the steal had gone off without a hitch but the Prince was still bothered by how easy it had been. How simple. It didn’t sit well in his gut. Skandar was their best shot of defense when it came to their motley crew and with the pot being stirred it was more than time to finally speak to him.
And here he was. Alone. Or waiting for someone?
A flicker of a frown attempts to twist his velvet lips but he smoothes it into his normal bored expression, the red of his eyes a harder hue than normal. “Skandar.” He greets in his haughty way but offering the now star dusted stallion a faint grin before it quickly fades away. He’s still not sure what to think of the mimic who can seem to twist himself into the unthinkable. He had only gotten a small taste of the other’s magic when he had turned into the Prince himself but if anything Aela had mentioned had been true then it was a mind bending concept.
That was powerful magic. No wonder Aela had snagged him. Snagged him and more, he reminds himself as the scales shine like black diamonds across his skin under the rising moon. “There’s a few things I’ve been meaning to speak to you about. If you have the time.” He drawls lazily, regarding the other coolly despite the sudden fire burning in his crimson eyes.
As the crystalline fluid that shaped his face slowly folds into the deep indigo and burnt orange of his spectacular and peculiar skin, the younger stallion is joined by another. A shadow, it seems, creeps across the starlit speckles that adorn him haphazardly, ominous and silent as the towering form of Obscene becomes his solemn companion - together brooding in silence as dusk moves deeper into twilight. At first, the only acknowledgement of the gold-dusted Prince is a soft snort while droplets of water drip from the whiskers of his velvet nose. Even as his name is spoken into the night air, Skandar does not regard him - his orange eyes are traveling elsewhere, amongst the stars, with a expression of sheer indifference as they wink softly back at him.
Perhaps he would not have spoken at all (as he hardly ever does), but Obscene would deem it otherwise. The stallion pries his gaze from the open expanse of the sky, turning his chin up slightly to meet the familiar steel-like ruby of the other’s eyes. His gaze pauses at the shining scales that scatter in smooth patterns, flickering with distant starlight and the soft silver of a thin, large crescent moon. When Skandar’s eyes finally lock with Obscene, a muscle in his hardened jawline jumps. He blinks, realizing he has nothing but time and in that same moment, wonders if Obscene knows this too.
“Evening, Obscene.”
A polite response to his greeting, despite the way the cold air seems to make Skandar’s voice thin and clipped.
Skandar had never considered the other a threat (not yet, anyway), but the skin-walker cannot ignore the ire that crystalizes like embers within the depths of Obscene’s scarlet gaze. His ears fall lazily back for a moment, thoughtful as he wonders what tonight will bring. A discussion, of course, but more lies beneath the surface, and Skandar is momentarily distracted - should he expound on it? Should he use Obscene’s anger to show him the truth? He thinks of Aela and though he imagines she would love nothing more than to see the two stallions spar, he doesn’t find himself in the mood to clean blood from his skin tonight.
“Please,” Skandar replies, surveying the other with a slight dip of his chin, inviting him to share whatever it is he sees fit for his Champion to know. Adrenaline begins to thicken in his veins; perhaps there is a task needing carrying out - one that only Skandar would have the stomach to accomplish.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The court they had created amongst the sea of gentle flowers was rarely a kind one and he takes Skandar’s greeting for what it was. He would have gotten nowhere if he took offense to every clipped greeting, if he buckled and fell to his knees at every slight and disrespect, all the cruel words that had been hurled at him since he had been abandoned by those he needed most. He was what he was, he stood where he was, only because of his own dark determination and grit that lurked beneath the haziness of his drunk and disorderly self. There had also been a little sprinkle of fairy dust and a steady hand in the form of a golden mare that had steered him towards a path he had once been blind to.
One that he sees much clearer now.
There is no missing the muscle that works in Skandar’s jaw when their eyes lock, a similar gesture working in his own. There is a sudden hunger that twists it’s way through his stomach and he vaguely wonders what the skin walker would look like if his fangs found their way to that steady thrumming right beneath his colorful throat. Would he bleed in multicolors too? It takes him a moment to realize that those thoughts are not his own.
They had nothing but time as an immortal.
The creature within him whispers otherwise.
