[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by Arawn on February 26, 2009, 11:02 pm
203.129.47.166
It’s the laugh that throws him.
Through her sudden, stumbling steps, through the way she had stood, braced and wobble-legged, staring out over his shoulder into the empty air behind him he had watched on, curious but unafraid, confident of her weakened state. That laugh, though, wakes him sharply from his complacency. That laugh does not belong to the frail, fragile animal that had lain sobbing by his hooves brief moments before, does not even belong to the frantic wolf against the rock face; that creature is erased, completely gone from her features, and in front of him stands another, wholly new entity. She stands smiling, glad-eyed and suddenly vital as she buries her face in the mane of that wolf, her familiar (and he cannot help the shudder of revulsion that skitters down his spine). She has recovered her strength, as abruptly and as entirely as she had lost it, and she speaks to him now as if, mere moments ago, he had not stood over her prone body and contemplated her murder.
Arawn is many things, but above and beyond all else he is a survivor. The creature has recovered her power and it is he, now, who stands in peril.
The change is swift, and absolute.
“Not at all,” he says, smiling, “I mistook you for a wolf in truth, and my ignorance endangered your life and that of your unborn child. Please, accept my heartfelt apologies.” His voice is smooth and quiet, all smoke and honey, and strewn with strange and unexpected inflections. There is a warmth in the gentle lines of his face, and his light eyes are clear and direct. There are no shadows lingering there, no bitter twist curling at his smiling mouth, no hardness anywhere in his pale face. The difference between the horse of moments before and this smiling stallion of the present is marked; there is nothing, beyond the sheer speed and totality of the shift, to cast a doubt upon its sincerity.
“My name is Arawn,” he says simply, easily. “I am a stranger to these mountains, but it is true I have never seen power such as yours. Are you… forgive me, but are you mortal?”
ooc: Short and awful >.<
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