07-24-2016, 01:20 AM
And what's the worst you take from every heart you break? And like
the blade you stain, well, I've been holding on tonight.
Ever since his unfortunate experience with the warring fairies, his senses had been heightened. Of course, he had stumbled around, discombobulated, in the beginning. The sunlight he’d known all his life burned his eyes and he was forced to take shelter within the wispy blackness that seemed to always trail after him. The sounds and smells of the very meadow where he had been born and raised now overwhelmed his senses. But he had eventually overcome these disconcerting changes and now they seemed as natural as breathing to him.
The stranger’s crackling footsteps seem to drum unnaturally against the smooth bubbling stream and his mismatched yellow eyes meet unusual, yet familiar red ones. His eyesight easily picked out the towering figure who lingered quietly at the water’s edge. The stranger certainly loomed over the shadow child’s heavily mesteño frame. But Michaelis always seemed to remain unaffected by silly things such as physical size.
The tendrils reacted, as always, negatively to another’s presence. They were used to others remaining oblivious to them, yet they were brought to the forefront when interacting with the shadow child. Michaelis was theirs and so they jealously tried to gather themselves in an effort to shield him from this dark stranger. But yet his two additions surprised him in their sudden and excited wriggles towards the black stallion.
His piqued interest could no longer be ignored.
He stepped lightly through the water and towards the one he now recognized as an acquaintance from so long ago. The shadows gathered tighter and tighter the closer he approached, but yet his special ones seemed to want to detach themselves. It was startling behavior. As he steps onto the shore, he banishes the others away from him until they skulked about in wispy cirri around his frame.
“Offspring,” he calls in warm greeting.
He comes to a halt before the giant and watches curiously as the two tangible tendrils around his muzzle unhesitatingly leap from his body to Offspring’s neck. They slide about in ungraceful movements before finally settling their heartbeats against his own in contentment. Michaelis narrows his eyes at their actions but an inkling begins to seep into his thoughts as to the reason for them. Despite their reactions, the shadow child has always been overprotective of what he considered to be his and he would not trust Offspring with them fully just quite yet.
A single thought pushes the water droplets clinging to his frame away and back into the stream from whence they came. He wasn’t going to stand here dripping wet for the remainder of the evening. He brings his gaze back up to meet Offspring’s red eyes once more and offers a slight smile.
“They recognize you.”
( The Shadow Child )