He was back in the desert. The homogeneous expanse of solid white laid out before him; a sheet of something he could get lost in. He shivered. Quickly El Toro had fled the city; there were too many eyes that traveled along his fresh scar and his jewelry and his horns, too many ears that swiveled at the wheeze; his lips were too brittle to raise at every comment or side-eye, real or imagined. It was too much like home. Out here, there was nothing; nothing but the vague memory of a mare who must’ve laughed at him getting lost for no reason, because he could, because he was angry. He was always angry, except when he was tired, and in this particular moment he wavered on some border between the two. He wanted to get lost again, knew he shouldn’t, though the walls were at his back and he could turn tail if he thought he’d die out here.
Two tails swished against the cold. He stepped forward. It was a tiny moment, largely irrelevant to anyone or anything around, but in some way it felt enormous and heavy and like there was something waiting, just right out there, if only he’d take a few more steps out. If only he’d disappear into the white. For what it was worth, he tried.
Everything is different now. It is hard to say when it all started. When the snow fell is the obvious answer, but not necessarily the right one. It could have been at the meeting of the regimes. It could have been years and years ago, before everyone alive now was even born. We know it doesn't matter, not really. The knowing doesn't change anything. We know Eik is different too. Maybe not as dramatically as Solterra. Maybe more so.
In hindsight, it is almost pathetic how hard he tried to not get attached to anything (anyone). How futile his efforts have been. He has things to lose now (people) and the potential of that loss is terrifying in a way that can only be experienced by someone who has lost greatly before.
And yet.
He can't help himself-- not caring is not an option for his bleeding heart. He struggles against this fact endlessly, for doesn't every man choose his own fate? This is something he believes with such stubborn certainty that it becomes a truth for him, a fact untouchable by chance or god. I choose my destiny, he tells himself, eyes closed, when The Feeling comes and he can't fall asleep... or doesn't want to. I choose my destiny, over and over. A fact. A promise.
And yet.
-
It has been cold for too long. He has become to feel homesick, a feeling which, once investigated, triggers a sense of vertigo. What exactly is he homesick for- the desert as it was? Or the tundra which Solterra is now a poor mockery of? He has been slowly exploring the snow, circling outward from the court each day. He compares it to the place he once called home (the place which will always be home to a part of him) and more importantly he looks for any change in the landscape. Any melting of the snow, any sign of life that persists despite the cold and the frost. They need food desperately.
He is not so lost in thought that he does not see the two-tailed man. He does not change course immediately, for there is comfort in routine and solitude, but he eventually makes his way to the man in a snaking, roundabout way.
For a long moment (too long?) he simply stands there, a length or two away from the man and his tails, and together they look at the desert. Finally, he asks-
"Going somewhere?"
If someone else had asked the question, it might have sounded snide or nosy.
The crunch of snow belied the stranger’s presence long before Toro was willing to acknowledge it. He ignored the stallion, even as he stood alongside Toro, looking out, together - the word pained him - until, finally, he spoke.
"Going somewhere?”
Toro does not look at him right away; his lungs struggled against the chill air and he is certain a nosebleed is imminent. He wasn’t looking for company. Eventually, Toro turns his head, just enough to get a good look at this gray man, and says, "No.” His chest twinges with something that forces a vulnerable sentence from between his teeth. "I’m going nowhere.” Quickly, he looks away, as if the words stung his lips as punishment for speaking them. Idly, no, anxiously, his tails swish, more than before, maybe, and his ears flick once or twice until finally he eyes the stranger from the corner of his opal vision and asks, "And you?”
Briefly, Eik feels the other man's clammy-fingered anxiety. It takes a lot of effort to close his mind to it. His magic is a mostly wild thing, unfettered by his own thoughts and desires. It seems to find affinity with certain minds-- and it reaches for these, despite the walls Eik puts up. Sometimes it feels like there is a childish, temperamental god living in his body.
Other times, he feels like the god.
