I will not hear those screams again.
The soft glow of candle light beneath the cold eye of the moon sets a macabre scene and Castalla cannot help but succumb to the air of hushed melancholy. Shadows dance a slow, morose waltz as they meet the flickering flames in a deadly tandem for the former did not exist without the latter. Once, Castalla had been the shadow and Skender the light. She, unable to exist without him. Or so it had felt. Among their people, there was nothing stronger than the bond between lovers and it is said that when one dies, the other will follow. But that innate survival instinct that had kept the Wolf alive all these years had steeled her from succumbing to her broken heart. Instead she had found ways, each more reckless than the next, to put herself in danger. Yet, the fates were cruel in keeping her tethered to life when she might drift off and see Skender once more.
Or perhaps it was not fate. Perhaps it was the souls, the ghosts, of all those she had killed. After all, her history was a bloody tale of pain and death that would make even the most hardy sick to their stomach. Though she took lives in the name of justice, with the intention of saving innocents, she still took them. Her lips were still stained with their blood.
Where some might seek penitence for such sins, praying endlessly to distant gods and aloof deities, Castalla shied from such faith. She believed. Oh she believed. But she would not get on her knees and ask forgiveness for her sins when she would only commit them again once more. No, there was no saving her soul.
Rising from the ground, turning to the steed she spies his blue-white gaze, the fire dancing in his pale eyes. He is forged of muscle, beneath the star-spun coat and there is a sombre understanding in the moonlit depths of his oculars. She wonders if he is a warrior like her, though it is far less obvious. Her body is littered with scars- dress her in silk and it may hide the tales of her history but it would never change her nature. She was a wolf, a weapon. For ever and always. And it was written on her skin.
It comes to us all. A sad smile plays across the mare’s pale lips as she glances away for a moment. Death had come to her far too much in her life. He stalked her like scavenger seeking to feast on the corpses she left behind. He courted her like a lover, forever calling for more, more, more.
“Castalla. It is a pleasure to meet you Tenebrae.” She dips her heart accordingly but only manages the small smile that is still painted across her lips. Tonight was not a night for joy and happiness it seemed. She watches as he turns his shadowed face to the moon, its figure marked upon his forehead as it is on his shoulder. But tonight the light of the moon is a cold one, as though Nysa were not watching, not smiling down from her starry perch. Perhaps the goddess had abandoned her here, seen her across the ocean only to leave the woman in this new land.
“I have not. I travelled here only recently.” The steed smells of moonlight and stardust, of the Night and her people and Castalla can only assume he is of the Night Court. “Have you?”
@Tenebrae <3
