[ Awaiting her among the roots is another, his posture indolent and eerily open among the idle curve of the tree of life's innards. The spill of roots below him appear, in this place, to strain for his ankles - hands, yearning to touch him. In this place, even the shape of the thing that haunts him attempts to wield soured memory, to hook its way in among his heart and fill him with dread. It takes the sight of her, a woman with the body of a horse, to draw his attention away from the roots nipping at his heels, reddened by the drip, drip, spill of a palm bitten down into ragged meat by sharp teeth.
He'd been bleeding for a bit, by now, hand hovering over the dirt as though to supplicate the dryad's demands alone.
She is -- well, he cannot discern what to make of her. A woman in one way, a beast of burden in another. He knew camel, he knew sand-born beasts of crocodilian flesh and stout wings, and he knew horses. She is two things that are not unfamiliar to him, though the compound shape of her reminds him of things the gods had designed - amalgamations none could discern the reason for, save for their creator. In his silence, he is nakedly looking upon her; the dark of her eye, the curve of her waist as it flows into her equine half. At one point, he goes so far as to unabashedly tilt his head as though to get a glimpse of her underbelly - impossible from the elevated place he is seated.
The meat of his palm curls upwards, capturing the sluggish bleed of his hand in the cup of his palm. No more for the tree. Not that it was working. The scarlet of his own eyes are bright, even in the dim, claustrophobic prison of root and bark; his pupils thinned into sleek, dark lines. He is red, and gold and black, and he stretches himself out indolent as a ruler upon a dais; humorlessly, to her alone, he states: ] I've been waiting. It's about time.
01. IT'S TIME, to be horrendous
He'd been bleeding for a bit, by now, hand hovering over the dirt as though to supplicate the dryad's demands alone.
She is -- well, he cannot discern what to make of her. A woman in one way, a beast of burden in another. He knew camel, he knew sand-born beasts of crocodilian flesh and stout wings, and he knew horses. She is two things that are not unfamiliar to him, though the compound shape of her reminds him of things the gods had designed - amalgamations none could discern the reason for, save for their creator. In his silence, he is nakedly looking upon her; the dark of her eye, the curve of her waist as it flows into her equine half. At one point, he goes so far as to unabashedly tilt his head as though to get a glimpse of her underbelly - impossible from the elevated place he is seated.
The meat of his palm curls upwards, capturing the sluggish bleed of his hand in the cup of his palm. No more for the tree. Not that it was working. The scarlet of his own eyes are bright, even in the dim, claustrophobic prison of root and bark; his pupils thinned into sleek, dark lines. He is red, and gold and black, and he stretches himself out indolent as a ruler upon a dais; humorlessly, to her alone, he states: ] I've been waiting. It's about time.