The color of the sunset season is one of death. Leaves fall from their life-giving patrons gently, violently sometimes, to loam and dirt, to become food for other, lesser creatures. The beauty of the paradox is lost in the eyes of the darkling prince—for he sees naught but grey and throbbing anger, the world pulsating in the beating tendrils and coal-beds of the coming storm and his ever simmering wrath. The rain that pours thickly down is naught but tears.

Before, it had been some other grey-eyed charlatan who had dared claim these lands; that one didn’t seem to be around anymore, he noticed. The air was void of the odor of heathen creatures, and that stallion’s piss seems to have evaporated, the challenge erased and nulled. All that remains upon the wind’s breath is the empty smell of life and trees and bushes, the earthy aroma of marble stone, the transparent shadow of the vaulted glass ceiling. He comes closer to his conquered piece of rock, craving his kingdom, returning from the journey of a failed crusade for his mother. He retains smoldering frustration with his mother’s absence, his father’s lack of alarm. The faint trace of filly--a familiar scent, one of annoyance and something more now, something heady like an itching cloud of pollen—only serves to give light to the dormant explosives within him.

He does not see her at first; the clouds hang low overhead, and her coat blends seamlessly in the falling of the leaves, painted as she is with their reds and marigold hues. She moves between the ivory pillars of his doorstep, a gauntlet thrown before him—the ultimate challenge. The rain is a curtain upon his back, a sheet possessing the full chill of the season; a fine mist of steam trails weakly from the taut cords of his neck, the tensed shoulder blade that pounds through the growing mud puddles. Memories suffuse his skull as they have done many times before—the smell of the sea salt, the joy of the cracking shell beneath his hoof, a blur of warm, sunny golds and finally the great pain of collision and humiliation. Often have these recollections had possessed him, a fever of unspent rage that festers and bubbles, searing and latent and ready to be poured from his fangs in liquid fire. It surges to the back of his throat as he sees her, and recognizes her countenance; the rain fails to cool him. He smolders indeed.

He climbs the steps of the rotunda, his movements heavy and stiff, filling the cavernous space with the clamoring echo of his hoof-falls. He stands at the edge, just out of the sheet of rain; his quarters cock, his hind legs lengthen, and, almost as an afterthought, he releases a thick, golden stream upon the finely cut marble. May there be no more doubt, it seems to say, for this is the property of the Grey-Eyed prince; he is jealous.

His mane lays plastered against his neck and face; his shaggy coat is lank with the weight of the rain, slickly clinging to his skin. The storm has diminished him, stripping him of the padding of a coarse hide. It matters little, for he has grown, and swagger swells the rest of him. The fire is bold in his eyes as he looks at her—staring hotly, equal amounts of flint and brimstone crackling from his gaze. He is still; a the puddle of piss rainwater seems to flow from the hooves of a statue.

“You.”

The rain pounds thickly overhead against the glass, a dull, persistent roar. His hiss slithers underneath, as dangerous and pensive as it is soft on his lip; he continues to stare. Lighting sparks in the eyes of grey.



@[Tandavi]
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