If feels as if he’s moving through a dream, half-aware of his surroundings, half-feeling the forest soil crunching like broken bones beneath his hooves. No matter how many times he shifts his glance back and forth over the same stretch of trees, he doesn’t see them, not truly; the paper-white trunks all blend together, and as obvious as he hopes the scars would be, they aren’t.
The forest had never seemed so empty as it did today, with frost limning the trees and clouds turning the sky an endless shade of grey so deep and so perverse it made the air itself taste melancholic.
He knows he should hate it.
Maybe there was still a part of him that did, an Ipomoea whose skin was crawling and whose wings were trembling and whose entire being revolted against being here alone, whose every instinct begged him to turn and return to the flowery, sunlit safety of the court. He liked to think there was - that he had not yet changed so irrevocably so as to not recognize himself in the mirror. Some days, when he looked around and saw little more than blood and blood-stained papers (and realized, with a shock, that he didn’t mind seeing so much red), he clung to that thought as a way of clinging to his own sense of self. But if that part of him lived still, it was hiding deep enough for him to not feel like he was anything more than another dark thing walking in the forest.
And when the rest of the forest had gone quiet, afraid to speak his name or reach for his shoulder, there was nothing else left to remind him to be something different.
So he wanders half a ghost through the same few acres, trekking his way back and forth, back and forth like he thinks moving his path three paces to the left each time will make a difference.
Even so, he almost walks right past the trap waiting half buried in the leaves.
The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
All the world was gray, like the clouds had descended and swallowed them all, and it suited Sarkan just fine.
It meant he was better camouflaged than usual, and despite the cold he kept his cloak tucked in his pack. Slowly he eased his way through trunks of beech and birch, papery trunks and dark knots that watched him like eyes. Occasionally a bird cheeped at him, and for a few minutes a crow flew overhead, branch to branch before him, one beady gleaming eye fixed on him. But it only croaked once, glossy feathers thick at its throat, before flying off to harass something more interesting than a horse showing no haste as it passed beneath the bare-branched canopy.
Sarkan was not out today to lay snares and set traps. Quite the opposite - the grey was making a last loop around snares he’d set days ago, disassembling them and tucking loops of wire back into his pack. So far they’d all been empty - just as well, as the patrols were winding ever-nearer to where he worked, and he didn’t need so much as a splash of blood to give him away. His mentor had always said a greedy man was a dead one, and it didn’t take a wise man to see the truth in it.
Though he did feel a little wistful, thinking of all the wealth Viride still held. He was certain there were potent magics in species yet to be discovered, and if he knew someone on the continent capable of unraveling those mysteries…
But he did not. His allies in Delumine were nonexistent, and in Novus they were few. While he could likely live undiscovered in the forest for a while, especially as spring came and the undergrowth bloomed thick to disguise him by sight and scent, Sarkan had never had a problem quitting while he was ahead. And ahead was a loose term, now that there were deaths of more than just dumb animals on his conscience.
Unknowingly, he walked a slanted route to Ipomoea, the two of them drawing together at the point of the trap. Sarkan was the first to realize he was no longer alone; the forest had that held-breath hush, and the stallion fell still too, until he could pinpoint the sound of hoof steps in the wet dead leaves. He stood with his head cocked, listening closely, a frown growing heavy on his mouth; whoever it was, they were walking slowly, back and forth, undoubtedly searching. And undoubtedly too close for comfort to his trap.
He should have melted away into the forest, dissipating like fog. If whoever it was blundered into his snare, he could just as easily get himself out; it was nothing but a wire loop set to tighten, and telekinesis made it a simple escape.
Instead, as the paint meandered into view and straight toward the trap, Sarkan broke the near-silence with a shout.
“Ho there, look out!” When he loped forward, abandoning all effort to keep quiet, it was with an expression of deep concern. “There’s a trap just there,” he huffed between breaths, and jerked his muzzle toward what the stallion had no doubt just discovered - but his bright blue eyes never left the other man’s face.
