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At first, there was nothing. Not a sound. Not a presence. Nothing. Just darkness and loneliness and...something. An innate desire to hate and hurt. To want to lash out and to be feared. He was aware of it before but it had grown stronger with each passing day he was in the blackness. It had become unbearable at one point. Maddeningly so. It drove him to escape from the confines of the dark. And so, he started to scratch and claw, growl and snarl. His claws had ripped into the soft material that had surrounded him, tearing with each frenzied swipe.
At last, the final bits of the thing that had held him fell away. Its remains strewn all around him, he took stock of his new situation. Gone was the inky blackness he had existed in for so long, replaced by the vibrant light of a new world. What was not gone, however, was that desire to harm and maim and become the nightmares of others. He remembered that feeling even now...grown as he was. He remembered it all too well at times, knowing that, if he reached within himself, he could touch that part of him he kept locked so deep inside. He was not proud of that time nor that he still harbored even a hint of his species' nature.
If not for what had happened minutes after he had popped from his basket, he knew what he would have done...what he would have become. As it stood, his adoptive father had saved him from that life. It was a mixture of luck and coincidence that their paths had crossed when they did. Wolfheart, fresh from visiting an Angeni friend, just so happened to have a charm on him when he happened upon the freshly popped foal. For the foal's part, his bloodlust had made itself known and he had attacked. Yet the battle was over before it had begun. The full-grown stallion had practice in the art of fighting and defense; thus, he had easily avoided the foal and, in a singular fluid movement, had managed to place the charm upon him.
There was not an instantaneous, complete change. But something had indeed changed. The foal had felt it. It had taken some time. The elder stallion never strayed far, always keeping close but just out of reach. Eventually, the foal calmed enough to realize that the bloodlust that controlled him could be altered, changed to other feelings and thoughts. He did not have to be a monster if he did not want to be. It had been then that Wolfheart re-engaged with him. The foal would not know it at the time, but he had been very lucky that day. He had been spared a life of evil while also having found a father.
Yes, Hollow Tzalmon had been very lucky indeed. And he would never forget it.
WC: 483
FIN
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