Centaur au- coming to the sanctuary- Black
He does not have a good time. angst time with injuries and the like.
It was dark.
Everything was dark all around him.
It had been like this for weeks, if not months, after his last and final escape attempt.
Black had failed spectacularly due to three things outside of his control, though he should have known better with the last thing.
The first was that his magic at an all time low, unable to build it back up. This tied in with the second, which was being cut off from food or water. The third was a foolish error that had been made after a long period of intentional sleep deprivation inflicted upon him.
But all of this misfortune had occurred as a result of Black absolutely refusing to play along with the wretched human and monster duo who ‘collected’ magical beings who were not fully monster or human, to display in their ‘menagerie of wonder’. Black refused to allow people to gawk at him in his sizable room (prison) while the pair gloated over being the best exotic owners in the entire world while taking in an obscene amount of cash while avoiding legal troubles over the ethics of imprisoning sentient beings.
Blackmail was likely involved.
The two idiots hadn’t liked Black’s stubbornness when it came to playing along with the set-up of the place, and for his refusal to ever speak a word to them.
…This last escape attempt made while sleep deprived had brought forth consequences he hadn’t expected, proving that Black’s captors were even worse than previously assumed.
Black had no idea that he would one day he would be glad to be surrounded in darkness. It currently prevented him from having to fully face his new reality. A real sort that those bastards had effectively maimed his hind legs, ensuring that any time Black rose to all four legs that his hind two would give out, a flare of agony jolting up the limbs.
It burned, the dull ache.
Huddled up along what felt like an oversized boulder (why was it in the basement?) Black leaned his upper half against it to rest his skull, feeling feverish when he realized that the rough surface felt cooler than before. His captors had long since taken the small saddle bags he’d used to carry supplies, the tunic he had been wearing, and the blanket he’d had thrown over his lower half to chase away the chill of the place he’d been traveling through, old wounds aching in response to the cold.
Not that the belongings he’d used to have mattered in this place.
His comfort was not a priority.
Especially here in the basement, where it was cold. Even the lower half of his body was shivering, sagging heavily into the concrete floor beneath him. Eye sockets closed, Black wondered again if some of the wounds that had been inflicted along his haunches and either side of his spine were infected. Some areas were still sluggishly bleeding.
Black went in and out of consciousness, becoming listless and unresponsive the longer he spent in that small basement room. Not that his captors had come to check on him after they’d chained him to the wall by his legs, arms and neck. This made resting his skull on the boulder tricky but doable.
Something didn't smell right, from some of his injuries.
Were they...infected?
...had he already wondered about this before?
No matter.
At present, Black had no excess magic to combat it.
He was stretched thin.
Exhausted.
Black would occasionally wonder, now and again, years later, if he might have fallen down had someone not opened the door to the basement he had been locked within.
He offered no resistance.
Black didn't do much more than settle bleary, dark blue eye lights on a group of humans and monsters that were unfamiliar before disinterestedly closing his sockets again.
At least until they began to unlock and cut the chain and cuffs away.
Black bared sharp teeth despite voices murmuring reassurances. By the time he was carried out on some stretcher (carried by numerous people), Black saw flashing lights that he’d seen in the past. But somehow, without being told yet, Black knew that he was free of this place. But the pain from his ordeal lingered, into the treatment of his various wounds. To seeing to the nasty infected mutilation of his hind legs that would prevent him from leaping or ever running as fast as he used to before.
It was sobering news.
Black was so very worn out that he didn’t even know how to react. The cold fire he used to have was gone. That stubborn prideful nature of his had been beaten and starved out of him. It would take time for that attitude to come back, if it ever did.
Black remained compliant throughout his treatments. He used as few words as possible in response to questions, all while being inwardly relieved that he did not lose use of his hind legs. By the time Black was in recovery after the surgeries and healing, he began to feel shame for what he'd become. For a time, Black fell into a depression, refusing to eat or drink. But he didn’t have the strength to refuse an IV to supplement his magic and general state of aliveness while he struggled to make sense of everything that he had been through these past ten years.
He couldn't believe it had been that long.
As he was moved to a section of land within the sanctuary to recover, Black had come to the conclusion that he shouldn’t have been rescued in the first place. With the shape he had been found in, and the recovery he was currently going through, Black knew that he would not survive out in the world on his own now. Better to die after being freed, then to live a life trapped, despite the wide acreage of this land that he had been brought to. Despite the many assurances and promises that no one would force him to do anything. If Black really wanted to leave once he had recuperated, no one would stop him.
Black was no fool.
There was no living in the world at large for him anymore.
Black would need assistance.
He would be hard pressed to find that in places that weren’t like this preserve. If Black left, if would be an easy feat for someone to try to take advantage of him.
This sanctuary was merely one prison traded for another, though this one has better perks.
Black refused to argue about it and demanded that everyone please leave him be. He did get that solitude, but Black didn’t get much say when someone would come out to him to check on his healing wounds. Black was well enough by then. He had wraps and braces around the lower and middle of his hind legs to help him stand and walk. Black just wanted to be alone and left to his own devices. If these well-wishers had to continue to check up on him, Black preferred he have a warning.
Months later, and Black had grudgingly agreed to ask for anything that he might need to make this place he found himself in as comfortable as possible.
Black was used to being alone.
More so after his brother died. With his brother’s shadow no longer alongside him, Black didn't want anyone else around for extended periods of time. Especially after being jeered at and beaten while being held against his will in that exotic 'collection' and especially when he was tethered in a basement and unable to escape any of that agony.
Black doesn’t know what to do with himself, now that he was technically freed. In a way, he was again shackled, this time by his own hind legs. It upset Black greatly that this appeared to be his new reality. He was not at all prepared for it. Black had fully anticipated dying chained in that small dark basement. He lapsed into a thoughtful silence as he settled in for another night alongside a fallen log he'd come across, lamenting the fact he could no longer get on top of one.
Even if this place was, for all intents and purposes, safe, he found it hard to let his guard down.