Back and forth he tracks, and for a while it makes him feel more like a bloodhound and less like a horse. It’s easy enough to lose himself here, to slip into a different persona like he had never been anyone else. He tells himself it’s because of the trees, and the quiet, and knotted birch eyes that stare at him as he passes. And he can pretend it’s only another game of make believe he’s playing, and not the real thing - because to believe that he could be a hunter, that he could enjoy a world where the flowers did not reach out to embrace him for fear of getting blood on their petals, would be to accept that a part of him had died.
There’s a cardinal calling to him, a flash of red wings overhead against the grey sky in the grey forest; and for just a moment, it sounds like they’re calling to him. He almost turns, moreso out of habit than anything else. The familiarity of it is painful, and the next time he sees those crimson feathers he almost mistakes them for something, someone blue.
So he refuses to look at it. It’s easier to watch the ground instead of the sky.
He doesn’t realize how accustomed he’s become to his magic, until now that it has forsaken him. Ipomoea has never had to watch his surroundings so closely before, there had been no need; the grass, the flowers, the trees had been his eyes, had told him when he wasn’t alone, had led him when he needed a path. Now, the only warning he gets is the voice calling out from the silence, and the steady hoofbeats of another cantering towards him.
Ipomoea is already looking at the trap; his warning falls on half-deaf ears. He steps forward, his jaw tightening until the frown he wears begins to ache. The sound of his blood rushing fills the silence; and he wonders, distantly, if the other stallion can hear it, or if he can only hear the sound of his own heart thumping too quickly for comfort in his chest.
Slowly, he tears his eyes away from the snare, away from the bit of wire silver against the dead and browned leaves, and looks at the stallion. Grey, he thinks to himself, grey like winter skies.
“Good eye,” his voice is caught between a stutter and a whisper, like his heart is suffocating him as much as it’s coaxing him onward. ”They’re not that easy to see from a distance."
He cranes his neck down to inspect it, digging away the sparse cover of leaves that half-cover the trap. ”I don’t suppose you know the best way to disarm this thing? Without ending up with me strung up between the trees?” he flashes a stiff smile back at the stranger, his eyes lingering only a moment too long over his face.
The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
There was no way Sarkan could hear the pound of the paint’s heart over the knocking of his own, one that singled relief, or trouble, or anticipation. It felt a little like there was a snare around his lungs, the way they tightened as the stranger only stared and did not turn, and the Percheron realized just whose attention he’d drawn to himself.
Maybe some part of him knew it was the Dawn King before he’d called out his warning - maybe that was why he’d shouted at all. Sarkan had of course never met the man who stood frowning before him now, but he’d be a poor tracker not to know the description of the king whose court he was poaching, and who had been ordering patrols increasingly nearer his own paths.
The question was what to do about it now.
Sarkan offered no response but a grunt at the king’s first comment, and when their gazes met for a moment he was surprised at the crimson glint in the other’s eye. It gave him a weight belied by the decorative foot-wings and rosy coloring. When the younger man bent to more fully bare the trap the gray shifted, his gaze falling from the pale nape of the man’s stretched neck to the loop of wire that glinted like a silver eye. His mouth pursed at the question.
“Best way?” Sarkan looked considering for a moment, then in a single smooth motion drew his knife from its weathered scabbard. For a moment the wire strained against the blade, then gave with a little plink, snapping back so fast it rattled the dead leaves. “That should do it,” he said, and slid the weapon away again.
Then he sighed, stretching out his own neck with a little muscle-loosening shake. He glanced back at the paint, unbothered (at least outwardly) by the cool smile that met him. “Must be getting close, right? To catching the guy.”
He stepped back smoothly, all too happy to let the grey step forward and handle the wires. The silver of the blade was bright, almost glowing, a sharp contrast to the dark handle - and with only the slightest of flourishes, the trap was disarmed. Ipomoea’s eyes followed its every movement, from the moment the knife appeared to the time it disappeared beneath its sheath.
