Willfur
Sound seems to distort among the multi-colored pillars as much as imagery. The vibrations are bent, redirected, and made to travel through - mineral? glass? - in unexpected ways. There's a rattling that twists and turns the mules oversized ears, a thrumming of untraceable, unseen energy that, nonetheless, can be felt like an unwanted physical touch. It tingles in the air, flutters across the tips of his fur, brushes against his skin, invasive and impolite, sending the stallion shuffling backward until his hindquarters hit something solid, pressing heavily against an enormous outcropping of crystal.
Everything on this island is so unsettling. Willfur isn't typically a high-strung animal - on the contrary, he relishes the new and the unknown - but here he can't look and he can't listen and he can't let himself be aware of the sensations around him or else he's quickly overwhelmed, the double beat of his heart jumping and racing to fill his veins with adrenaline against some unknown threat. What is it that his instincts so fear? Is he overreacting? Having an off day?
Sweat begins to dampen his coat, seeping through the soft peach hair to make uneven patches of auburn, almost brown in the crease of his chest and behind his elbows. He closes his eyes, squeezing the lids tightly together, lays his ears flat, closes out every unwanted sense that he can. "This is silly... He mutters under his breath, a sour note in his voice, a rare harshness to his words. "What am I doing?"
He hasn't quite figured that out yet, or whether to feel sorry or angry with himself, his eyes still clamped shut and his nostrils pinched into a pained expression, when the mare extends her olive branch of familiarity and the stallion leaps to accept it.
"Thana!" He lurches forward, not bothering to hide his desperation and only thinking to stop himself from barging right into her, from tucking himself into the perceived safety of her side, when he catches a flash of her companions warning eyes. He looks as feral and forbidding as ever, but the mare, she is vibrant, even through the lens of his stress and confusion, she seems more alive now, brighter than she'd been that day in the forest where they'd met. There's something different about her now and he's as much at a loss for words to describe that as he is to explain the wrongness of this island.
"Thana?" He questions, stepping back, glancing down at the darkening crystal shards beneath her hooves. "What is this place?"
@Thana
