KIROTTU
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A glance to his feet, and the stallion's thoughts were a jumble again. How far had those cloven hooves taken him, how far had he wandered, absent from his home, cast away, banished until he could cure himself of this wretched condition? It was self banishment - he had fled before the others had a chance to call him to stay, deaf to their pleas of patience, their calls of help. They chased him only to turn him round and bring him home, but he ran further away from them, seeing their hasty motions as acts of hatred and scorn, assuming they felt the same about his affliction as he did - disgust, abhorrence, revulsion. How long ago was that now? How many turns of the season had he seen through eyes that never changed? How many winters had he suffered through with thin, ragged skin and no muscle to insulate his frail bones? And still, no revelations as to a cure came into his path, no hints or whispers of a change that would restore his control, gift him with the ability to say goodbye to that old form altogether. He wanted nothing more than to see that old body rot, die, disappear, to shed it one night and not have it return the following dawn. He thought he had tried everything - starving, breaking, wearing that ancient corpse of a body, but even as the Moon rose and his pristine, perfect, youthful body took over, he always returned to the hopeless state of a withering old man by dawn. Where he once loved himself, he found himself full of hate, hostility and antipathy at his old self, and so he that was all he saw thrown in his direction. Even now, as his body clung to its youthful night-time promise, he felt as if he was being stared at with spite, with a loathing that simply was not there. Was it his eyes deceiving him? Or was it something deeper? Had the stallion, in his journey across the world, not only lost himself physically, but mentally too?

The movement slowed, became less buoyant, less demanding on the body that could withstand so much more. He was lazy, perhaps, in that he enjoyed to show his bodice off only for as long as it took for a light pattering of sweat to darken his hide - any more than that and the sheen caused by the perspiration would mar it instead of enhance it. By the moon's glow he was radiant, stunning, and the long, flowing trot that his legs paced out beneath him, while a downgrade from the dancer's motions he was performing before, still utilised the magnificence that was his true body, without tiring it out so speedily. His partner came to a halt altogether however, and he followed suit, the pace of his trot smoothly transitioning down into liquid halt, the momentum of his body carrying him a stride past her. He curved himself around, ears pricked, eyes turning his crown to find her, curious - for once willingly looking away from the moon's trails across the midnight sky above. Imogen, she spoke, responding to his query, gesturing to the strange fox that danced about them with an almost palpable fondness. He looked to the creature with a hint of wariness - it was a predator after all, and he was naturally usually a prey animal - but seeing the way the canine interacted with the belle, the way the belle looked upon her with glorious happiness, he was able to maintain face, uphold the relaxed but energised state of being. The change in motion had given him a distraction, for that was what he needed to most - something to distract him, to steal his attention away from the inner battle, the everlasting fear of what would come when the sun's rays crept up over the horizon, to keep his vulnerable mind busy with something else, anything else.

But then her own façade transformed, he sees now what he must have missed before, the concern, the unhappiness that adorns the angles of her tiara as it rises to peer back up at him. He sees this transformation, and he is unable to distinguish between innocent concern and brutal scorn. Her angelic voice speaks again, but he does not hear it as he did earlier, it is not a polite enquiry to his ears, but a demeaning, contemptuous accusation. Who was she to question whether something ailed him, what gave her the right to enquire about something nobody was to ever know about? What upset him the most was the idea that he had let some part of himself slip. A quick glance to the sky confirmed that the moon still shone, that the sun was still hours away - why then, did she ask such a query? A snort rippled through the folds of his nostrils, as the stallion's cheery façade cracked once more, crumbling beneath the weight of his anger, his sadness - all of it hiding his fear that he would be found out, discovered for the monster he was during the day. Little did he know, he was only exposing himself to be a monster no matter what body he held.

"And what would make you think that, foolish wench?!" The words were spat out with a sneer curling his lips and a deep frown creasing his brow, sharpening his gaze into a blood-curdling scowl. No longer did his ears stand upright, instead slanting down to lay parallel to his thick nape, further angling his crown to appear like nothing more than a snake poised to bite and inject his deadly venomous words. "What gives you the right to judge that I suffer from any ailment?" He spat again, huffing as his nape curled, his chest seemingly inflating, as he tried to mask whatever weakness it was that she saw fit to question him on. While his horn did not threaten her directly, it was poised in such a way that he could so easily prepare for an attack - but he would not do such a thing, even if he was riled, he was more likely to turn and run than to possibly mar his perfect hide. Leonine tail lashed from side to side, as a strong, powerful foreleg stamped a cloven hoof upon the frozen tundra below, demanding a response, an answer - when what he truly needed was a slap in the face and an angel's embrace.




[ Omg Heather, this was so hard for me to write, because I love Lena but HAD TO STICK TO HIS CHARACTER and omg. I LOVE LENA BUT KIRO IS A DICK - The end <3 ]

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THE CURSED ONE