you are haunted like every other holy thing;
what tried to destroy you didn't have the strength

The last thing he sees is the monster, Raum’s monster, turned towards him as bodies flee around him, as the great beast thrashes and roars and turns all in its wake into stone, and he does not have the chance to turn and flee. Not when it catches him in its gaze, mid-turn, his body contorted into the shape of a frightened, wild creature, tail lifted high as if to warn the others to run. Not when the stone ripples across his skin, freezing him in place, and he would scream if he could move his mouth, because it felt like fire licking over his skin, consuming him until suddenly he could feel nothing anymore.

When the chaos settles, he is one statue among many that rest among the streets of Solterra, the gems on his antlers gleaming from their setting of stone each time the light catches them; perpetually frozen as if ready to leap, ready to run, and yet never moving.

The sun rises. The sun sets. He is unaware of the passage of time.

Until.

Until?

He becomes aware of the beating of his own heart once more. How long has it been beating? How long has he been able to hear? He loses count of how many times it beats before he can move his ears again, just the faintest twitch, and the stone encasing them sloughs away from the movement.

Like a snake shedding its skin, he begins to stretch out cramped muscles beneath his prison, and cracks begin to spread across the stone surface, slowly at first and spiderwebbing into something larger until the first large piece falls off his shoulder with a sharp crack! The rest follow quickly, now, until nothing remains of his statue except the dust that is scattered across his back, and he blinks into the light like a man reborn, unable to see for how bright everything seems beneath the newfound sun.

you are haunted like every other holy thing;
what tried to destroy you didn't have the strength

He breathes in the scent of sun-scorched sand and breathes out statuary dust, his muzzle wrinkling up until he finally sneezes out the last of the remaining stone. A wisp of silky-fine hair brushes against his cheek, and he almost startles himself with it until he remembers: He had grown it out to blend in amongst the Solterrans. He had been spying for Moira. He had been pretending to be a storyteller. 

(He thinks, maybe, he has enough stories now that he could truly be one -- except his stories are mostly of survival, and trauma, and the hollow pit in his stomach that still remembered fear. He doesn’t think anyone would like those stories.)

For the first time since he was a young child, he had allowed his hair to grow out instead of shearing it down once it began to flop over on his neck. His father had disapproved of long hair, said it made him look too girlish and weak -- it had been a habit, like fingers running over a rosary, to trim it back every few weeks, the last remaining ghost of his father’s hold on him. Now it hangs around his face in delicate curls, and he remembers the strange curling thrill it had sent through his stomach when he had caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror the first time, that almost-stranger with the wispy curls and soft smile, and he remembers --

He remembers thinking he had looked pretty, and not shying away from the word in his mind. He had allowed it to sit there, occasionally poking at it like one might a bruise, only to discover that it didn’t hurt -- no, instead, it made him feel strangely giddy and light, as though another weight had been shrugged off his shoulders.

He blinks and then startles again at the sound of a voice, his rounded ears perking up and his head swinging towards Toro with wild eyes until he realizes that it’s only the bull-horned man who stands before him, not Raum or his terrible beast or any of the other villains he had rubbed shoulders with in the dark Solterran alleys. “Toro,” His voice is soft, trembling, almost disbelieving -- he had thought of the man, in those last few minutes before he had turned completely to stone, something inside him fervently hoping that Toro had been far away from the rampaging monster, had been safe from Raum’s grasping, hurting hands.

There is a feeling of pins and needles beginning to spread through his limbs, his muscles protesting having been locked in place for so long. Even so, he takes a trembling step forward, his head tilted to look upwards at the other male as though he might have half-believed he was a mirage pulled from the desert -- and his foreleg buckles slightly, sending him face-first into Toro’s solid shoulder.

Not a mirage, then.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” He breathes out against the skin of Toro’s shoulder, his own eyes growing watery in relief, and he presses his face closer into Toro’s shoulder like a man drowning might have clung to a lifeboat. “When I saw the monster, I was a-afraid…. I thought it would have gotten you too.”