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Private  - loneliness, who comes at night

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Grey
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#1


i raised myself, my legs were weak
i prayed my mind be good to me

T
he sound of soft laughter drifted from the hall and into the room, reminding Grey just how alone he was in this new world. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed, not with any true amount of joy. Had he ever laughed like that with Amaranthus, or had it only been before—with his brother, his King. His friends and family.

He couldn't say.

The unicorn had spent too many days, endless days and too short nights, wandering through the court that had become his new place of residence (it was not his home, never could be). Now, with ash dropping from the sky like snowfall and the day as dark as the night, Grey felt more restless than ever.

Equines hunkered down in their homes, away from the thick, suffocating smoke, only venturing out when absolutely necessary. But they, unlike he, were not alone. With a fire to warm their bodies and company to warm their hearts, they would be bale to ride out the erupting volcano in the distance, as he'd quickly found out it was.

But Grey, Grey had none. So, he'd tied a scrap of cloth about his mouth and nose, and wandered. Ash sprinkled his coat, mixing with the ever present crystals there. Without sun he seemed duller, less like brilliant ice and more like roadside snow. Forgotten, pushed aside, ignored.

He'd left the court walls and walked, and walked, until he entered the same forest where he'd met the boy, Mateo. He'd walked and walked, until he had happened across the strange, mystical library built of trees.

And although he wasn't alone (there was the mysterious owners of the laughter, of course), there was something strangely comforting about this place. Thus, the unicorn found himself aimlessly browsing a shelf of records not sure what he was looking for, but not sure if he was looking for anything exact, anyway.


@Toulouse | "speaks" | notes: I  hope this is good!
rallidae | footybandit










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Toulouse
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#2



the last one standing
when all the giants fall


L
aughter spilled from his lips like a bubbling brook, languorous and never ending. Even though the joke was anything but humorous, even if his heart twists and turns, rebelling against the laughter like a shadow that recoils from the sun, he forces amusement to take the place of derision in his tone.

If only you knew, his mind snarls hatefully at the bay man, even while his lips smile and his eyes glint, if someone only gave me a blade, I’d make sure you could never tell that joke again. He hated the sound of their laughter, so he drowned it out with his own, laughing at an entirely different punchline.

All morning the displeasure had been building inside of him, like sandpaper chafing at his fragile patience. It wasn’t often that the ever-present rage reached so near to its boiling point, seething until it roiled just beneath the surface. Toulouse had become adept at suffocating it, at strangling his own heart until it beat obediently, quietly, unassumingly inside of his chest. There was no place for such an emotion in his line of work. The fury he’d grown up with as a child served him no purpose, so he beat it into submission.

But today it continued to rise, a dark wolf made of fire and blood struggling to break free, struggling to take his place. His teeth caught the light every time he laughed, glinting with bloodlust in the light streaming through the window.

A minute more and he might snap.

"Forgive me," he murmured before he could, excusing himself without looking back. And once he turned the corner, as soon as he was out of sight, the smile fell from his face abruptly. He stalked amongst the alcoves, eyes flashing like wildfire upon each title. He’d better hope his information is good, his mind twisted and turned in irritation, the only reason he tolerated his atrocious humor.

He walked past aisle after aisle, a purpose in his step, eyes hunting for the key word. And when he found it, when he turned down the corridor that would (hopefully, for the bay’s own sake) contain the document he sought - a unicorn blocked his path, browsing quite aimlessly.

Toulouse stopped in his tracks. At first there was only more irritation - of course he’d find someone browsing the same records he needed, of course there was someone in his way when the wolf inside of him snarled and demanded solitude. It was his luck, after all, if one could truly call it that.

But he was quick to hide his emotions behind a mask of indifference, forcing himself to step into the small room, hating the proximity between himself and another. Inside he raged at the pale man’s seeming lack of purpose, but outwardly his composure was as calm as a pond’s surface.

"Excuse me," he speaks up, forcing himself to step further into the room, daring to come alongside the translucent stranger, close enough to note the sudden temperature drop in the air. He shifted his eye’s sideway, appraising his frosty appearance. "Do you mind?" He takes another step forward, gesturing vaguely at the shelves as if to say, take what you need or move. But in fewer (and nicer) words.


"speaks" | notes: oomf sorry, i hope this is alright!
rallidae | art










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Grey
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#3


i raised myself, my legs were weak
i prayed my mind be good to me

T
he laughter stopped, and there was silence for a short time. Until the golden man stepped into the room. From the corner of his eye, Grey saw nothing but the firelight reflecting warmly off his brilliant coat and his breath stopped short in his chest. So bright and gleaming, so like Zephyr.

Of course, when the unicorn turned to look at his newfound companion it was not his brother standing there but a stranger. Wingless and unfamiliar. Grey’s disappointment was tempered only by the chill of his skin, reminding him that last he had seen his brother they had argued and that his gut still twisted like a knife when he thought of his twin.

