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He was ecstatic. With every moment his step lightened and his tail twitched and writhed with his boundless joy, and he is rosy-cheeked with his enthusiasm, over-joyed by the presence of the night angel and her violet eyes, so deliriously happy and drunk on her. No, not just her, but the scent of her, the way the sun glitters on the ebony of her crow wings, the shine of her eyes brighter than the stars, her laugh and her stories and the soft curves of her swelling flanks, gifted with a child from his own seed.
How difficult it is to describe this puppy-like enthusiasm, the way his eyes widen with shock as he caught sight of her, the way his ears pricked forward and the curl of his lips as he grinned from cheek-to-cheek.
And his teeth snap down on empty air as hooves rise up to meet him. For a moment everything is etched in the hot red light of the blistering sun, and he can see every hair on her pelt, sharper than blades of grass, but mostly he sees those hooves coming at his face.
His horn!
Carnesîr jerked his head back, so swiftly that the vertebrae of his neck pop and clack, twisting his cranium so she will not catch her delicate frogs on his pearl spear. Instead, her dark gray hoof hits in the cheek, just below the glint of his brown eye, hard and brutal and careless.
And of all the things he could think- that venomous bitch, I gave her my virginity or what the fuck was that for or even I’m sorry, what did I do wrong; he prays she did not cut herself up on the unforgiving sharpness of the sword spearing from his forehead into the sky, for despite all the efforts he has made who knows what may have happened?
“Shadow!” He cries in his clarion tones, slipping back into a stream of elvish that flows from his lips effortlessly, before he clamps his jaw together and swallows, brow knitting in concern, eyes wide and soft and gentle. Something must be wrong. Maybe he was supposed to be here sooner, with her… Or maybe she didn’t want him back at all. No, he can’t believe that. Shadow is a friend of his, one with his foal in her belly, and surely…
That couldn’t be the cause of it?
And then she’s yelling at him, her voice knives that slice and stab at his ears, full of heated hate and gnawing frustration, blaming him, him, him, always him, why is it always his fault? Suddenly his throat is stinging and he’s backing away, there’s sand flying at his face and scratching his eyes, making his vision all blurry, how it hurts coming from her, he never would have expected this, not from Shadow, not from Shadow, not from Shadow. But they were strangers. Why would he expect any better from her? Why would he care? She was a stranger, and they were just two names to each other.
Couldn’t she understand he wanted more than that though? He didn’t just want them to be passing glares or cordial smiles, Carnesîr wanted something… something… what?
“Stop it,” he says, but his voice is a whimper and hers is so much louder, a cry for help buried beneath her anger.
“Stop it,” he repeats, louder, his ears flattening and his eyes are still blurry and something wet and warm is overflowing his eyes and dripping onto his cheeks. How hideously his head aches from her kicks. There is a dusty hoofprint on his left cheek.
He wants to yell at her, demand and shout back lustily, but he can’t. There are no words and no stories which pop into his head, no words in this cumbersome language to say.
“DARO! Am man theled, Shadow? Av-'osto… goheno nin.” And so he says what he can in his own language, all lilting words and rich tones, bitter and resentful as much as longing. Carnesîr whips his tailtip over the ground, his soft plume carving lines into the sand, the ocean breaking up the silences between them.
“Goheno nin.” He repeats, his voice soft as the feathers on Shadow’s wings.
Wingbeats sound overhead, no doubt drawn by the sound of their shouting. His thin mane whips and snaps in the wind, and he shrinks back, pupils expanding as the stallion blocks out the sun. Sand whips and claws at his face again, but Carnesîr says nothing in greeting, until the primitive stallion speaks.
A monster above us, and a monster between us.
“I don’t know, but I sorry for upsetting her.” He says clumsily, head bowing in defeat. “I am Carnesîr, friend of Onni.”
The card games and ease with the bitter salt of blood
I was in but I want out
My mother's love is choking me
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