Silently he steps into the stream and joins the Champion once he agrees to company, ignoring the cold that sends shockwaves up his obsidian legs. It helps clear his head from the bloody suggestions and that hunger eases a little in his belly. Quietly and quickly he tells Skandar about Sickle and what he had experienced in Tephra. He doesn’t doubt that Aela had probably told him already, a thought that sends a ripple of scales to flare up along his belly, but the freezing waters work well enough at keeping the serpent at bay. “I have to go to Loess.” He finally says quietly, his blazing gaze turned to the blinking stars in the sky that the Champion had once been watching. “It’s only a matter of time before someone comes looking for her.” And here he looks pointedly at Skandar as he says roughly, “It’s important that they leave empty-handed… Should someone come. ” And there is a question there, a subtle one, that goes beyond if he thinks the skin changer can handle it. He doesn’t doubt the other’s abilities, far from it after what he had seen. The things Aela had shown him. It always seems to come back to her after all.
It was probably a pointless thing to ask anyways. It wasn’t the Prince she had turned to in her time of need when Gale had split open her chest.
A hoof lazily pulls at the stones beneath the water as he turns his vermillion gaze back to the Pampas before them. “There’s something else.” He finally says after some time has passed. The ire in his eyes light up again but it’s not because of what he assumes Skandar will think he’s about to ask. No, this goes much farther than where the golden Seneschal is concerned. However he waits to see if he does end up baiting something from the constellation beside him. Old habits die hard after all.
Obscene is built like a wall, solid and unwavering. The leaner stallion gives him credit for it; the hardened skin that encases him is only fitting for the most fearsome of rulers and it is clear that Obscene does not find his ego bruised in anyway. Perhaps the two are the same in this light - too haughty and prideful to even consider each other as threats. The thought brings a simple smirk to one corner of Skandar’s indigo mouth but it quickly fades back into a thin, pressed line.
The black stallion steps into the cold stream beside Skandar and for the first time since his arrival, the skinwalker allows the tension in his spine to dissipate just slightly. Skandar’s burning orange gaze slowly flickers towards Obscene as he trails off, hinting at something far more treacherous beneath his request. Skandar’s brows twitch together in a furrow, interested. He takes a moment - a quiet inhale and fogged breath in its exhale - and gently tosses his head. “Consider it done.” He understood the underlying message (and perhaps Obscene didn’t intend for murder to be now on the forefront of Skandar’s mind, but it is already there despite it) and accepts it without question.
Skandar believes their conversation has come to an end, concluded with a silent agreement that both stallions have come to understand. His teeth press together, turning his gaze back to the one beside him when he ominously states that there’s more. Orange irises meet blood red, raging depths churning within them both. The pregnant pause between them is billowing and electric, callous and jarring.
“Something?” Skandar repeats, his voice as thin as the air around them. He clears his throat, tilting his head slightly away from Obscene. “Or someone?” He nearly smiles at him, but it stays beneath the surface. Skandar’s skin shivers slightly in its grotesque way, like slices of it are fluttering, but it’s not from the cold. He wonders what Aela has revealed to Obscene and if it is why the black and gold stallion regards him with such fire in his eyes.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
It’s surprising how his mind eases slightly with Skandar’s reassurance and even if he had known of the bloody thoughts that had been stirred, he wouldn’t be appalled. Not when it comes to protecting their own. He throws up his muzzle, pleased that at least this was one last thing to worry about. He doesn’t doubt that any intruders will regret meeting the swirling stars of the Champion, doesn’t doubt that Skandar would go to the ends of the earth to protect the striped mare who currently looked over the changeling child with the one she had gathered from the den.
What little peace had been between them vanishes when their eyes meet. He can feel the taunt string between them as Skandar speaks. Something? He asks. ”Or someone?” His grin turns almost wolfish as the pupils in his eyes flatten into slits and the air becomes something electric and dangerous around them. Deadly. He is silent and still as the grave as he holds the other’s probing gaze, seeing the same fire that stirs around the slithering thing in the pit of his belly. “Tephra.” Is the unexpected answer he gives in response and he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the other, his curiosity focused on catching any subtle expressions he might normally miss.
“I need to go back and I want you with me.” He says in his smooth way but there is no hint of indifference this time and its clearly not a request. No, not a request at all as his unwavering gaze refuses to be torn from the other. Would Skandar reject his demand? Or was this stallion Aela’s soldier completely, through and through? At the end of the day it mattered little. Skandar was currently Champion in his name who harbored a passion of dislike towards Tephra that might nearly rival his own (from the little Aela had ever shared with him about the skin walker). And the volcano had been too quiet. And there was, unfortunately, a mare with jaguar spots hidden in the depths of its jungles that he would regret not extracting if things went wrong. He doesn’t know why, she deserved to rot there, but his insufferable sister and her soft request had managed to wedge itself beneath his scales.
