_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

“There is more to that water than it seems.”

Reginald hears her; he doesn’t understand her meaning; he ignores. He remains ignorant of the pool’s sacred properties, of its holy, ordained nature of healing. He bathes in it because it is his; his pelt was sticky and displeasing, and he sought out water to clean his hide. That was his only motivation for diving down into this embedded realm—and so, as Jorogumo creeps around the water’s edge, Reginald ignores her caution, and so the spectacle he sees next catches him off guard.

Oh, what a spectacle.

The darkness in her body is repelled by the water—but its repulsion is outstanding. It causes a scream to tear her breast; it causes her body to convulse with the rapid, aggressive healing of her ugly sores; it causes her to splinter in to sobbing, tear-soaked pieces scattered on the dark cave floor. The grey-eyed prince is mesmerized by the sight; he watches with unsavory greed as she realizes awful sorts of torture and despair, the images not quite pleasing as they are interesting. They ignite his imagination, his wonder—he marvels why he has not suffered this girls fate, though he walked the surface with his head held high and his eyes always a dare to the world. He remained himself in a world full of monsters—did that make him a monster? He bathed in a sacred pool that tears the atrocity from your limbs—did that make him a saintly, mortal creature? Or just…

…indestructable?

He ignores her speech, for he does not know it; he lets her cry, because he knows there is no stopping it. Both of these things annoy him. “Don’t make this a habit,” he mutters, a whisper that bounces off the walls, lost in the cacophony of her fierce oaths. He shakes the water from his fur; his scratch is still open, but the sting is mostly gone. He can move—he has breathed—he feels rejuvenated. He sucks in the air insatiably, expanding his lungs with the luxurious gasses, even as words fall from the filly’s lips that he can understand. For the first time in my entire life I am completely lost, and most of all… I’m broken…

“You were lost before the darkness came,” he says wearily, idly gazing at the scratches of the walls, intrigued by them once more ever unable to read the mysteries of their narrations. “That’s why the darkness took you so easily...” He speaks quietly, musingly; the words from his tongue fall like the snow that drifts unseen above them. His ears cock backward; he snaps his head around, and sees her retreating. Something rears within him; he’s not done with her presence yet.

“Stop,” he says, neutral and powerful, expecting. He turns his body; he stands erect in front of the pool, his granite eyes boring into her, impassive, piercing, grey. “Come here,” he says, quieter, taking a step back, indicating her presence before him. “Kneel,” he breathes, and waits for the spider queen to respond to his commands. She is broken, yes? Reginald has decided, then, to build her back again. By his terms.

@[Jorogumo]
"talk talk talk"