[align=center][fancypost bgcolor=;border:0;width:450px;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;line-height:1.5]Imagine, if you will, a snowy landscape, pristine and white, the heavens still open and yielding magic. Somewhere, out on a tundra, far away from any people, surrounded by rocks, is a small creature, golden and fuzzy, half-grown horns protruding from its skull. It's nowhere near adulthood, nowhere near completion, but it's unmoving, curled up in a small dip, speckled with snowflakes. It fits into the landscape, almost, as if it has been there forever, as if it will be there forever. Touch it, and it will be cold, cold like the snow, cold like the vastness of space. Perhaps you will assume it is dead, and perhaps you will leave it. Perhaps you will bury it, entomb it in the earth, alone and longing.
Palatino sees that a lot, when he sleeps, someone older than him but just like him, a corpse in the snow. In his dreams, he's there, too, and he is the you, staring at the body and trying to work out what he's meant to do. Part of him wants to bury close, but he can never seem to make more contact than an idle tap, and he's sure, even so, that if he just huddled nearby, he could wake the body up, make it move again. It looks like him, so.. maybe it is him? Maybe there are two hims, and he is observing future him with the eyes of current him, and this is his future, because nobody thinks to warm people up when they're cold, do they? Cold just means untouchable, in so many people's minds.
And that's not true. In his dreams, Palatino is very reflective, thoughtful, intelligent, almost; but back on Earth, waking up, he's Tino again, small and naïve and overwhelmed by the world as it is. Today, Tino's challenges are the steps of the temple; he's inside, but he wants to get out, and he's left staring at the staircase, a little daunted by them, if he's honest. Part of him wants to turn tail and give up, but he needs to go out, so he steps out hesitantly, peering over the edge and wagging his tail anxiously.
[hr]