Crabs whistle when they’re boiled. Reginald doesn’t know this. The screams he hears from the trampled creatures underhoof are imaginary. They plead with him, bargain with him, offer boons and request his mercy. He laughs at the visions behind his eyes, a pleasant scene; the gore oozes from the shells in bluish, reddish gleam and his daydream makes their blood all the sweeter to his eye. Some are able to escape him. The sand is soft; it is their sanctuary. He cannot chase them all, but he adores the chase regardless. He is wild with revelry.

”Boy.”*

Reginald pauses; craps scuttle away, safe by his idleness. He turns and sees the stallion who spoke, staring, wordless. Eyes are cool against the warm springtime breeze, the salt of the sea impervious to the grey windows of a corrupted soul. He waits for the admonishment—there is no true fear, perhaps only the foalish caution for retribution, evident in the defiant lines etched into the Prince’s visage. The wind stirs; the ocean croons a mournful tune. The stallion is speechless, and Reginald does not know his hesitation, where it’s borne of, why it is—but it’s there and snake-breath feels it.

*”Have you nothing better to do?”*

Reginald smiles a boyish smile, charming, a flash of teeth as he scoffs away the feeble hint of an admonishment. He hears the threat in it, yes—but still he sneers and his suspicions are correct. He was bored with the stallion before; he is bored now. It does not matter that he must raise his eyes to look into the stud’s gaze fully; it does not matter that the brute might be two, three, seven, ten times older than the darkling colt is now. Youth is impatient; arrogance is boundless, and Reginald is satisfied with himself well and surely. He does not heed the value of age. He finds a crab and kills it, the blood of the noiseless victim smeared across his hoof; he glances at the older stallion, that charming smile evident, a dare, a taunt.

Something moves in the corner of his eye—he turns to see it, but it is too late to react before he’s even begun a reaction. He is struck--his balance is gone, the air leaves his lungs—a cry escapes his lips unbidden, a whinny that is cut short as he turns his head instinctively, trying to see whatever has struck him, his muzzle being roughly clipped by the nose and teeth of another. His maw clicks shut—he bites his tongue—he cannot find his feet, and the impact makes him sprawl in the sand, landing on his side harshly, painfully, before he can stop gravity from pulling him close to earth. Things scuttle away from the blast radius of sand and dirt. Crabs shuffle sideways, shooting him covert glances, clicking their tiny pinchers—they applaud his fall.

He cannot stop the flames inside his stomach, always burning deep within, flared suddenly at this impromptu assault. He scrambles for a moment, seething; his legs have grown, but they are long and he cannot untangle them right away. “AaagAGAHGH!!” he cries incoherently; he is sick with humiliation. He finally folds his unruly limbs underneath him, shooting upwards as fast as possible, and his glare is a barbed dagger for the thing that has caused him so much shame.

He sees, and is even more angry—it is a filly. Always, it is a filly. Reginald gnashes his teeth, ignoring the dull throb of both shoulders, the metallic tang of the tip of his tongue. The anger rising within him cannot be reined in fast enough, and it explodes from him, uncontrollable and furious. “You….bitch!” It is a snarl that leaves him breathless, wide-eyed, and slightly timid—for even with his bold, haughty, coltish bravado, he cannot help but feel the weight of the curse he has uttered, a word his mother warned against many times, a spoken taboo. He says dangerous things.

The word cools his blind wrath, however, and he can see what he glares at. She is a filly, a tall one indeed, older perhaps, wiser maybe—yet she is painfully slender and rangy, a detestable girl decorated in silly braids of her unruly hair. Something large stretches across her face—a birthmark? A marking? Reginald doesn’t care, because it’s ugly and she’s ugly and she knocked him down regardless of her scrawny frame. There is no retribution for her.



@[Ruske]
@[Tandavi]

”Watch for Circe.”