| Aurora Basin Phantom atk: 7.5 | def: 10 | dam: 2.5 |
| Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16 hh :: 8 yrs HP: 60.0 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Glo |
11-13-2016, 12:36 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-13-2016, 12:37 AM by Roland.)
Roland heard the feminine voice call out before he saw its owner, and if the notes held any familiarity, he was not immediately attuned to it. How could he have expected to come across her once again, not knowing he had stumbled into old haunts? But something about the voice stirred him in a way that, at first, he could not put a name to, and he looked towards the approaching shape with a sudden hitch in his breath, a barely realized excitement that dared come to life within the cove of his chest.
His gaze fell upon what he was sure was a ghost, a specter representing memories long passed, a dark shape with deep brown eyes the hue of summer shadows, and as they studied his false face Roland's heart seized within his chest, as if she had plunged forth and pierced him with the rapier on her crown. He had hardly grasped the image before him- surely an illusion, a mirage, a fantasy dredged up by his weary mind, eager to torment, to taunt, to hold before his nose what he could no longer have- when he began to question why she did not recognize him.
The Songbird greeted him as she might a stranger, ever welcoming, always smiling, warm in the face of a bitter winter, but the sound of his name on her lips did not follow to break the early morning silence. She seemed calm, at ease, untroubled by the vision standing before her. In the storm's eye of his mind Roland began to wonder, to fear: had she forgotten him entirely? Had he been gone so long that his image had been wiped from her mind, just an old memory stifled, suffocated, underneath so many more, lost to the passage of time? Fear crept into his mind, to join the guilt and shame, closing hands around his throat. Her offer might as well have fallen on deaf ears, for all that Roland absorbed it. Instead he stared, with wide eyes and frantically beating heart, until he made to take a step towards her. It was as he moved that the thick of his black forelock fell once more into his eyes, and realization dawned upon him. He was not his real self, not the face she had come to know and care for, though he wondered if the latter still held true after all this time.
"Lena," her name fell from his lips with barely realized exultation, and with a sense of trepidation, he let go of the hold he kept on his magic. It bled from his mind with haste, and in a gradual ripple the charcoal, the waves of ebony hair and golden horns were undone, leaving the stallion at his barest. Without a second skin, one he had worn for so long that he had learned to fill what gaps it left, he felt oddly exposed in the watery shadows beneath snow laden trees. His ribs showed ever so slightly through his skin, but he was more muscular, more sure footed. The last several seasons had tested him in ways he could never have anticipated, and yet he had never wanted to succeed then as much as he did now. Free of his masquerade, without a shield to hide behind, it felt almost as if the Gods were staring him down from between the gaps in the trees. But he had eyes only for Lena, drinking in the sight of her under a dappled cloak of sun and shadow.
Perhaps now she would remember him, know him, though he feared her reception, prepared himself for thorns and barbs, braced for the anger, the sadness, the disappointment, chastising words and insults, curses thrown against him, for he knew he was deserving of every last one.
Even in the face of possible ridicule, he could not deny he was glad to see her. So many months spent in unforgiving climes, in the communities of the inexorable and iniquitous, the brigands and bandits that lusted only for havoc and mayhem, all for the sake of an old pursuit, to satisfy conflicts left unresolved. Though in the aftermath Roland was sickened by his own ambition, his hubris and arrogance. At times memories had been the only comfort to hold onto in dark times, but they also brought with them pain and sorrow, shame and regret. He had learned much from his time away, though nothing more poignant than the fact that he should never have left.
Here she stood before him at long last, providing what he was in need of most, and it was not the water- but her.
@Lena
Push your luck if it makes you a promise
that turns con men honest.
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