losing hold of the light Posted on June 30, 2022 at 01:13:21 PM by charybdis
but I saw in your eyes I was never alone
Immediately there is a shift in her, a sharpening of focus, and a deepening of an already cavernous interest. For a moment, Charybdis almost laughs, for she is in wonder of him. Of how bold he is, coming into her home and claiming such a connection with her - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But she bites her tongue, even as her heart sends blood roaring to her ears, because the truth, the truth is, he does not know her, and he cannot know much about her beyond the whispers carried across the wild waters of the islands. All those who knew her… Her rivers, her herd, Eidolon, Drogon, Faolain… They were wise, to keep their distance.
Charybdis knew how to protect them from dangers from the outside world, though, imperfect as she was, she wouldn’t always succeed. What was far less certain was whether she could protect them from herself.
“De shadow,” she drawls after a weighty silence, making the connection even as the white-patched stallion before her named this enemy they supposedly shared; Fell (and she remembered how he had fallen into the surf, when she’d rushed him, savage and seething - the both of them). But her mind is turbulent, and she still isn’t sure how she felt about the dark, dauntless stallion of the north, except that she felt many things (as she always did, with everything, and everyone). And distantly, she is aware that this stallion before her does not know her, or know of her as he perhaps deserved to, before having come into her den.
Her outlook on the world, half-sighted as she was… Her perception of life and love and loyalty, of enmity and enemies, was extremely unlikely to align neatly with those who called these islands home (and even less so with those who roamed the mainland). Charybdis didn’t know if Fell would ever quite fit the mold of enemy to her, but she couldn’t afford to risk rushing the alienation between her and this intriguing visitor that was sure to come. Reckless as she could be at times, Charybdis was quick to learn from her mistakes, and she wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes she’d made in the Harbor any time soon. Come on too strong, too strange, and she would lose him, before she’d had a chance to ever really hold him.
“ ‘im is far from anyt’ing common,” the pale mare ventures to murmur, intending to tread light. She turns her head, all askance, but she watches him from the corner of her seeing right eye. Wonders what he makes of her, as she stands before him now, and how long it’ll take for him to realise that she is unlike anyone he’s ever met. (There is no egotism in her, no narcissism. Just a restless, heavy weight that ever leaves her feeling lonely and longing.)
“I tasted ‘im blood you know,” Charybdis continues, and she moves toward him then, slow, steady. Quiet and comfortable. “Came dis close,” the mare whispers as she stops before him, almost within reach, like its a secret, between the two of them. “To doing dat what you want.” And her eye drops to hover on the vulnerable, tender flesh of the stranger’s throat, lingers there for several heartbeats.
(Much of that day is a blur, flickers of pain and fear and blinding light, distorted fragments of sound - the cry of the newborn colt and the rumble of the mountainside that’d betrayed her - but it was this that felt most real, her teeth finding their mark upon the silent stallion’s throat, the tang in her mouth - blood and saltwater combined. It reminded her of another time in this sacred place. Someone else had forced her wounded to the sand then, and she had refused to tend to her injuries until the one whom she’d love in a way had washed the blood from their own skin first.)
“You know of me?” Charybdis cannot help but ask (though she already knows, surely, he knows so little, otherwise he would not be here), and she remains where she is, leaving it up to the stallion to back up a little, if he felt uncomfortable with their proximity. “Come all de way from Salem to talk?” He carries an earthiness upon his curiously striped hide, beneath the brine of the sea that Charybdis knows well, and this serves to overflow the wellspring of her interest, but she’s in the mood for a game, and a smirk accompanies the squint of her eyes and the shake of her head. “I t’ink not, stranger.”
Without warning, she turns away from him, politely dismissive, and she makes as if to vanish through the low-growing palm leaves. But then, just as impulsively the morgan mare turns back, facing him front front-on with head held high.
“Come, follow me.” The invitation is offered as casually as her acceptance of his presence in her home. “Tell me your name, what de ocean looks like from your ‘ome, and make clear what it is you want from me.” This will be enough for her, for now. “Call me Charybdis,” the red mantled mare tells him, as she stares across at him along the length of her muzzle. “I will listen,” she promises with a curl of her lip, eyes intently focused upon Rafe’s face. “And den I will talk.”
But first, she would have him follow her through the jungle, to a stream where he could drink (it made her thirsty just thinking about how dusty and arid Salem must be), and a quiet grove where they would not be disturbed.
the half-sighted augur of the ridge