The night is darkest before the dawn.
— Proverb.

And so it seems, for just when the blackness around him felt so oppressive as to stop his breath in his very throat, it came to him suddenly that he could see the fog.

Silvery mist lay low and fat and heavy on the earth, dampening the sound of even the bubbling water beneath him, for in this moment — and indeed, for many hours in the blackness before this one — Ghazal lay half-submerged in the stream, unmoving, looking for all the world like a stone in the riverbed rather than a living thing.

He'd come to wash away the blood, slick and dark where it clung to his coat. Some of it was his, sure, but most of it was not.

And then he'd stayed, legs folded beneath him on the rocky streambed, the job only half done, and if you asked him what was different about this time than all the other times, he'd struggle to put it into words.

It was not the first time he'd taken a life.

And he was very sure it would not be the last.

But perhaps it was the fact that this had been the last of those killings, the ones in which he styled himself a righteous angel of death seeking vengeance for the fallen, and that this crusade had taken up so many of his years that he wasn't quite sure how to keep on living without its hateful mission boiling the blood in his veins.

The initial shock of the icy water had grounded him, at first, but even now the discomfort of the unrelenting cold lent him a certain calmness, a certain self-awareness, that he wasn't sure he'd have been able to find elsewhere.

It's a shame all my friends are dead, he thought. I could have used one just now.




tl;dr — ghazal lying in a shallow stream at the very first hint of dawn, still quite bloody from an altercation earlier in the night. open to anyone!

What on earth was she doing here, of all places, wandering so late in the eve. Her herd demanded her attention, her inevitable rise to fame was on hold as she wandered leisurely. Strange how she was drawn here, toward the woods that were so different from the lands she claimed.

Maybe a change in scenery would do her well. The red rock persuasion was shaping up nicely, a flock of equines that inflated her ego, made her feel as if she was the Queen of the world. Perhaps they had tapped into the potential she knew she was full of, or perhaps she was a narcissist. Regardless the chestnut mare ambled onward, taking in the dipping of the sun in the sky.

The limbs of the trees danced in the dying light, expressing a unique array of shadows throughout. Her gait was exceptionally slow, tendrils of her deep umber mane trailing across her neck as she spied her surroundings. A clearing formed before her eyes and at the center of it, water. The threads of lowering light paled across the edge, reflections that didn’t make much sense to prying eyes.

It was then Fia stopped, taken aback. Another appeared along the edge of the clearing, crusted in blood. Whether it was his own or another’s remained unclear but to sat her curiosity had been peaked, would be an understatement.

She spied the creature, through the dried blood on his form she could spot the mark of battle and immediately, a smirk appeared on her features.

The umber mare stepped forward into the fading light.

”Hello there.” Her tenor was confident as she marched headlong, a lilt that was painted with curiosity.

The chestnut mare sniffed the air dramatically, reveling in the aroma that filled her nostrils.

”Is that the stench of battle I smell?” She asked the stallion, peering at him from darkened orbs. ”It never gets old.” She furthered, a wicked leer appearing along her lips.



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In this earliest hour, even if the night air had been dry and blustery enough to prevent this morning's misty shroud, the gloom of barest light trickling over the distant horizon and through the trees cast a dull filter over the scene.

At midday, the little shrubberies and fresh-sprouted grass hanging over the banks would shimmer brightly green. The bark on the trees would glow in warm brown hues as though barely able to contain how vibrantly they thrived here. Wildflowers and little buds would open like a thousand multicolored eyes, watching the world around them come alive.

But now, in this moment, everything was grey and muted. Barely awake. Barely alive.

"Hello there."

At first, with his eyes half closed and his mind clouded by ghosts of the past, Ghazal thought perhaps he'd hallucinated the words.

But,

"Is that the stench of battle I smell?"

and that was no dream.

Here was a creature who, on first impression, seemed very well-suited to this eerie twilight gloom, indeed.

She sounded as though she spoke with a smile.

Interesting, he thought. And, almost at the same time, wearily: You get all types.

A slow, measured exhale. Best be ready, then.

And with a low, rumbling noise from deep in his chest, somewhere between a groan and a growl, Ghazal shifted his weight and flung a foreleg out from under him. He stood stiffly, water cascading down his legs and dripping from his belly. He must've looked absolutely wretched.

He stretched a little here, a little there, and grimaced at the way what was surely cool night air felt positively warm on his wet skin.

"The stench of death," came his metered correction. His voice travelled low and rough through the gloom, gravelly both through hours of disuse and years of abuse.

What's it to you? he didn't ask. She'd sought him out — and he sensed no caution in this stranger, no hesitation in the boldness of her. To ask would be an insult to both of them.

She would tell him.

