I'll be a stone, I'll be the hunter,
The tower that casts a shade
***
The tower that casts a shade
***
How are you feeling? Raymond reached out to the tarrasque waiting patiently outside the walls of the capitol, well out of sight of the gathered masses. Her mind throbbed against his like a burning wound, tense and trembling with the aftershocks of bloodwrath still working their way through her system. Ruth had come through the melee in relatively good repair, by his reckoning: the thunderbirds' storms did little more than scorch her carapace, and their talons had only found their way through her thick skin in a few choice spots. She was a true juggernaut, a perfect instrument of destruction; her agitation set his teeth on edge.
She did not answer immediately, and in the gap between question and response the red stallion redoubled his attention upon the Denocteans gathered to hear their new queen. His face betrayed nothing but a sort of post-combat blankness, as though it was satisfaction enough to take in a world that was not all slashing talons and crashing lightning without fully engaging it. His wounds burned but there was no time to address them until the business of the day was done.
Isra had offered (see: assigned) him a place and a purpose, and he would fill it if that was what had to be done.
Tired, came the delayed reply. Even this long after the battle, she seemed distant, almost feral - but honest, too. He did not need a description to sense the weariness fraying the edges of their connection, and not for the first time he wondered how titanic creatures such as she lived in their natural habitat.
Horse after horse stepped forward in response to Isra's announcement and open-hearted confession, each offering their own speech, adding their light to hers, showering her with their sugared words in that time-honored tradition of overly-romantic fantasy storytelling. He measured their words against the stories written in their eyes and their bodies, betraying nothing of what he saw there.
For now, he said nothing. The contents of his dreams were not meant for civilized society, though Isra's soliloquy about freedom shook one of them loose from its moorings. He thought of the raven gate, of the long and oppressive shadow it cast across the mountain pass, of the forest of ghosts that lay at its feet.
Can we go?
When this is finished, my dear.
Raymond glanced to a striped horse lingering along the outskirts of the gathering, to the spotted Araxes whom he recognized, and to others whom he did not. Their spirits, it seemed, had not quite been brought low by hardship. Good; they would need their hope in the days to come, for the climb now lay before them all. Patiently, respectfully, the red stallion listened, breathing in the songs of hope coloring the air around him.
She did not answer immediately, and in the gap between question and response the red stallion redoubled his attention upon the Denocteans gathered to hear their new queen. His face betrayed nothing but a sort of post-combat blankness, as though it was satisfaction enough to take in a world that was not all slashing talons and crashing lightning without fully engaging it. His wounds burned but there was no time to address them until the business of the day was done.
Isra had offered (see: assigned) him a place and a purpose, and he would fill it if that was what had to be done.
Tired, came the delayed reply. Even this long after the battle, she seemed distant, almost feral - but honest, too. He did not need a description to sense the weariness fraying the edges of their connection, and not for the first time he wondered how titanic creatures such as she lived in their natural habitat.
Horse after horse stepped forward in response to Isra's announcement and open-hearted confession, each offering their own speech, adding their light to hers, showering her with their sugared words in that time-honored tradition of overly-romantic fantasy storytelling. He measured their words against the stories written in their eyes and their bodies, betraying nothing of what he saw there.
For now, he said nothing. The contents of his dreams were not meant for civilized society, though Isra's soliloquy about freedom shook one of them loose from its moorings. He thought of the raven gate, of the long and oppressive shadow it cast across the mountain pass, of the forest of ghosts that lay at its feet.
Can we go?
When this is finished, my dear.
Raymond glanced to a striped horse lingering along the outskirts of the gathering, to the spotted Araxes whom he recognized, and to others whom he did not. Their spirits, it seemed, had not quite been brought low by hardship. Good; they would need their hope in the days to come, for the climb now lay before them all. Patiently, respectfully, the red stallion listened, breathing in the songs of hope coloring the air around him.
***
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
