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

The air felt coarse with each gasping inhale that Rade took—his lungs working as desperately as if each breath might be their last. Despite the steady flow of oxygen to his body, however, the edges of the stallion’s vision were being consumed by a creeping blackness. Somewhere in his chest, his heart had become a small bird that fluttered frantically against the bone bars of its cage—wanting nothing more desperately than to escape its doomed mortal shell. And though Rade could feel sea-worn pebbles shifting beneath his hooves—a sensation that ought to have been a blessing, given the dubious odds of his survival—the golden roan felt as if he were tumbling endlessly through the air. Spinning helplessly as he was borne where the tides of fate had always willed his life to end.

Choking on the acrid taste of his own fear—he, who had once lived without any at all!

It might have been moments or hours later that Rade resurfaced, pulling himself above the waves of panic that had swallowed him by sheer force of will. The trembling knees that pressed into soft soil and hard stone straightened themselves with painstaking care, and the yellow eyes with their film of tears blinked rapidly to disperse them. Though the Lagoon’s General had undoubtedly sought to strip him bare in the act of claiming him, Tyr had only succeeded in taking that which he had become—and uncovering everything he had once been. And though his right foreleg trembled violently each time that it touched the ground—and the burnished gold of his coat had dulled with age—Rade stood taller and burned brighter than he had in a long time when he turned to face south.

When he’d parted from the Savanna, it had been with the grim finality of a creature who faced certain death. But standing on the Crossing's shore, Rade discovered that he was not as ready for that end as he'd thought. And he knew that if there was even the barest sliver of a chance that he might live—regardless of is cost—then he would pursue it. Gone were the noble thoughts of self sacrifice that he'd previously entertained—not for Fearghas, or Adelheid, or even for Sciannath could he be convinced to let go before he'd made his final mark on this world. No, if Rade was going to die, then he would die as he had lived. He would consume the last fuel that remained to his body in a blazing spectacle, and in that immolation be content that he had stayed true to himself until the very end.

More than one bachelor bore witness to the old stallion’s arrival, gawking at his stiff-legged strides with the glint of cold humor in their eyes. But Rade did not deign to notice them beyond a flattening of his tattered ears—a silent promise of suffering for those who dared to stand in his path. Only after he was certain of his solitude did the roan permit himself to favor his throbbing leg with a strange, shuffling limp. And only once he had reached the deepest of the Lagoon’s thickets did he stop, golden eyes probing the darkness for the expected glimpse of a coat that—if memory served him well—would match the hue of his own.

“Cullen,” he greeted one shadow with the faintest ghost of a smile curving one corner of his lips. “Sending your General to fetch me like some prized bone… an excessive amount of effort for an audience I would have granted you willingly, had you but asked.” The bulk of his weight was shifted onto his left limbs in a calculated manner. It was an act meant to serve two purposes: to offer a front of self-assurance, and to ease the burden on his injured leg, preserving its remaining strength for the inevitable confrontation. “And an especially unusual deed for one who showed so little interest in me while I kept your pound of flesh company in the Peak. Tell me, then—to what do I owe this sudden act of desperation?” Skull tipping to one side in feigned curiosity, Rade fell silent save the steady rhythm of his breaths—tasting the charged static in the air as he waited for an answer whose contents were unlikely to matter.

The only things that had truly mattered were far behind him—or at least, that was the belief that Rade clung to in order to keep his selfish heart beating for as many moments as he could hope to steal.

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