Are you a devil still?
There is not enough shape in her voice to name the words as question or accusation, but there was more than enough to make the red stallion think. He had called himself the devil because he wanted nothing more than to mete out punitive Justice to those pious brutes whose arrogance had caused so much suffering and neglect. He thought the turn of phrase apt, that he should be the one that sinners fear lurking in the dark shadows of the church nave.
But was 'devil' not his nature?
What was the devil but the great adversary, he who spoke truth to power and punished the wicked even in the face of his own condemnation? What had Raymond but his mortality to separate himself from that?
He offered a dour half-smile in lieu of an answer, the shadows at the corners of his lips a no-contest plea to her accusation.
Brandishing her horn in subtle warning, the mare invited him with all the enthusiasm of a DMV clerk - which was to say, no enthusiasm at all and a resignation threatening to spill over into contempt. Raymond murmured a courteous thank you and carved out his own territory next to the corroded remains of what may once have been a badger. He had no horn with which to break the ground and a distaste bordering on revulsion at the thought of making use of his scythe like a common spade, so instead used his hoof like the pariah dogs of the desert. It worked well enough, provided the soil was yielding.
After a spate of silence, when the messy divot had begun to resemble a proper grave, Raymond glanced her way.
"I don't think I ever got your name."
The uncertainty in his voice was an affectation; he knew it, she would know it, however genuinely friendly he wanted to be. Isra had never given him her name, and had wanted to forget his. But perhaps she would see the devil differently now that the tyrannical shadow of dragon wings had passed. Perhaps amongst the silver moonlight and the echoes of the dead, she would understand that the dead were not the only ones seeking peace.
There is not enough shape in her voice to name the words as question or accusation, but there was more than enough to make the red stallion think. He had called himself the devil because he wanted nothing more than to mete out punitive Justice to those pious brutes whose arrogance had caused so much suffering and neglect. He thought the turn of phrase apt, that he should be the one that sinners fear lurking in the dark shadows of the church nave.
But was 'devil' not his nature?
What was the devil but the great adversary, he who spoke truth to power and punished the wicked even in the face of his own condemnation? What had Raymond but his mortality to separate himself from that?
He offered a dour half-smile in lieu of an answer, the shadows at the corners of his lips a no-contest plea to her accusation.
Brandishing her horn in subtle warning, the mare invited him with all the enthusiasm of a DMV clerk - which was to say, no enthusiasm at all and a resignation threatening to spill over into contempt. Raymond murmured a courteous thank you and carved out his own territory next to the corroded remains of what may once have been a badger. He had no horn with which to break the ground and a distaste bordering on revulsion at the thought of making use of his scythe like a common spade, so instead used his hoof like the pariah dogs of the desert. It worked well enough, provided the soil was yielding.
After a spate of silence, when the messy divot had begun to resemble a proper grave, Raymond glanced her way.
"I don't think I ever got your name."
The uncertainty in his voice was an affectation; he knew it, she would know it, however genuinely friendly he wanted to be. Isra had never given him her name, and had wanted to forget his. But perhaps she would see the devil differently now that the tyrannical shadow of dragon wings had passed. Perhaps amongst the silver moonlight and the echoes of the dead, she would understand that the dead were not the only ones seeking peace.
Raymond.
"he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
"he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
@Isra
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
