[PT] That This Cruelty Too, Shall End

[Vhet]

...
Abigo Caves homes many things,


Thieves,
Liars,
Lost Souls,
Traitors,
Terrorists,
Monsters,
and Secrets.


In the dark, whatever you are, you can be anything here.


 In the deep.  
In the quiet. 
 In the black.
--you can do just about anything.


Here in the core of the earth, where the heartbeat of the sun pulses through the caves in ultrasonic vibrations and the wind pulls air in and sighs it out in rhythmic living pulses, he sleeps.  He sleeps all day and all night - or - he never sleeps at all.  Sometimes he paces and paces and paces, and thinks and thinks and thinks, then runs and runs and runs and -- well -- to no place in particular.  The night is vast and endless and it colors him the same as everything else, it is his cloak and dagger.  



Dark. 


It will never matter how rosen-orange his skin is or how viridian-green his eyes are - Night is Night and Night is the color of his skin this way.  Night leaves the monsters alone, for this is their time.  During the daylight, he will be no where but here, in his cave-dwelling.  Though sorted and placed in Dawn - this particular caretaker of Delumine is better off alone, helping no one but himself.  If they saw what he was before what he is now, they would agree.  Vhetiveer should not meddle with the commoners.  Should not speak to them.  Should do no such thing as to communicate or participate or even rejuvenate his social career.

It is just better this way.


And, 


As day surrenders to night, 
And the sun to the rains, 


It transitions, as Time will do.


Lightning interrupts the never-ending darkness,
And finally, the silence submits to thunder,


Outside, all Hell breaks loose in the form of a tempestuous storm.  
If Vhetiveer feels anything anymore, he would know it means that something is coming.


Abigo Caves, home to none, is a brilliant place to take shelter from the elements, in no time other travelers are piling in to avoid getting washed down stream by the hard, persistent rains.  To Vhetiveer, he wants to call it home despite being a member of Delumine's court.  


Why?  He does not care for the walls, halls, or rooftops.  He does not care for their tomes of knowledge in the libraries, their pageants, parties, or their parades.  There is no desire to incorporate himself into their society or to Know of Oriens and his people of Dawn.  He feels no compulsion to go forward into such a tame country to find the same thing all over again; a kingdom and its obedient people.  The very idea of being enlisted is an exhausting, time consuming thought that he quickly pushes past when he decides that  - this time - he'll sleep beneath the bats instead of stars.  He is not worthy of their shine - not anymore.  


Thunder rumbles in his bones, damp and deep, sending vibrations through the sandstone and grit until things shift overhead to acknowledge a Greater power than any God could ever imagine.  To become a storm and nothing but must be a beautiful thing and he is reminded of the Rift before it sank its teeth into him.  He is reminded of that savage, meaningless magic that is wild and untameable --


Something is coming


Someone?


  Vhetiveer only stops once to peer forward with his one good eye - the left one - to see stalagmites chaffing salt and water off their long-fanged points.  For now it is the only movement he can see.  Standing still against a backdrop of browns, greys, and shining minerals, he looks like he belongs to these very depths.  As coppery and green as the precious metal in the rawest form can be, so is he.  The copper of his coat seems tarnished in tones of patina in the dim glow of the cavelight moss.  Here, it is almost impossible to see the horrid, alien stain of black that moves through him like a spell.


Someone is coming


Something?


Even though the thunder has long since grumbled and the lightning has yet to strike again, he can still feel its growling power lingering like an afterthought.  Or is it the heartbeat of another that brings such life to these otherwise quiet, still caves?  Is it the scrape of their hoof against stone that echoes like great thunder?


Vhetiveer, still unsure of his life and where it is headed at this moment, has time to move away from the main thoroughfare he wandered into and back into his niche in the wall. Very easily he disappears, ghostly like a bad memory one wishes to forget (and does).  He blends in easily behind veils of grandfathered moss and lichen, behind the glow of the cave fungus where he goes to lay down, doe-still and unexpectant.  He assumes no responsibility of whoever (whatever) comes this way, not realizing that the smell (his smell) of wild roses and piñon smoke is distinct enough - and recognizable - to seek him out.

V H E T

- alles nahe werde fern -

@Nestle  lightning strikes in the same place, twice ...

[Calliope]

– Calliope –
always we find one another

*
The storm comes quickly, the thunder barely more than a rumble of her heartbeat before the sky flashes white and green and bright enough to blind. It feels like a super-nova of power above her, stars made not of fire and stone but electricity born between the clouds where the wind grows violent and starts to churn into spirals of clashing air.

Above feels like death, and the darkness glows green, green, green. Calliope thinks that perhaps the heavens should glow red like blood and suffering instead of a green the color of new turned leaves.

It's not the storm that drives her into the caves like it drives the other horses. A memory chases at her, whispers that there is something in the darkness below. She's reminded of the tower that went down below the earth even as it towered into the sky. There were other caves too, filled with sick monsters that wanted only to eat, to spread their plague until the world and the sickness consumed itself.

Calliope is no stranger to caves, to the underground. Below is below regardless of the towers, mazes, storms or plain unchanging earth above.

But there is something here, something tugging on her soul as the past often pulls on the unicorn's soul that forgets nothing. It's a tang of copper on her tongue, of roses, of sickness that no magic could cure that drives her on deeper and deeper into the darkness. There is only one horse that has ever made her teeth quiver in her jaw with metallic sting just by the color of his skin.

Her horn feels like fire as if a star hangs and smolders on the tip of her weapon and the air taste like burning skin when she runs her tongue over her lips. It could be glass that she walks on for her hooves echo and chime out like a bell when she walks on and on and on through the darkness like a hungry wildcat.

And then he is there, faded cooper turned green from age and moisture. His face is no less monstrous than Calliope remembers, three eyes instead of two and skin that reflects strangely what little wet light there is below the earth. He is as lovely and terrifying as ever and had Calliope not once known the sadness of his soul, the way he wanted only not to be lost. It's too dark to see if he still wears the mark of her horn across the skin that protects his heart.

Above the thunder roars again and she wonders if he hears it and thinks of a lion blacker than night when it echoes against the sharp cave edges.

“Are you still sick?” She asks and it sounds as much like a sob as she could ever make words sound. It sounds like blood, like suffering, like the tearing of her soul. Calliope does not want make fresh the memory of his blood drip, drip, dripping upon a floor hard enough to bear all the weight of the universe that gathers whenever the two of them meet.



@Vhet