[Gossamer]

The shadowrealm absorbed them as the seemingly unreal creatures turned and followed the will of the monster inhabiting the child who formed them. Soulsteeds, just one of the many things a soul could be formed into... the knowledge filled Mikhail as his hands touched the unlife beneath them. They were hallowed things neither cursed nor blessed, simply enslaved for a purpose much like all things living were.

They rode.

The boy lead the man over the landscape that turned into a mockery of a city that Mikhail thought he knew better than he now realized he did. The shadows had life even as the main gates of prime were breached and they road through near empty streets. Near... not wholly. Shadows dispersed from their view, things that shouldn't exist, and things that were afraid. Here, on the outskirts of sanity, it wasn't hard to imagine. As Mikhails mind stretched forth he realized what he saw fully fleeing from his sight were the things he only glimpsed deep within the dark in the corner of his vision. These were the same things when a man turned, stared fully, and found them missing.

Misshapen, misshaped, twisted.... they were nightmare visages composed of slices or memories of reality. Some were rat sized, some man sized... some even bigger. And as they road deeper, the streets grew even more ferocious. Things lingered on the sidewalks, watching them ride past, boldly defending territory with images that should never ever exist. He realized then where they were riding, even as they turned down his street. The Butcher Shop. It came into clarity as the beginning, and in some ways the end of Mikhail's mortality. It glowed strongly in the shadows, not quite with illumination, but he could feel the energy around it... the energy of death. Cale reined in his mount there, dismounted, and waited. As Mikhail did the same, the twisted boy rode by something inhuman took the souls he'd shaped and reworked them one at a time. One he handed to Mikhail. It was a glowing gray orb that gave off no true light. The other orb Cale pocketed with a somewhat savage grin. "I'd release them, but they tend to wander lost rather than go home after they've been used... so we might as well use them until they are all used up." Some things never changed, no matter what lands you walked in. "Can be anything for you here, you know... firewater for your thirst or a whore for your lust... just gotta know how to shape them. And the liqueur will burn going down, just like the real stuff. Just don't drink them dry, for its hard to catch more unless you are something more than you are now. When you learn to cross forwards and back again, you can even bring them with you. Just don't expect them to be what they were when they were alive." His tone implied the quality and consistency of the leavings of a dog, when he glanced at Mikhail, a slight grin slowly appearing on his face. It looked... feral.

Then they entered the Butcher's Shop. It was... the same shop Mikhail had known in his early days, but it was also... far different. There was a dark substance that covered the floor, oozing outwards, and suddenly he understood. Death. The death of the slaughterhouse just a block away flowed steadily into the Butcher's Shop which was situated slightly downhill from it. It spiraled slowly through the room, attracted by the grayish hued meats, which had in life owned the blood that followed them in death. Then it spiraled into the drain in the center of the floor. The grate was large, and partially covered by a display table that Cale had no trouble pushing back out of the way. Then, with a strength unbecoming a child his age, the boy lifted the grate up. Stairs lead downward, and although the opening was narrow and dark, it looked to him like a maw opening up into the shop itself. He half expected to see a tongue rise forth, swirl around the perimeter, and dart back within.

Oddly enough, it was in that instant, he realized the twilight had no smell. None at all. He could hear, he could see... but he could not smell... nor taste he suspected. It was an odd thought, one that sprang forth unwelcome just as Cale gestured for him to go down... proceeding the boy. Go down.

Down...

Down...

Down was always easy. Falling never required effort. It was the landing and more importantly the scramble back to the top that brought breath-stealing hesitation. It was the hint of going down meant coming back up that stopped him initially. It stopped him dead in his tracks. It implied a future, and possibilities beyond the now. Down was sin and failure and weakness. Up held more meaning. Up was preferable. The symbolism was deliberate, obvious, and blatant.

Cale began to laugh.