What had he been doing all this time? Something was clearly wrong in the herd, no the world, but he was completely out of the loop. It felt like his head had been wrapped in fog, his senses dulled and cut off from the world around. The body ached, the nose was dripping and even the smallest of sounds cut through the head like razors. It seemed not even the miraculous powers that healed his wounds could stave off a cold - that, or it was something so serious it would have killed any other horse lacking his kind of protection.
Overall it had been a miserable first season as a leader. Not only had his 'coronation' been disrupted by complaints and accusations, he had been left on the throne to make do without Mirage and then succumbed to this sniveling hell only days after. Was it a sign from the gods that he was way in over his head?
"Gods have better things to do" Fajira commented dryly from her perch above his head and looked up from her meal, the ivory tail curving lazily where it hung down from the branch. "Why would they stick noses into..." She suddenly interrupted herself and snapped the head to the side, a ripple of rising and falling scales running down her spine that was visible even to the bleary-eyed stallion. Lace frowned and turned to follow her gaze, and felt a similar sensation crawl across his own skin as he noticed a change in the surroundings. The mists seemed to come alive, at once turned into a seething torrent of nightmarish ghouls.
"What the..." Lace croaked with eyes widening in primal fear, hairs standing on edge all over his body as instinct and reason struggled over dominion within his mind...
"Run!" the dragon cut in and launched off her branch, and as if slapped into motion the grulla began to move, throwing his body into a rapid lope. Weaving through the trees he followed the pale figure of his dragon with mind numbing with horror, catching glimpses in the periphery of his vision how animals, plants, everything was devoured by the darkness. Heading as fast as he could towards the opening in the wall, a thought went to the rest of the herd; a sense of nausea came over him as Lace thought about what he was doing. Running, fleeing, abandoning the people and the land he had promised to protect... He should stay, should stop and turn and try to fight this menace! But how did you fight mist? How did you stave off blood-thirsty darkness when every fiber of the soul could tell that he would die if he stopped now?
So he swallowed the bitter loathing over his own cowardice and ran, leaving behind the only place he had to call home. And as he spotted Aaron running ahead of him the stallion made to follow him, hoping beyond hope that perhaps others too would manage to escape and find a safe place. He was powerless, and there was nothing more he could do.
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