to live and burn is
the most exquisite form of self destruction

For the first time since the death of his father, Rade’s carefully-cultivated apathy broke, and he wept.

The sight of the frail, skeletal-thin figure of the colt would certainly have brought tears to any pair of eyes that chanced upon him. Like a lost little lamb, the boy stood at the edge of the meadow, probing the shadows of the forest with listless amber eyes. The palomino roan had followed Leto’s trail this far with the dim hope that he might find her at its end. Nothing could have prepared him for what he found instead - or for the lance of emotion that punched through his heart at the realization of the foal’s identity, confirmed by the matching gaze that met Rade’s. His son... the boy was his son.

For the next couple hours, time behaved strangely. It seemed to take forever for the golden stallion to reach the colt’s side, as if the air had become a viscous substance through which he struggled to move. But once he stood by the small roan’s side, time began to race past at a gallop. Rade’s gray-speckled muzzle inspected every inch of the boy in minutes that felt as if they passed in seconds, and the relief he felt at the lack of apparent injuries was gone in the breadth of a heartbeat. Because it didn’t matter whether the child lay before him with his life’s blood pumping out to stain the sun-bleached grass, or swayed perilously where he stood with his ribs sticking out like ripples in the earthen-red sand of his coat.

Either way, Rade’s son was dying.

Each moment stretched into eternity as the palomino stallion begged, coaxed, and sometimes bullied the boy - anything to keep those fragile limbs moving. Their journey had begun at the northernmost edge of the Meadow, but even the short distance to the boundaries of the Peak felt as unreachable as the stars that had begun to wink to life overhead. Rade clamped down on the soft whispers of fear at the edge of his thoughts - and the dark cloud of doubt that hung over him - by speaking to his son. The tiny roan did little more than listen, though at one point - with a gentle prompt from his sire - he did offer his name in a tentative, tired voice. Sciannath. Exhaling the name with his next breath, Rade tasted how it felt on his lips, and felt it burn within him like a promise - no, a vow.

Together, they followed a winding creek through the rise and fall of the Peak’s foothills, the smaller blue figure leaning heavily upon the larger gold. Stops for rest had become more frequent - the colt staggered and stumbled, his little hooves unerringly finding every root and stone that stood in their path. Rade could only hope that Adelheid was in the clearing that could be found at its end, because it was clear that Sciannath’s strength would not hold out for much longer. In fact, no sooner had he silenced this dark thought than the boy sunk to the earth with a weary little sigh, his thin body becoming so still that Rade feared the worst. A shrill cry left the stallion’s lips - a desperate summoning for help, for Adelheid, for anyone who could save his son.

He would pay any price - including the last vestiges of life that remained in his own aging body - if it only meant that Sciannath could live.

stallion . twenty-one . palomino roan . mustang mix . 15.1hh
debonaire x neassa