"And you?" The stranger asks, meeting Eik's eyes for a moment. Eik looks away before his magic gets the best of him, before he can read the man's mind as easily as breathing. His dark eyes are thoughtful as he considers the question. "Not now. But soon." He has not realized this until he says it out loud, breath rising as steam in the cold air. Solterra will drive him mad if he stays here long enough, madder than usual.
"Where would you go, if you could go anywhere."
It is the first thing that comes to mind and it sounds stupid the moment he says it. It is the sort of question he would ask Asterion, splashing around in the ocean, feeling as foolish and carefree as a bird. His ears bat backwards uncomfortably.
"I'm Eik. Would you... like to be left alone." The question is entirely serious, but not unkind. Even without his magic, he understands there is a relationship between a man and his own thoughts.
Not now. But soon. A whirring dagger of a thought pins itself to Toro skull: What the fuck does that mean? but he lets it go, tries not to feel it vibrating as it stills.
Where would you go, if you could go anywhere. Toro looks at the stranger, frowning. His annoyance drains out of a half-plugged sink. What. He isn’t sure how to respond, and then the gray stallion says, ”I’m Eik.. Would you…like to be left alone.” The breaths between the statements still feel overwhelming; Toro’s caught on the last question and still staring blankly at Eik. He tries to count his responses, if any, and comes up short. ”Toro. I’ve never been anywhere I’ve wanted to go.” He pauses. ”Well, the sand won’t talk to me.” His chest wrenches. ”I mean, you can stay. If you want.”Or you could leave, and I could freeze to death in a desert, that’s how I’d go, wouldn’t I? His tails swish. Toro looks at the cold crunching ground again. He paws at the snow. Eik isn’t staring at his scars. Eik can stay, he supposes.
Eik can feel thoughts drifting across the other man's mind, he feels when they are let go back to the darkness that is not-thought. It would be a simple thing to dive deeper into those thoughts, read them as easily as words written on paper. The man would never even know.
"Well, the sand won't talk to me."
Eik's darkness had always been channeled inwards, not out. So instead of growing irate with the decadent stallion, he silently beats at his fleshy insides where scars lie unseen,
(we add this to your long list of failures,
except we've run out of space so we
just start a tally in the corner, that first mark
|
scratched a little too deep in you)
and in that moment his guard falls a little. Maybe his magic slips out and El Toro feels, for just a moment, the weariness that fills every empty space in Eik's body. Maybe he hears the sound of Eik's heart sighing. Maybe he notices nothing at all, and Eik's magic, and all his heavy anguish, is simply swallowed in silence by the desert and its glittering snow.
"Okay." So they stand there, each with his past coiled behind him like the tail of a rattlesnake. Toro paws at the snow and Eik breathes, and the air between them is cold and dry.
@El Toro We could leave it here or continue, totally up to you! <3
There is some silence for a while. Toro’s eyes do not drift to Eik, nor does he begin to walk, not yet. He is uncertain, and yet, not entirely uncomfortable, not anymore - something about the stranger’s presence is calming, once the anger writhes itself into a knot and quiets. It wriggles a little, now, as is typical, but still - still he does not wish to lash out with horns or teeth. So he stares at the ground, until an ”Okay” slips out into the world between them. Toro looks up, but just past Eik’s face, past his eyes, into a plain white distance. He says, ”Okay. Let’s go that way.” El Toro starts walking, pale on pale where pale should not be, and he does not check to see if Eik follows.
The jeweled man and the snow are both out of place here, but then again so was Eik once. He still is, a little. Enough time will normalize just about everything, just about. So maybe the snow will never melt. So maybe this is normal now, and they'll all grow thicker skins and learn to find food where there is no food to be found... there will be water, at least. But he thinks that the heart of the desert will always dream of warmth, even if ages pass covered in snow. He thinks that the sands will lie in wait until the day the sun rises fierce with memories, and the heat will rule this land once again.
Maybe they'll be here for it. Eik follows the white stallion, quickly lost in thought.
