AION
He continued to stare down the wall of rock placed before him, eyes narrowed in what (he assumed) would be a quite intimidating glare, lip curled for additional effect. His body bristled, hairs nearly standing on end like some sort of rabid dog, a guard dog with nothing left to protect. His head also was snaked in a nearly serpentine manner, held rigidly as if his spine had been locked into place. Seconds passed and turned into heartbeats, loud and pulsating in his chest, his ears, throughout his arteries. The pause seemed to expand so long between them that fatigue had started to creep into his tense pose, and Aion was about to give up and blame the disturbance on some sort of desert creature when—
A behemoth of height and horns stepped around the bend.
Crouched as low to the ground as he was only served to accentuate their height difference—and also gave Aion a clear view of the beast’s chest.
It was closed at the moment, but the gash was still clearly accentuated: muscles that should have formed together were instead torn right down their center. Red lined the edges of it, fading to pink (hairless) scar tissue from which protruded rows of sharpened teeth (spikes?) that had locked tightly together to pull the skin together in a mock array of sutures. The skin even pulsed in rhythm, and it took several beats for Aion to realize it was the heart causing such movement. For the many battle scars he had seen and handled, there was something so very off-putting, so surreal about this encounter that he found it hard to pull his eyes away.
For a suspended moment in time, shock was evident on his face.
That is, until he snapped his jaw closed and jerk his gaze upwards to face the rest of the stallion. He was taken aback by their vast differences in height, and Aion could feel his feathers creep forward in an instinctual manner, serving to add a few measly inches to his own height that only paled in comparison to Torstein’s horns. He could almost—almost—overlook the third eye, for the stallion’s other unique features were stare-worthy enough as is.
And then words were coming out of that mottled mouth, and Aion quite literally bristled as they sank in. Irritation bubbled up from within him, as blind and hot as the endless dunes of desert sand he had already crossed. He paid little mind to the stranger’s reference to himself—”like me”—only the assumption based on appearance that he was a foreign. Of course, the assumption was right, but Aion could overlook that detail in his offense.
A scathing retort was already on the tip of his tongue, filled with indignation and a disbelief that there was any poor soul crazy enough to enjoy living in such a wasteland, but Torstein was speaking again, cutting him off.
“Interesting plant?” he scoffed, tone dry (and not just from the dehydration.) “There’s hardly any plants that can survive here already, let alone an interesting one.” His head was still lowered menacingly, as though he were crouched and ready to spring, but the arch to his neck had lost a bit of its tenseness. As he peered up at the behemoth his eyes gradually replaced the look of intimidation with one of suspiciousness and curiosity, the initial shock factor beginning to wear off.
“What ever made you take advice from such a vague, strange person to begin with?”
@Torstein
talk.
A behemoth of height and horns stepped around the bend.
Crouched as low to the ground as he was only served to accentuate their height difference—and also gave Aion a clear view of the beast’s chest.
It was closed at the moment, but the gash was still clearly accentuated: muscles that should have formed together were instead torn right down their center. Red lined the edges of it, fading to pink (hairless) scar tissue from which protruded rows of sharpened teeth (spikes?) that had locked tightly together to pull the skin together in a mock array of sutures. The skin even pulsed in rhythm, and it took several beats for Aion to realize it was the heart causing such movement. For the many battle scars he had seen and handled, there was something so very off-putting, so surreal about this encounter that he found it hard to pull his eyes away.
For a suspended moment in time, shock was evident on his face.
That is, until he snapped his jaw closed and jerk his gaze upwards to face the rest of the stallion. He was taken aback by their vast differences in height, and Aion could feel his feathers creep forward in an instinctual manner, serving to add a few measly inches to his own height that only paled in comparison to Torstein’s horns. He could almost—almost—overlook the third eye, for the stallion’s other unique features were stare-worthy enough as is.
And then words were coming out of that mottled mouth, and Aion quite literally bristled as they sank in. Irritation bubbled up from within him, as blind and hot as the endless dunes of desert sand he had already crossed. He paid little mind to the stranger’s reference to himself—”like me”—only the assumption based on appearance that he was a foreign. Of course, the assumption was right, but Aion could overlook that detail in his offense.
A scathing retort was already on the tip of his tongue, filled with indignation and a disbelief that there was any poor soul crazy enough to enjoy living in such a wasteland, but Torstein was speaking again, cutting him off.
“Interesting plant?” he scoffed, tone dry (and not just from the dehydration.) “There’s hardly any plants that can survive here already, let alone an interesting one.” His head was still lowered menacingly, as though he were crouched and ready to spring, but the arch to his neck had lost a bit of its tenseness. As he peered up at the behemoth his eyes gradually replaced the look of intimidation with one of suspiciousness and curiosity, the initial shock factor beginning to wear off.
“What ever made you take advice from such a vague, strange person to begin with?”
@Torstein
talk.
