based on the other fic i've been writing, i've been drawing a teenage version of joshua and it's weirdly cathartic for me (normally he makes me really sad to think about)
my brain was expanded once i started thinking of barnabas as an emotionally stunted man-child overly reliant on his imaginary friend, instead of a big scary cool guy with a big scary cool horse
and i'm not even wrong that's basically 100% canon
SO. my theories. that are totally canon guys you have to believe me
Barnabas created Sleipnir when he was 18. that's incredibly young for a dominant to be able to conjure an egi - usually it takes years of training to fully master the art. but i believe it was unintentional. that point in time was around when his mother died, which led to the manifestation of his abilities as a dominant. but one does not simply create an egi immediately - unless there was an extremely traumatic event, leaving a hole in his heart that needed to be filled by any means.
so. Sleipnir. i believe he came to Barnabas not as an intentional creation, but out of the desperate mind of a lonely, grieving child, who needed companionship more than anything else at the time. Sleipnir was his 'imaginary friend', so to speak, a way of coping. a comforting, adult figure in his life that he needed at that time. someone to hold him and tell him it was all going to be okay.
Barnabas leaned on him as a crutch from then on. he was never without Sleipnir for long, being so attached to him and never really having gotten over the grief of his mother's passing. he was always withdrawn, unfriendly, Sleipnir being the only person he was ever close to aside from his mother. and of course, Sleipnir himself couldn't live without Barnabas. they kind of created an echo chamber amongst themselves, leading Barnabas to hate humanity even more because they don't treat him like Sleipnir does.
I FUCKING LOVE MUTUALLY CODEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS
in short, the man came before the horse. i think the horse thing was because barnabas was like hey can i ride u and sleipnir was like alright. idk i haven't thought about it as much
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