North.

Skywalker entertains himself with necessity; in the dark he weaves in and out of shadow, across grasslands and mires, in the sullen gloom of woodlands, down trodden paths and through thick undergrowth. He is quiet and systematic, drawing a map of intent, clearing the dark of uncertainty – curiously wandering this way and that, tracing the lines of Helovia into the dark corridors of his memory. There is quiet in his mouth that feels cold as the mists that swivel between his steps and digs into the hollow echo that snap at his heels. The quiet has grown and tastes metallic between his pursed lips; Skywalker knows what it means and while he does not deny it he resents it. Company. Try as he might it is an instinct he cannot quell, and it picks at him like the vulture on the carcass.

So he has headed north for some reason and finds himself climbing up a snaking path; through mist and fog, peering down with every rock that scatter and fall down the mountainside by decree of his shuffling hooves. The hard rock underfoot cries sharply with his every step and the sound screams mockingly in his ears. Someone more apt at climbing might find the rhythmic sound assuring, he realizes – not without bitterness – but Skywalker finds no comfort in the way the sound shears through the blinding fog. He is not precisely living up to his namesake, he thinks and purses his thin lips. Still, he moves on, resolute and unyielding, knowing that all ways lead somewhere: this one hopefully to a point from which he can see the world.

Finally – like a milky curtain – the mist parts for him. The incline is gone and the stallion lets his gaze sweep, greedily, over the unlikely vastness that gathers him up from the steep climb. Above him is the sky, close and punctured with stars: moonlight spills into his mane and slithers down his narrow shoulders, leaving the black stallion eerily aglow. In the milky light, everything seems inverted – darkness that exists in light.

Slowly, he walks into the gentle sway of the grass.

S K Y W A L K E R.

OOC: Open for any & all

He flinches as her cry and the subsequent sound of her steps runs through the silence like scissors runs through old lace. For a moment he had allowed himself the indulgence of half-closing eyes and the steady tension in his shoulders to ease; the field that spread luxuriously at the crest of his strenuous climb had begged it of him. And Skywalker, while a sudden strike to his fatalist character, had complied. His blue eyes fly open, unraveling a wintry stare. Like a blanket his prior longing for company – a mere flicker, he insists – is thrown off him, feverishly. And yet, something compels him to steady himself, to stay with his newfangled (however unwanted) company. Perhaps it is the fact that he must, at some point, socialize with the inhabitants of Helovia that wrings him out of his cloth of seclusion. Perhaps there is simply something about her loud, misdirected elation that stirs his attention. A frown sours his inelegant face while he looks at her down the length of his nose, considering the comely motley of black and white. He weighs her in the quiet but vast expanses of his mind, sipping haughtily from the cup of her beauty. For a long while he is quiet and the silence seems to gather a shadow of its own as it hangs between them, he does not bother with jovial gestures. Instead, there is something else that has caught his eye. “What’s that,” he demands unceremoniously and nods towards the gleaming trinket around her neck. A step closer, a greedy, curious gleam in his eye, Skywalker extends his long, proud neck.

The snake and the thief and the liar that he is: dangerously close, dangerously curious. Perhaps Kahlua should turn on her flying heels, back the way she came?

Perhaps she should stay, for a little while.

He smiles and a wrinkled up perdition unfurls on his bitter lips, “come here, and let me have a look.”

S K Y W A L K E R.

WC: 326
OOC: I don't mind being tagged. Hope you don't mind him being nosy about her amulet.

He somehow understands that this place is an amphora of deep-rooted but volatile magic, and while he does not understand it he understands that these chimerical things are things that he must gather – a dragon knows that he must hoard his gold. Skywalker, however, is only a horse and has never before come across inexplicable wings sprouting from shoulders; he does not understand the concept of knifelike horns bursting from the skulls of his new brethren. And now he looks at the mare, wrapping her fondly in the wintry grasp of his gaze, elatedly (if one could describe anything in his disposition with that word) thinking how terribly close this gleaming thing that he desires is. “What does it do,” his voice is level and he remains bolted to his moderation although he’d rather abandon his reticence and snatch that gleaming little thing from her. He does not find a great deal of intellect simpering anywhere in her eyes; it should be no great feat for him to convince her to bend to his greed. Somehow, it always seems as if they do. His lips curve upward and he stretches his neck a little further, letting his sooty muzzle graze against the small object around her neck. Perhaps he does this a little too eagerly, perhaps an allude of some disappointment glows like sterling through a small crack of his well-kept stronghold of discretion: it would bee too easy, he thinks as a strand of her mane tickles his inelegant nose.

Are you turning soft, Skywalker?

No, that isn’t it. Skywalker, however terrible he might be, is a proud creature who (although he rarely shows it) values his dignity and sense of decency higher than his almost desperate affinity for the astringent wine of ruthlessness. However unlikely that may seem. Again, he harnesses his urges and does so quite resentfully. The grass underfoot has somehow sprung into life and fills the cool air with emerald sweetness; it sickens him but the thin stallion lowers his inelegant head nonetheless, distractedly tearing a mouthful from the dark, pungent soil. What to make of this sudden, deplorable failure of character, the question echoes sullenly in his head and he glares at the vacuous mare, as if she were the one to blame. “Skywalker,” the exasperation in his voice is as evident as his aforementioned frown, and silently he questions why exactly he should bother giving her his name.

Perhaps she can be of use, he reminds himself while the amulet around her neck glints and taunts.

“Tell me, Kahlua, what would someone like me have to do to get some of your magic,”

a rhetorical question?

S K Y W A L K E R.

WC: 443
OOC: Sorry about the wait

He shrugs and moves to the side, already weary of their idle conversation. As quickly as it came the realization and want for magic abandons him and he looks at the naïve mare with a growing sense of restlessness constricting his patience. Skywalker really has no more business with her, there is no beat of attraction, nothing interesting she could give him and he has discarded the idea of stealing her little trinket. She presents herself as an unlikely vessel of valuable information – the black stallion assumes that whomever she answers to has not shared any important secrets with the mare, given her apparent habit of speaking so freely. He is about to turn on his heels and return to the murky depths of the spectral marsh when he changes his mind. Perhaps she can be of use, he reminds himself, perhaps this mare can take him to the gods, deliver him unto the possibility of harnessing some magic of his own. His ears swivel atop his head and he turns toward her again – an interesting concept, indeed. “Gods,” he begins with his gaze firmly set on her, “will you take me to them?”

“Perhaps you can show me your gods, acquaint me with them so that I, in time, may earn magic of my own?”

Although he does not doubt his abilities as a fighter, he understands that he will always be at a certain disadvantage without magic; the want returns. “And maybe tell me something about yourself on the way, where do you belong? I assume it is not with the racist unicorns, hmm?”

He decides to play nice, for now.

S K Y W A L K E R.

WC: 273
OOC: I've been trying to get a decent reply to you, sorry it took so long. I thought maybe they could go to VOTG and speak to the gods or something? Sorry about the AWFUL post, I'll do better next time :p