Skandar would be useful if the ashland was less quiet on his return and he would not accept no as an answer.
He slowly extracts himself from the freezing waters as he finally breaks his gaze from the other. He moves up the bank, making a show of flicking droplets from the end of his long luxurious tail. He glances up at the stars again, his back to the other, as his quiet voice calls over his shoulder just loud enough for him to hear. “I like you Skandar.” His skull angled as he looks back at him with those fierce bright eyes through a sheer haze of long black hair. “If you two want to destroy each other, who am I to stop you?” He murmurs and there is perhaps just the smallest glimmer of pain reflected in the depths of red but it disappears in a sweep of dark lashes and the smug smirk that quickly follows shows no signs of vulnerability. “I’ll find you when I return.”
Despite the intensity in which the two stallions are different (in physique, in the way they handle their emotions, how they treat the ones closest to them versus strangers), there are a few strong chords between them that ring harmoniously, such as the willingness to incite violence for a purpose. Obscene needn’t divulge into further details of what he wished for Skandar to do, though the star-strewn stallion had an inkling that the Pampas Prince would rather keep trespassers alive for questioning than destroying them where they stood. He would attempt to do this if it came down to it, but there is a large part of him that knows he may not be able to help himself if the necessity ever arose. He thinks of Avelina (sweet girl - where is she now, brandishing his violence on her skin no doubt?) and can feel his spine-shivering at the thought of implementing such a thrust of power over another, perhaps one who wouldn’t be so yielding. He also remembers the overwhelming amount of pity in her sad eyes; as if she could fathom his reason for hurting her as if she felt bad for him, and as if the power he wields is torture instead of a gift from the gods.
Skandar’s face remains emotionless at the churning thoughts, save for the clench of his jaw beneath his starlit skin.
His burning orange gaze does not waver from the blood-red of Obscene, even when the slitted pupils fall on him with a hunger that even Skandar was slightly surprised by. Ever elusive (and refusing to be direct with what it was - who it was - that kept the two stallions in some kind of silent dislike of each other), he says nothing as the two stares readily, bristling like two lone wolves beneath the shadow of a new moon.
Nothing ensues, however. Neither stands down, of course, but it seems like politics diverges their thoughts to something other than the gold-striped mare. Skandar relaxes ever so slightly, but the tension resurfaces almost immediately, drawing taut over his spine as his muscles twitch beneath his flickering, unsettled skin.
Tephra.
Again his childhood home seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. His ears unabashedly fall into the tangles of his ombre mane, a scowl hardening all the angles of his face. He cannot see the appeal, despite knowing the benefits of the waterfall and the power that is within the volcano itself. It is a place of bitter memories, soaked in a young boy’s anger and loneliness. And again he is made to return to it for business that is not his own.
Rumors have already risen of the silence from Tephra - his jeweled uncle nowhere to be found, while he is sure his own father is hidden somewhere in the jungle, with his lovers and other children who were not an abomination. He wonders if something has happened there, maybe a change in monarchs or some other political issue that Obscene would find some way to benefit from. Skandar snorts softly as the heavy silence falls between them again, tearing his eyes away from the onyx stallion as he moves from the cold waters of the slowly moving stream.
Skandar hears him, though he is not his Champion in the hopes that he would like him. He turns his slender head over his shoulder slightly, glancing out of his periphery at the shadow of the other stallion just behind him. He says nothing as he turns to face forward again, rigidity in each bone of his body. Obscene’s words were somehow intimate and revealing, which set Skandar’s face further into the burning rage that simmers beneath an otherwise expressionless face. He could never be destroyed; he is unending.
“You know where to find me,” he growls into the empty air before him, loud enough so Obscene can hear him easily despite not facing him. The galaxies and vibrant color of his skin flutter against each other in a perhaps now familiar sound, grotesque in their clicking as he takes the shape of the water beneath his hooves. For a solid, singular moment he is merely the frigid water - glittering, transparent - and then with a loud splash, is gone.
skandar
i want to be the bullet that brings you to your knees
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}