The stranger spoke and stepped closer, standing alongside Grey as his eyes shifted back to the books momentarily. “I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone,” he said. A lie, but there was nothing in the empty white of his eyes nor the way he stepped a short distance away to allow room for this man that gave it away.

Grey glanced back at the golden stallion, just in time to see his eyes lingering on the crystals clinging to his skin, no doubt glimmering in the soft light of the torches. “It must be important,” he said idly, but there was an old soldier inside the unicorn still curious. Still suspicious. “What you’re looking for, that is, if you’ve come out in this mess to look for it.”

Grey referred to the dismal conditions outside, his too-white eyes back to browsing the books before him. There were histores and names etched on the spines, none that he recognized, but he was interested to see which the man at his side would collect for himself. He stood by his remark, even if it was intended as empty chatter.


@Toulouse | "speaks" | notes: so late rip
rallidae | footybandit










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Toulouse
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#4



the last one standing
when all the giants fall


I
t’s a hard thing to reign in his temper, once it’s already begun to grow inside of him. It rises like a fire, fed by every slight annoyance that dares to test him. Most days he keeps it carefully under wraps; even an annoyingly high voice or an imperfectly timed intrusion are too small to bring it to head.

But today, oh today it’s a hungry thing, one that delights at each tender branch of kindling, laughing and burning away inside of him. It’s the wolf in him, he knows; he’s kept it starved for too long this time. (Maybe a small part of him, an unconscious sliver of his mind, had done it intentionally; maybe Toulouse wanted to lose control, if only for a day.)

Surely it wouldn’t be the worst thing a man like himself could do.

Still he stuffs his claws and fangs down for a moment longer, forcing a small (albeit sharp) smile onto his lips when he rounds the corner and sees the man. He imagines the frost coating his skin melting beneath the heat of his anger to appease himself. 



His smile falters, nearly slips from his face when the stallion steps back, but not silently like he had hoped. "Lost in your thoughts?" He doesn’t say what he’s really thinking, that the stranger wasn’t paying enough attention. Toulouse had not been trying to be quiet, not this time.

His eyes scan the shelves even as he talks, moving far too quickly. He has to stop, backtracking his gaze, rereading the titles. The wolf inside of him growls with displeasure.

"Oh I don’t mind the snow," he lied. Snow was almost as bad as sand, sometimes worse, depending on his mood. Today the snow chilled him from the outside in though, barely cooling the furnace that burned within his chest. "Although," he relinquished, eyeing the pale stallion from the corner of one eye. "it’s far nicer watching it from indoors than trekking through it." He looks at him from the corner of one eye, forcing another small smile.

"Were you looking for anything?" he asks when his eyes return to the shelves. "Just browsing?"


Even when irate, his curiosity gets the best of him.


@grey | "speaks" | notes: <3
rallidae | art










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Grey
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#5


i raised myself, my legs were weak
i prayed my mind be good to me

S
omething like that,” Grey remarked idly, “there’s a lot to get lost in, in this library.” And in truth, the great building, made of trees and magic, was perhaps the most grand and mystical thing he had ever seen. The unicorn pushes away memories of gold skin and kinship and try as he might cannot push away thoughts of magic, as it clings to his skin stubbornly and without reprieve.

The snow had no effect on Grey. It could settle upon his skin and send cold deep into his bones, but was it not already there, nesting in his marrow? Had it not already dusted its fingers over him? The snow had been the thing that had nearly taken his life, leaving its mark upon him forevermore regardless of Amaranthus’ magic.

Oh, it had affected him once.

“I would agree. All those fortunate enough to be bundled up in their homes by their fires and yet here we are,” it was a sting, to say those words. It was a knife to his heart that twisted and twisted and twisted Once, Grey had had a home and a fire and a family, to keep him warm on the darkest and coldest of days. Once, but that was no longer and would never be again. He was destined to this loneliness that has gnawed open a hole inside him.

The unicorn didn’t smile. There was nothing in him that remembered how.

His white white eyes paused their search of the spines of books, resting on the gilded man. And the once-soldier inside Grey thought that their curiosities were similar beasts, even if for different reasons. The once-soldier in Grey is curious and wary because snakes in the grass are often exactly as they appear. He couldn’t say the reason for this man’s own. “I suppose that I was hoping some book here would give me some insight into this place I now rest my head at night.”

He does not rest his head at night. There was no rest for the weary, tired and aching. He walked the streets and drowned himself in the silence and the dark. Something inside him, some part that Grey had tried so hard to forget, was still searching. A part of him that Amaranthus had awakened and sent out into the world on a mission. He still had not found the thing that his god-lover had told him he would find.


@Toulouse | "speaks" | notes: a sad boi and a grump boi
rallidae | footybandit










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