The Portal
The words were a snarl.
An instinct.
Uttered due to hatred of such actions. He could feel the ire in his chest rising. Blooming into a dark cloud that sought to consume everything in him. The gale in his eyes roared, a furious storm filled with a dangerous wrath. As though it were a dragon. Offering a roar and a grin. Giving no soul rest, especially his own. Pulling the tail of the devil himself. A storm that once drug wind into the sails of his ship.
Teeth bared themselves, glistening and sharp as he laced his ears against his skull. Madness rested in his being, beneath his skin, in his chest, a fervent rage of wild insanity. Foreboding and purely demonic in its nature as a growl ripped his throat. Lashing his braided tail in a clear sign of ire he regarded the woman with pure agitation. The demonic beast had no want to deal with this stupidity. And yet he had invited it upon himself. He would dance that jig and deal with his choices. The consequences of his own desire to enter this place. Sighing as the woman spoke her piece he offered another snarl.
“A place between worlds. But if yeh desire an exact name? The Rift. Yerh exact location within it? The Portal. We all pass through here and face the ravenous maws that would seek to devour every bit of magic they could. It is hungry and it has no care for what yerh life was before now. So just accept whatever it has done, fate has dealt the cards, it is your choice to play the fuckin hand or fold and succumb to this world.”
A smirk cracked his lips, confident and proud. A whisper of the soul beneath the rage that had tainted his very being. He watched the mare, well aware of the hot, static charge in the air. The Rift was hungry. What it took, if anything, he could not know. What he did know is what it took from him. And what it spat back out. Broken, battered and damaged. She could be repaired. Oh, this much was true. But not without work. And not exactly the work he was used to. Another snap of his tail as he watched the mare, a single hoof slicing into the earth beneath him. A long, deep track left behind as he took a long step forward.
“Ryder. Captain Ryder, of The Ranger. And let me guess… yeh want me to show yeh the fuck out of this place or some shit?” Truly it was why he was here but that did not mean it did not aggravate him any less. Skin pulled taut across muscles that locked themselves into place over the large skeleton. Sinew shifting and bulging as he drew a steady, slow breath inward only to push it from his lungs. A sigh of annoyance. “Even with yerh flight yeh are likely to get lost in the deranged labyrinth. And oh, how certain it is it will devour yeh whole if it can. Come on… I suppose this is why I dragged my fuckin' ass back here anyway.”
That and trying to grasp just what The Rift could and couldn't do.
And if he could ever return to the life he knew before this.
Him and Arronax.