His gaze traveled slowly to the stranger’s face. And without quite knowing why, his heart began to race.
You’re being paranoid, he tried to tell himself, even when the branches overhead began to tremble. It’s just the wind. Just a stranger. Just a walk in the woods. But still -
There was a root of suspicion burrowing down into his chest, and the tug of the blade on the wire kept replaying in his mind. Practiced, almost.
He brushes it aside. ”Thank you,” he says, but the words feel strangely hollow, falling short of gratefulness. For just a second, silence stretched in between the two stallions, a silence that failed to relent even when the grey shook out his neck and sighed with seeming ease.
”I certainly hope so,” he answered automatically, then smiled despite himself. Bending down again, he began to unspool the wire, tracing it through the undergrowth. All the while, he kept one ear turned back towards the man. ”We never used to find these traps of his - only the bodies. I hope then that this is a sign.” Had he said ‘he’? The word slipped past before he could stop it. Ipomoea paused, glancing back to see the grey’s reaction.
One heartbeat passed, then two, and three in quick succession. His eyes passed over Sarkan’s form, pausing once again at dark handle of the knife showing above its sheath.
”Is that a hunting blade? It looks -“ he struggled for the right word, while the trees shivered again overhead. In every tap and scratch and creak of their branches twisting against one another, they whispered all the wrong words to him. Silver teeth, black blood, traitor's cloak - He almost couldn’t hear his own thoughts above the collective voice of the forest.
The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
The king’s eyes burned on him. Sarkan ignored the sear of them, unruffled (if he’d suspected, if word had gotten out - and even after everything it still didn’t seem to have - he wouldn’t have even made it this far, pretending. It wasn’t like he was an easy man to miss), cool as the early-spring breeze. Only his heart tightens, a fist not yet white-knuckled.
“Of course.” He didn’t smile until the other man did, and only shuffled back a step as the paint tracked his snare. “If nothing else, it’s one less poor critter.” The he didn’t bother him; it was only natural. What female would do this? (He could think of just one).
He wasn’t worried yet. Only aware. That’s what he told himself, but he didn’t like the way the stallion’s eyes settled on his knife. Overhead the dead leaves still clinging to their branches trembled together like a sigh or a rattle of bones.
Sarkan chuckled. “'Course it does,” he said. “It is. Family heirloom. I’d bore you to pieces, telling you all the things it’s been used for. Must’ve carved a dozen pipes with it, first off.” He told himself his laugh did not sound hollow.
But this was a king he was not-quite-lying to. If the Percheron had had hands, the palms would be sweaty.
He straightened slowly, the dry leaves rustling under his hooves sounding like whispers. He tries to listen - tries to make out the message hidden for him in the tapping of the branches, tries to follow the wind’s direction as it tugs urgently at his mane.
But it’s been so long. All Ipomoea can see and hear are the birch leaves falling all around them now like dry, golden raindrops. And it occurs to him then, that the forest seems to be crying.
He draws his gaze away from the knife handle, peering into the grey’s eyes. He had never been as good at reading people as he was at reading flowers, but it seemed to him that those eyes were a little too bright now, a little too wide, and far too blue. His frown deepens, and he almost misses Sarkan’s words as he takes a short, quick step towards one of the trees leaning in around them.
”And what about animals?” His voice is paper-thin, as quiet as the leaves still rustling underhoof as he edges away from the stallion. Ipomoea is suddenly conscious of his own lack of a weapon, but still it doesn’t stop his tongue from forming the next words. ”- Or unicorns?”
For a moment, there is only silence between them, and the rough feel of the bark beneath his shoulder.
