surrender to nothing Posted on May 16, 2020 at 07:31:51 AM by Hawke
Hawke
xaisy/ six / grullo tobiano / mixed breed / 15.3hh
Though the stallion recoiled from hir touch, Hawke knew that the gesture was not entirely unwelcome from the brief play of emotion shi'd seen in his brown eye. Was it grief, then, that had built the adamant fortress that surrounded him? Self-recrimination? As one who had survived countless battles with both, the grullo could not simply turn away, even though the clear spring air had begun to burn painfully in hir lungs, and hir white-socked limbs had begun to ache from the constant impact of hooves on hard ground. Though a wanderer down to hir very bones, Hawke could not remember the last time shi had indulged in such headlong flight.
When you had no home and no-one to return to, there was no true cause to hurry, after all.
Gradually the stranger slowed, and the androgynous creature felt a dizzying rush of relief as shi continued to match hir strides to his. When the large stallion stopped, however, shi stood at a respectful distance that was nearly double what others of their kind may have offered. The reason would become quickly apparent to those who observed hir in more than passing glances; Hawke's left eye - the one that had faced the Vanner-blooded male as they ran - was bright and lively. But the right eye was strangely sunken and unmoving; a dark, dead thing half-concealed behind the shroud of a permanently hooded glare. It stood as a bare testament to the truth: Hawke was a stranger to neither pain nor the struggled to survive. It was the sympathy that filled hir now that was foreign.
Regardless, the mouse-colored not-quite-mare edged forward when hir companion began to speak, the better to hear his softly spoken words. And what shi heard only - rather than pushing hir away as the stallion undoubtedly intended - only served to strengthen hir resolve. Hawke was not certain that shi believed in gods or fate, but shi did believe in the freedom to live one's life absent of agony. And if there were supreme beings who demanded such sacrifice - who took pleasure from such pain - let them focus their wroth on hir instead; shi would suffer willingly to spare another. "From what I have seen, you live and breathe and feel remorse. None such as you need suffer - let that fate be reserved for those who are beyond redemption."
Hawke's voice - like hir scent - was neither male nor female, but something that lay in the grey area between. For all that it was soft, there was a note of strength beneath the surface that came from having known the worst that life could offer. "I once believed in my past that some unseen hand sought to deal punishment to me. We all seek an explanation for our suffering, because the truth is difficult to accept." Through all that shi had endured - the loss of hir family, the blow that had claimed one eye and nearly hir life as well, the years spent in solitude - the painted grullo had been consumed by a question that could not be answered. Because there was no purpose behind pain - except perhaps to remind those who felt it that they could still feel something. "There is no purpose to our pain... but there can be a purpose to our lives, and that is ours alone to choose. Neither gods nor fates can rob us of that freedom - in that, our only enemy is ourselves."
It was strange, how Hawke's words could be turned against hir as easily as they were given to another. Shi had no one to blame but hirself for the years that had been wasted, but was determined that this be the moment of hir redemption.