He was hot. That meant when the snow touched him, it melted. Sunk right down into his metallic skin and sizzled. Even a bit of steam got the chance to lift off him in the wind that carried him here. One should rightfully be unsure as to whether or not the stallion was hot from running: pulsing legs and throbbing hoofbeats, breath rushed for miles to yield sweat which turned to steam in the sharp cold; or if his sheer looks could radiate: heat-lines welting the air up from coiled muscles, foil-shine mahogany skin, thick black head-knife so smooth you could see yourself in it. Most likely the latter.

But either way, he was hot and he knew it. There wasn't really anything the damp and desolate Threshold could do about it either. The trees almost swayed back before they remembered their roots as he stepped past. The sky almost snowed itself when it glared down with the same gray haze that winter always had oppressed upon it. Even the sun almost looked over it's shoulder, hoping maybe it could hold up for just a second on it's revolution around this planet, to go back and shine down on that incredible motherfucker that melted the rest of the world with just his presence. That was the kind of power this king possessed.

The honesty in experience is always subjective, I mean, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. But I'm going to be all the eyes here and tell you that this Otaktay, knows and is the most amazing thing to grace the desert, and now Helovia. Even though something way too hot to touch smolders deep in the charred ruins of his sandswept heart and festers there like an undressed wound, he still looks and feels the part. Still a badass, he thinks as he passes a frozen puddle in the road and sees a messiah in the reflection. Still much more out there for me, but this time it sounds a little less like the voice before - not from the same creature - sounds like something is attempting to reassure and console him. Strange to think that this Otaktay would ever need any consoling.

But that's really the truth here. He's hot and all that on the surface, but cold as ice on the inside, burned to a nimble little ash that wavers like a cold, lost child in the rainstorm. Don't pity him, he's already over-killed revenge. Crooked and two-faced as the serpent that lives between the forks of his tongue. Already lived out the hotness within and lives now like a burnt out star, caving in on his hollowed out self, to blow away in the wind.