He was levelled, hardly disconcerted at her sudden appearance at the cusp of the lake, failing sunlight stabbing holes in the idle mist that draped over the water’s surface. The gloom caressed her bodice, framing her as if a corset, daring her to take another step forward. His response to her quips were measured and it elicited the leer along her maw to grow, just by an inch. He perhaps couldn’t see it, but her opaque eyes were alit with excitement.

”The stench of death.” She repeated, not nearly as drone as a delivery as he’d offered. Fia was borderline jovial as if the mere prospect of him killing another titillated her entire being.

When the mare was just a filly she’d taken her first life, a rabbits that gotten crunched beneath her hooves, likely old or sick or too stupid to get out of her way. The why didn’t matter so much as the how. She didn’t feel that she’d been cruel or unjust for its death, it was merely an instance her life that proved she wasn’t like the others. Instead, she wondered, briefly, what made it so easy for her to take a life. The rabbit’s spine crunched beneath her hooves as Fia stared, unable to look away from the scene before her.

The chestnut mare bowed her head a millimeter, casting a curious gaze in his direction.

”It’s something I’ve come to know well.” The equine pondered a moment, directing her helm upwards toward the darkening sky, the sun dipping in beyond the mountains, creating a halo around the woods. Daylight would soon consume them both and Fia wasn’t the least bit perturbed.

”How well are you acquainted with death, stranger?” What a outlandish question to ask someone she did not know and yet to Fia it seemed the most suitable probe. Forget introductions, the mundane ‘hellos’ and ‘how are yous’, no, Fia refused to partake in the common niceties that were second nature to others. Instead, she went right to the difficult queries, the ones that made the skin crawl, goose-bumps arising as you face what kind of monster you really were.

Another step and Fia was only a few feet away, staring down at the stallion with a ferocity reserved for a feral cat.




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The red mare approached him almost as if she were a personification of the crimson stain he'd spent hours overnight trying desperately to wash away.

Her presence was unrelenting.

Her glee seemed brutal in its intensity.

Often over the course of his lifetime Ghazal had found himself wondering what it was about him which drew these types of personalities to him. Her wicked leer was familiar to him in a way it shouldn't have been, and though her face was new to him he felt as though he knew her intimately from only these few moments they'd spent together.

She came right up to his dripping form, her still on the dry and him still in the wet.

She was smaller than him, both in stature and in physique, and visibly younger, but she carried herself with the confidence of some ancient goliath beast of legend.

In the waxing light Ghazal turned his good right eye to her. Despite the fact that a night in an icy stream had probably done wonders for the soft tissue of his legs, the obsidian stallion was emotionally and physically exhausted from his ordeal.

His mind, however, was laser-focused on this one mare. Did she merit her fearlessness? Her implied savagery?

Had he been chasing his own bloody crusade for so long as to have missed some meteoric rise to power by this red menace?

"How well are you acquainted with death, stranger?"

Ghazal's low, grating voice replied in barely more than a murmur.

"Well enough to know his minstrel, by title if not by name."





ooc: ps i wrote the opener to be happening just barely at dawn, so the sun could def be rising rn but not setting!

At this angle she could clearly see the scars along his figure, etched vines that stretched taut against the skin. If he was bothered by her closeness to him, he didn’t show it and the equine of little words eyed her prudently. She noticed that he was veiled in water, cleansing away the blood of another that painted his coat. She was intrigued to say the least but she didn’t dare cross the threshold that separated them.

Not even she was that thoughtless.

She surveyed from her perch, and the dark creature blessed her with a response. Albeit, not the one she’d been hoping for. She almost rolled her eyes, eager to spark the conversation far past aenigmas and mysteries. Although, she had to admit, his lack of interest in her had Fia that much more interested in him. She wanted to traverse the edge that separated them, a fine, thin line that neither could visibly see.

”Interesting...” She paused along the word, tossing her brunette eyes over his form and the wounds he’d received over his years. He might have been older than her, seasoned in ways she couldn’t possibly understand but Fia couldn’t exactly tell, her mind was drawn to his answer or lack there-of. The silence drew between them, moments at best and Fia grew impatient.

”I wish my name preceded me.” She offered this to him, her soul partially exposed. Her bravado wavering beneath his gaze, if only an iota. ”But a glance upon my form to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.” She looked up at the sky, an interspersing of colours that danced high above them.

”Alas, I fear I must introduce myself.” She sighed as these words fell forth, near black eyes finding the stallion once again.

”I am Fia.” She made no mention of her claim on the Red Rocks nor her title as Queen therein, one day her label alone would be enough for others to recognize but for now, she let her introduction speak for itself.




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Ghazal breathed a little easier, and on the exhale felt tension that he hadn't realized he was carrying leave his body.

The tone of the conversation changed as rapidly as a summer storm: here one moment, gone the next. Perhaps a hint at a tempestuous nature, from how easily the red mare pivoted from a rather foreboding, sinister energy to a more inviting, vulnerable one.

