speak

A spider, she calls herself. Reginald wonders why she uses such a metaphor. He decides it suits her perfectly: small, black, hairy, annoyingly underfoot as she spits venom from the fangs in her mouth. He fleetingly wonders if her queer eyes old 4 irises beneath the opaque cloud of its color, and he laughs at this thought. We lets her be a spider; he lets her weave her web. How exhilarating it is for the grey-eyed prince to know he will not need to prepare the trap; it is being made before his very eyes. He must only wait until it performs its duty.

He’s good at waiting.

The daydream comes to an end behind his eyes. The sun continues its arch downward; a cool breeze wafts over the amethyst thistles of the field; it is evening now. His stomach lurches in hunger. He ignores these pangs, for he has found things to amuse him, captivate him, pull at the chords of his attention. It is indeed captivating; his spider snarls and bares the daggers of her throat, stalking this new “butterfly” that has decided to flutter much too close to a flame. Reginald does not move yet; he watches, his mind coolly assessing the spectacle before him, listening as this broken-faced filly addresses the spider as “beautiful”.

He cannot believe the words that fall from her mouth; he does not understand her reverence. She is indeed a butterfly drawn to a flame—drawn to her own destruction. The oddity of the term “hornless” is suspended as he processes the queer nature of her actions. Does she not recognize danger? For there is a dangerous light in the spider’s eyes as she stalks her prey—Reginald believes her bloodlust—he does not doubt her resolve in attack. Laughter tickles his stomach; he can’t keep it in check, and it falls lightly from his mouth, boyishly tickled, charming in its own twisted method. Only moments before she acted the role of the arrogant intruder, desecrating the land he slept on, ate on, lived on; here she marches, ever ready to purge this place of the interloper. The irony cannot escape the grey scrutiny of the dark prince. His laughter spreads amongst the golden light of the falling sun, the purple of the weaving thistles.

“After you,” he says in a tone he deems pleasant, speaking to the spider as she approaches the chou-- what an odd name for the doomed. The eyes of the broken-faced filly do not follow him, and that’s alright. He has wondered for a while if he would be able to test the sharpness of his growing horn on something larger than a rat, more substantial than a crippled hatchling trapped on the ground. He is eager to start his new game—with his “playmates”.

He follows her towards the chou.