one sword out of many.
With each stride that pounded the earth like a hammer against burning steel, Blyse felt further from his destiny. How terrible the distance seemed now. Did the day decide to turn itself into a decade or were the seconds gripping at his skin as he ran to slow his progress? He didn’t know, except that he was acutely aware he did not want to be where he was any longer. Progress had always been King in his life. It commanded him to move forth and condemned him when he did not which is why he itched with restlessness. There was but one exception to this and that was this gift which he had heard but never felt to be his. The gift was magic which Caligo stole back from the imposter King to be his. Maybe that is what really itched at him and thrust him forward—knowing that he possessed something he hadn’t the slightest notion of how to touch. He had been given a weapon to elevate him in life and yet was drowning in the ignorance of how to wield it. It frustrated him. Inability was a cut as deep as failure and every step he took toward the city without getting there was the salt.
In a sudden shift of luck, a gold-red burst of fire tore a crossed the hills before him, as if a Molotov cocktail were shattered in to his path unprovoked. Blyse was prepared for many things, but strange as it were fiery anomalies was not one of them. A curse under his breath was all the time he could afford before correcting his steps. He shifted back his weight, dropping his rump to drive his ivory heels in to the clay. But he barely tore the grass before his wings unfurled from his ribs and pulsed against the direction of the fire to drive him backwards. He jerked his own hooves right off the ground with a second beat of his wings and put a safe distance between himself and the blaze with a third.
Strange thing, these flames—they did not react to the fan of his wings as he did this. They glowed, flickered and danced with arms outstretched but not a howl or a crackle to speak with. No sound. No scent? Blyse knew what the flesh of earth smelled like when set ablaze and it wasn’t crisp as the fresh rains of spring that he inhaled now. His backpedaling lessened so that he dropped down to the earth with a harrumph.
Few things were this perplexing, but he did know of one—Magic. And Magic had this interesting little habit of needing a live and benevolent host to live within. His nerves sprung more alive at the thought of a living assailant—no fires or quakes or floods could compare to the art of deadly instincts wielded by a sharp, mortal mind. He knew who the real predators of the world were and he’d come much too far to be silly prey.
So he called out to the rejected flames as he carried his gaze carefully along them. “Just what is your quarrel with me?” His voice poured out like acid, melting the silence between them. He realized just how little he cared about the contents of a response compared to the presence of one.
Whatever the quarrel might be, he would be walking in to that city by dusk.
@Acton // UM OK so I didn’t even realize that they have SIMILAR MAGIC and now I’m twice as excited about this.
