Summer was a ripe time for discoveries, and Erebos hastened to each one like an avid dreamer, coaxed and enticed with simplistic venues. He listened to the haunting cries of nocturnal vestiges, he witnessed feats of grandeur by the fish in the cool, breathtaking lake (sometimes joined them in a jubilant run – dancing across the surface, a mess of lanky limbs and bold, intrepid youth), and tiptoed through the remaining portions of frost before they disappeared for the season, exhausted and melted into the ground. Each moment was beckoned by a series of wonders and investigations, questions fostered and fueled by the effervescent glow of a child’s mind, scouring the sights, the sounds, of their world and pressing closer to gaze into its fathoms. Could he alter his form into water, like his mother, lose limbs to the power and sway of the ocean, become liquid, domination, and audacity (no, his mother had told him before he attempted to drown himself in a small pond)? Could he bring damnation to the corridors of life, craft demise into an art, devilish, macabre monstrosities, like his father (the Reaper had visibly stiffened, grown taut and nearly weary at the query, and the colt didn’t dare ask again)? What were other enchantments and invocations of the earth like? Did everyone hold a power? Did everyone possess a gift? Was the world constantly encased in these shrouds of contorting control: did one blessing lead to another, were empires and sovereigns possessed single-handedly by the Gods Huyana told him about, the paragons and pedestals forged by immortality? His curiosity forged and fueled the incitement of his long legs to sprint across the valley, search parlors, corridors, and hallways for answers, to cherish and hold the information, the calculations, firmly in his grasp and not let them go – enthralled with the concept of wickedness, of virtue, of the precarious balance between the two and where he fell along its pinnacles. Every moment led him down particular roads and pathways, but he didn’t know which held firmer indentations, the ferocious, the predatory, the mighty, the strong, or the gallant, the brave, the valorous. Could they be intertwined? Were they linked? Was this land, this threshold, another one that bore so many twisting stories, anomalies, strangers cloaked in daggers, newcomers flanked in smiles?

Even more tempting, beguiling, and alluring, was the notion of meeting others. He’d come across several inhabitants, besides his family, and flown to aspects of social interludes as if he were born to them – he could play, he could grin, he could impart devilish mischief, he could become unbound and undaunted! The prospect of more creatures, more figures, prompted his explorations into deeper trials, gliding across the Basin’s portal like a shadowy fixture, laden with all the opulence of a scion’s predilection for speed. His eyes poured over the horizon, until he noted two figures swaying beyond, unfamiliar (though mostly everyone seemed to be, but he pledged that it wouldn’t be for long; new faces would soon change into old, recognized ones, fire-forged friends), and he changed his direction so that as he grew closer, he was a barreling, quick menace draped in grins and glory. A boisterous shout was unleashed from his lungs, noting his entrance with all the exuberant, wild etchings of a barbaric emir, touched and scorched by the finer molding of his impish smile. “Hello!” He stopped when he was mere feet away, noting that he’d managed to not crash into the darker one, and perused the other beings in the mountainous presence. One couldn’t have been much bigger than him (another babe, another child nestled in the tundra!), lightly feathered (were those wings mother had spoken of?), and lion-tailed (he had one of those too!). Erebos was immediately fascinated, she was such a collection of things and trinkets, but made sure to share his preoccupation with the stallion, because he too was an alluring cretin. His horn was not like the child’s at all, it curled and whirled, and his eyes were spooky, evocative beacons that, had the beast not seemed friendly, Erebos surely would have been unsettled and frightened at his appearance. Instead, he granted both of them his calling (he’d been practicing, figured Adelric would be proud of his proper pronunciation). “I’m Erebos!” Then, tilting his head, he prospered a set of queries to the dame, noting her ivory hare dashing amongst the bracken, and stag, wishing to seize, to possess, some noteworthy knowledge of their existence. “Who’re you?”