He was too weary to be suspicious of her now. If she wanted a fight, he would give her one, though he was so battered in this moment that there was a real possibility it would be the last fight of his life.

For the present, he would take her at her implied word: this was an introduction, perhaps not an invitation to friendship, but rather to some sort of mutuality, at least.

In his ears, her lamentations resonated like a reflection of his own life. How many years had he devoted to the relentless hunt and slaughter of his enemies?

He regarded Fia with one inky orb, letting a beat of silence fall between them as they studied each other. Then, with calm, even steps, the hulking stallion stepped forward out of the stream, passing close by her as he made his way into the clearing behind her.

"Ghazal," he muttered.

With all four hooves on the sparse, dew-laden grass beneath the ancient trees of Oxwater Wood, the bronze stallion shook like a dog, sending the residual water in his coat airborne; his very own misty aura.

"Ambition like a fire in your breast," came his guttural growl, no small measure of appreciation lacing the tone. He suspected her ember may never go out; thus far, she seemed a perfect manifestation of red. "Keeps a body warm when kin and kindness are scarce."





ooc: not me in my last post forgetting that he's not actually plain black lmao he's literally like this color idk why i said obsidian before i'm just unbearably stupid :'D also he's just verbally assuming she's like him and doesn't have a herd or a home, pls feel free to correct him!

The mare stood, exposed, as if the fruits of her labour were laid bare for him to examine. He said so little, and yet something radiated from him that Fia couldn’t quite identify. He wasn’t a threat to her, or at least he didn’t seem foreboding and yet when he stood, Fia found herself reeling backward. He was taller than her, his large shadow devoured her frame. The water beyond her called her to attention as she stepped back into the cool liquid, returning her gaze to him she found his name, falling from his mouth as if it didn’t matter.

He was like no other she’d met before; he oozed a sense of mystery that beckoned her attentions and no amount of warning from her infatuated brain would let her leave now. She turned to watch him as he moved, the truth of his form revealed in the breaking sunlight. Not black as she’d previously assumed but a muted brown that coloured his frame, touched with russet from the highlights of the dawning sun. He collected himself just enough to shake his body, sending droplets of water flying in every direction and Fia found herself inspecting him.

’Ghazal’ She repeated inside her head. She wasn’t sure exactly what but it seemed to her that it was a name she ought to remember.

He spoke and it was her turn to pay attention.

”Ambition.” She repeated the syllables under her breath. The mare looked up into the sky, a reminder that they all existed beneath it. She’d been called ambitious before, of course it was obvious to those whom watched her grow but it was also coupled with other adjectives that weren’t so appealing.

Merciless, cruel, contemptuous...

”I know something of kin but kindness, it is in lesser amounts. I come from a herd, down in the canyons. I doubt you’ve heard of it...” One day, she’d have this exact conversation instead the name of her herd would quake the hooves of the horse before her.

One day.

”I doubt you are lonely, or need the kindness of strangers or their kin but...” She paused for a brief moment, unsure of herself. ”You are welcome to come check us out. It’s a nice place, really.” She wasn’t lying. They’d made an imprint on the land already, a stream that kept them hydrated, grass aplenty and a red rock throne, just for her.



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"It's a nice place, really."

The battered brute had trouble believing that.

He regarded her with a peering, suspicious air in his black eyes, the expression half hidden by matted, dirty locks of hair tumbling from his crest. They'd changed position now, and with this display of vulnerability from the fiery mare he was on guard again.

She cut a striking figure, all savage grace and a bold sort of crimson beauty in her lithe form. Was this a lure?

He wouldn't put it past her. Her first impression had been one of absolute confidence and a terrible ferocity; it seemed much more likely to him that this softness was a calculated display rather than a genuine one.

A heavy, rough sigh bubbled from his nares, sounding as jagged as he felt.

He wouldn't press her. Regardless of the authenticity of Fia's confession, and the invitation which followed, he knew now that he would not be forced to defend his life from her — at least not on this day.

. . .

And maybe —

. . .

— maybe that was where he belonged.

. . .

Surely a band of societal misfits, brutal and bestial if their scarlet queen was any indication, trusting only themselves to rule a nice place, really far from the judgemental eyes of creatures morally superior.

What else had he to do?

Where else had he to go?

Even his foggy, useless left eye gleamed from within for just a half moment as Ghazal made up his mind.

He would not travel with her — he would take his own way, as he had always done — but he would journey to the southlands and find this canyon band, and see what became of himself there.

With a groan that belied his age, the hulking stallion turned away from Fia where she stood in the stream. He had the feeling back in his legs now, and knew it would take several miles of walking before his sore muscles loosened enough to grant him any comfort.

"It's a nice place, really."

"We shall see, scarlet queen."





ooc: i'm happy to end the thread here if u want! & will plan on posting him in the canyon soon :D