Darkness closes in on the shadow. Across the plains he runs, close to the river, he hears it like his own heart thrumming in his ears. Can’t stray too far from her, close, close, stay close. He nears its shoreline and shies away, charging at the frost-hardened soil by sheer force of will along. A wound throbs somewhere, blood long since congealed and dry. Skin sewing itself back together. Hunger sowing itself in him. More blood, different blood, thrums through a heart somewhere else. He can hear it. Feel it, like the river, almost, like his own heart. No, he says, no, no, no. This isn’t right. For how long have I been a monster? For how long must I continue to be one in the eyes of my countrymen, my own cousin? And this - now I will never escape it. I will be a monster to everyone. He yearns to stop it somehow, to starve himself, but dying has been off the table for much too long now and he can only press forward, forward, and back to the water, the shoreline, and - he trips - into the water.
No. No. Don't. Let me live. Live. Stay the same, as I was, not any different - Something changes. Longer limbs, sharper fangs. The black mare is laughing somewhere, he can almost hear it. He can hear it. He wants to scream. But he is drowning - thinks he is - splashing frantically in the shallow river’s edge, water up to his knees only. He feels it consuming him. Let me out, he cries, silently, let me out.
I don’t want to be a monster anymore.
@Leto ”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
Something is perishing by the water’s edge. She hears the way it frantically cuts the surface. The water ripples, alive, thrumming with frantic energy. The river turns choppy, it ripples out and out turning from a wave into a mere whisper as it laps upon Leto’s lips and throws itself ashore with a splash.
Droplets of fresh water drip from her eyelashes. They fall before eyes that watch the man, unwavering. He runs, hunted. He falls like a gazelle already pulled down by the lion of his troubles. He thrashes and the river is more than water, it is unrelenting canines that hold him fast, pulling his life from within.
Paint bleeds from her skin, wet by the river she stands submerged within. The colours float out across the water, curling like a masterpiece, polluting the water with religion. The victim is gasping, a silent cry that never finds voice. Leto studies the shape of his open mouth and wonders what words those lips, that tongue shaped.
Slowly, she floats nearer. Ever watching. The river shallows and she rises from it, black as his thoughts, black as the mare that mocks him and makes him want to scream. Still his maw is open. Water splashes about his knees, her knees. He is the monster ailing. She is the monster thriving.
“The water is shallow.” Leto says, galaxies spinning endlessly in the silver of her gaze. She holds him in stars and above them the stars laugh, their breath dust. “You shall have to move closer if you wish to drown yourself.” The words are soft as a lullaby. “Do you wish for help?” To live? To die? The girl purrs, leonine.