And in that silence, the tree is speaking to him not with words, but with memories. The memory of blood soaking its roots, and a gray man walking like a reaper through the grove. The image of a bright steel blade turned red, and the sound of something dying echoing in the woods -
”What did you say your name was?” Ipomoea’s voice trembles like the branches overhead, as he interrupts the memory. His voice trembles like the roots beneath their hooves, struggling to break free of the earth. The magic rushes back into him like the gates of a dam breaking open, and in that instant he isn’t sure if the roaring in his ears is the sound of his own heartbeat or the sound of the forest coming awake, or even if there’s a difference between the two things.
So he lifts his voice high enough to speak over them both. ”I’d like to know, so I can tell your victims’ families who you were.”
And then the roots are breaking free of the soil, and the trees begin to reach for him.
The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
And what about animals, the king says, and Sarkan almost misses it for how dead-leaf quiet it is, how paper-birch thin. And anyway, it doesn’t make sense, because critters are animals, and-
Or unicorns?
Now Sarkan was the prey that froze. Or maybe he was still the wolf, or just the woodcutter, because after a slow blink he straightened, eyebrows arching, looking at this man of rose and white and seeing only gold. Not of birch leaves but of an alicorn, and then the rich-earth brown of a unicorn before that, and all of a sudden all the skeletons in his closet seem awfully close to the door. Leaning on it, even, with the tapping of bone on wood.
Or maybe that was just the wind, knocking bare limbs together. He has always been comfortable with the sounds of the woods.
“Pardon?” he asked, though Sarkan knew he’d misheard nothing. Neither of them are smiling now, or even trying. The cut snare lay between them, a circle broken open. His thoughts glide like a palm against the scabbard of his knife. He doesn’t want to leave another body bleeding in the woods, but he’s a cornered thing now, and he knows what happens to cornered things. “I never said-“
He didn’t need to finish. Ipomoea finished for him, and then all hell broke loose.
If it hadn’t been for the island (another unicorn) and the magic there, he would have been caught at once, another animal in a trap it didn’t see coming. But he’d had experience with magic like this, now, and even as his mouth curled into a snarl his knife was drawn once more, and it was long and ugly in the light beneath the canopy.
And there was more work for it to do. Sarkan twisted first away from the tree nearest him, hacking a long wound into it, then kicked out one huge hoof to splinter another root to bits. But they were in a forest, and there was no shortage of trees here; even as they kept reaching for him and the knife kept up its work Sarkan’s eyes fell to the king, and there was nothing pleasant in their deep blue now.
One more, then, he thought. And then he’d have to run, and not stop running until he was on a ship, and even then -
The Percheron lunged for the paint, tearing a thin stream of roots that had seized one if his legs behind him. His knife swung high, and poised to plunge.
In the half-silence before the stallion answers, in the space between heartbeats so labored they hurt, Ipomoea wonders if he made a mistake. The stranger is too quiet, too calm, too composed - it doesn’t feel right to him, it doesn’t feel fair; and in the waiting, he can feel his blood beginning to rise. Every second, every step he has taken in the woods since the nightmares began, every body found half-hidden in moss and snow - all of it he has held on to, all of it he has stored away in the dark and cracked parts of him. All of it he turns now to fury, spinning every memory to wrath like they’ve only ever been threads to the tapestry he now creates.
He wonders if this is what it feels like to fight the ocean, waves crashing over his head like the anger crashing against his ribs.
He’s drowning in it.
And when Sarkan’s eyes meet his then, he doesn’t try to smile. Guilty, guilty, guilty, the trees whisper around them, so loudly he wonders how Sarkan can’t hear them. His anger is turning every drop of magic in his blood to gold and rust and something sharp, something hungry. And it is in that moment when he looks at the grey man that his magic begs, let me go. Ipomoea starts to feel like the wolf setting the traps now, but still he says no, not yet, wait, even as the trees lean in and all the forest begins to tremble from wanting.
