In the Shadows

I'm standing at the top of the stairwell, its steps winding down, down, down. The railings are dusty, the boards cracked. If I dare to step foot on it, I know it will creak and give me away. Behind me, my curtains flutter in the wind, the window making a whirling, whistling noise where it does not shut fully. It used to scare me as a child, and my family would have the house servant play me tunes on their guitar until I was lulled to sleep. 

They don't do that anymore. 

I mean, it is silly to think of. I am no longer a child, and I have experienced scarier things than the whistle in my window. I have fought beasts; man and monster alike. The corrupted forms of those who were once our allies, but now only see us as foes. I suppose it is a good thing that they turn to creatures so hideous and vile that we can put aside their true selves in order to put them down. 

No, it is the principle of the thing. There was a time that my family would bend over backward for me. They would lay out the red carpet, so to speak. I was their pride and joy. Their little monster slayer. Protector of the world with the electricity that zapped from my cloven hoof tips. Now? They don't even bother to dust the cobwebs from my portrait. 

As the murmurs from my parent's conversation below tickly my ears, too muffled for me to make out the words, I turn and look at the grand painting hanging on the wall. I remember posing for it, just before they sent me off to the Order to train. I did not want to stand still. My long, silky forelock was tickling my nose. My friends wanted to play ball in the street; desperate for a little more time with me before I went away. 

I was still a child, then, of course, but the artist depicted me as an adult. Well, perhaps an older teen. There is still a glimmer of hope in my eye here, and life in the smirk on my lips. Though it is only a portrait, from my shoulders to the tip of my horns, it is obvious that I was standing proud. With the thick arch in my neck and the slight turn of my cheek; how my golden eyes stare half-lidded down upon those who climb this very stairwell. 

This was a Basileios my family was proud to bear. 

My own attention rests on my horns, though. Having been born of simple traits, I was very proud of it once the pair started to sprout from my head. They were dark in color, much like my hooves, but the true life laid in my magic. Sparks of golden electricity zipped up and down the curved paths in their wake, often jumping back and forth between each prong, only to continue to dance above my brow. The artist did a wonderful job illuminating my eyes with such light, the rest of me seeming to be in the shadow of such vibrant light. 

I had always been in the shadow of my magic, but I did not realize until I had lost it. My parents - my family - only cared for me because I was to be a mage. Because I was to bring goodness to their reputation. So that, while I was saving lives, they could sit over tea and gush about how their Basileios was out risking his life for the good of Ivars. 

I can feel a sick taste in my mouth rising just thinking about it. I was not a person to them, but a symbol of status and reputation, and I had been thrown out without a thought when I could no longer provide that for them. 

With a rising heat in my chest, my teeth grit together with buzzing in my blood. I want nothing more but to destroy the painting. The house. The family. This useless, lying, undeserving- 

Before I truly know what I have done, there are hot tears streaming down my face and I have torn a deep slash through the center of the painting with nothing more than what I could reach: a worn piece of broken wood from the staircase. I drop it with a clatter, my hooves carrying me backward a step as I turn my chin to look at what I had done. 

I can hear my mother shouting, only out of worry that something precious has broken. "Bas?" I hate it when she calls me that. "Is everything alright up there?" My muzzle twitches as I reach to wipe the tears from my cheek. 

"Everything is fine, mother," I reply, my tone hardened to hide the shaking in my voice. "I am going to bed." And as I turn and walk back towards my room, my prison, really, I can hear her hoof steps scurrying up the stairwell. And just before I shut my door, I hear her gasp as she sees the damage. 

I don't know why she bothers to pretend to be upset about it anyways.