Khloros plodded steadily along, each lithe step of warmblood legs unhurried but graceful. His head was slightly tilted, one eye turned to watch that towering eyrie where magic roosted.
And he approached it: unafraid, though mulling over memories of being torn apart, of Astraea's snarling words, of the sensation of burning, boiling magic dissembling him atom by atom.
He wondered why the stag had not killed him when he had come to the meeting. Perhaps he no longer felt the need to; perhaps, he thought wryly, it might have made him look bad. Regardless of the reason, Khloros' head now tilted back, as he came to stand just before the Spire.
"Possibly. I don't know, for sure." Khloros said this softly, in delayed answer. The crackle of magic danced along his every hair, the light bright in his eyes; but when he looked down, he saw the cracks, the oil. He had worried over that, the last time he'd come here, and found it like this. He didn't know what had done it, or why, and that bothered him. But lying in among the jutting stone were shards of his own chrysalis, what small pieces of sickly butter jade remained, streaked through with rainbow aquamarine.
"You can see where I hatched again, there. Where I slept--where I was remade. I had magic, then. Strong magic. I was hoping to destroy this thing. It holds us captive," he began to explain, his voice soft, but confident. "We die here, but our spirits do not escape. They are drawn back, purged of memory, pushed into stone, forced there, captive, crystalline. The rock, the magic; it keeps us in cycles, over and over again. I would see that stopped," he added, and there was the click of hooves as Khloros' body shifted, turning to face James.
These were, of course, only Khloros' beliefs--but he seemed to hold to them strongly enough, though his demeanor remained mild. "That stag, Astraea, who calls himself Master--the one at the meeting; he told me that we are trash, unwanted byproducts, belonging to him and others like him. Do not believe his kinder words; he fears. I don't know what he fears, but his attitude toward me alone is not the... the same, as how he acts toward all of us. I think all of us, together, could defeat him. But alone, he drove me into the Spire with his magic."
A pause, as Khloros looked back to the Spire, remembering. His recounting was undramatic, matter-of-fact, as he went on. "He told me that if I imagined myself free, I could try to earn my freedom. And then I died. It was... painful. I think the Spire's magic tore me apart; but then I found myself in a white place. There was only white," the horse went on, "and a white being, with gentle face, who told me to tell others what I thought, to think as I do. I think it meant the... stones, the cycles; the magic, being trapped. When I emerged the Spire did not--kill me, at least. But my magic was gone, and my shape was different."
Khloros again paused--thoughtful, silent for a beat--and then shook his head, a little. "I carried Death, before. I brought illness in every step. I intended to bring an end to the cycles of entrapment. I was thin--bones and skin--and my eyes glowed green. Now, I have none of that; I do not know why." He looked to James, his very mundane eyes dark, his coat shining, his weight healthy. There was nothing in sickness or skeletal ominousness about him now. "Does this answer your questions?" he asked.
And while he awaited a response, he looked back to the Spire. I was told that I could pray. Are you in there--? The one who held me, when I died? Can you tell me... what to do? Am I doing right? he asked it, in his mind--and there was a faint pleading to this last.
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