Until Sarkan tries once more to deny, to slip his way out of the noose he’s trying to slip around his neck. Then he cuts the last paper-birch thin thread holding his magic back. It swells and burns and oozes like all the blood that had drenched the forest soil, and he is glad to set it loose, glad to free the monster he had locked away in the deepest parts of himself. And when it takes over, when it stops listening to him and starts listening to the sound of the his hurt and his anger and his sorrow singing, he does not try to stop it.
With his magic leading the way, the forest rages.
The branches scratching together overhead start to sound like something wailing, tapping out a death knell that calls for a funeral to start. The earth is trembling as tree roots claw their way free of it, reaching their bone-white fingers for the man who had watered them with blood. The flowers around them start to chant, yes, yes, yes, the magic blooming like a flower that has never known rain until now.
For every root he shakes free, every vine he severs with his knife, there is another rising to take its place. And when Sarkan turns for him at last, and raises that silver-bright blade high, the beast in Ipomoea smiles with all its teeth.
In the fury, and the struggle, and the quicksilver second, he hardly feels the knife against his chest. He feels only the heat of his magic, and hears only the humming of that set-free beast. And as he leaps forward to meet the stallion, teeth raised to his throat, he thinks what a mistake it was for Sarkan to let the forest taste his blood.
Thana blinks and sees only rivers of blood crawling across the ground like snakes. Every blink, every flicker of darkness, the blood sparks and stings at her mind like lightning. It keeps the wrath coiled just beneath the surface of her skin with roots burrowing into every inch of sinew. Her hollow horn aches, and hungers, and bellows like a sentient crown burrowed into her brow.
Blood. It is calling for blood, and violence, and evisceration.
Hour, by minute, by second, she descends into the madness of it. The horror, the rage, the incandescent burning of a black-hole, it all consumes her.
The woods can barely hold her now.
When the forest starts to sound like bones in a storm, and the earth bellows at her feet, it is not Ipomoea's Thana that turns her heard towards the sound like a lion. And it is not his unicorn around which death starts to blossom like spring. It is not even Thana that races into the darkness with trees bowing above her on rotten roots and a desert demon galloping at her side.
The monster-that-was-made crashes through the thorny copse, with swamp moss rising like blood in the divots of her hooves. The beast-that-will-devour-this-world turns her head towards the two stallions with their teeth and swinging knife. The end lowers her sentient, ravenous crown. She blinks and there is only blood, and lightning, and war gone supernova, in her form. With a slip she descends into the belly of it-- this revelry of gore, and teeth, and blade, and need.
She sings a war-cry as she goes down, down, down.
Eligos sings with her and maybe it's a growl, or a howl, or a lowing at the iron moonshine of blood. Maybe it's the only song another monster-who-was-made knows to sing. Whatever it is... the birds fall silent at the chill of it. They know. They know. They know.
They turn away.
She does not know if the roaring of the forest is from her rage or Ipomoea's. But it does not matter as her magic opens wide and gnaws at the birch, and oak, and vine. There is nothing simple about her rage as she crashes into the gray stallion. She does not feel the bruise already growing beneath her skin like a night sky or the ache of her chest as she drives him away from Ipomoea. All she can feel is the hollow drumming of her horn as she drives it towards his fragile, mortal skin.
Eligos lunges at the stallion's hip. He tries to hold on with fang, and claw, and hunger. He tries to drag him down into the dirt.
Thorns scratch at her skin. But it doesn't matter, not when her teeth taste blood, and iron, and arrogance. The beast-that-will-devour-this-world revels in the intimacy of this-- this tongue, and blood, and skin blooming open like roses. She lingers in it. She purrs.
The forest floor withers with the stallion, with each drop of his blood another leaf and root turn to dust. This copse starts to turn black as it putrefies. The flies gather in like disciples of their reaper.
He has no magic for her to drink. But this will do. For now, this will do.
She does not take her teeth from his skin. Each hum of her heart has her holding on harder, and harder, and harder. A million cuts from his blade will not pull her away from the hot ache of his life. Not until there is nothing left to devour.
And the monsters-who-were-made sing in splendor as they start to feast.
