EREBOS

Idle, listless, languid regards held no substance to the lithe, little demon, with his eyes anointed to the heavens and his limbs carving over the chthonic rime. With his lesson’s done for the day, his mother’s wise, scholarly heart sketching over the roughened ruins of seasons gone by, Erebos chased after nothing and everything, a swift wanderer harkening over his heritage. The cool surface of the Arch, as if untouched by summer’s warm, crisp dew and daunting opus, grasped and clenched secrets, and the eager determination of a colt to uncover these drew heady and audacious, springing through his steps as frost and verglas stroked, embraced, his willowy contortions. He could hear the rush of the ocean curling around the glaciers, icebergs with their jagged surface and conspiring fathoms bellowing empty, unholy silence, and he peaked over several edges, staring down into the mouth of aloof treachery. He’d wanted to practice skimming upon the surface of the sea, walking in some holy rite, leaping over bounds of swells and keening with the gulls’ outcries, to trace and touch and dance along the salty brine; but even the bold prince knew which fringes of danger were worthy to cross, and which would seize, possess, and devour him before his screams echoed over the ramparts – his hooves dragged him away from the precipice. He traveled further, thrust one foreleg through snow and watched as it flew into the air, landing softly elsewhere with no one to throw it back. At some fixture, as the sun rose higher into the sky and beamed down along the icy slopes and tinted tundra, he began to descend, and not to be outdone by the thickened textures of slippery ravines or testy crevasses, his frame proceeded very slowly along the frigid veneer. A slight sigh tumbled through him as he lifted his cranium and felt the chilling wind ghost through his tendrils, his composition, as if he was naught but a small blemish on the Gods’ mountains, rolling hills and intangible stone, a crack in the veil, empty, hollowed, worthless bracken stumbling about their vast threshold. Only thereafter, as his gaze landed elsewhere, vexed and irritated by his ineffectual and fruitless journey, did he notice caverns cut into the glaze: wide, open, daring fledglings to explore its vast roots and sunken, gaunt pits. The rush of daring emboldened him again, and he wondered if his wandering was going to be meaningless after all.

Heart hammering through his chest, either through valor or sheer ineptitude, he chose a segment of aperture wide enough for many a creature, monsters, unicorns, kraken and leviathans spouting from the waters, and as he stood within its encompassing entrance, he felt very small, trapped within the mouth of an ice giant, consumed. A tremulous misgiving wove through his mind as the scion’s eyes coasted and trickled along the hall, but the vivid light beat it back as sunbeams rankled over crystals and glittered, illuminated and tinted the abyss, the chasm, in bright, inviting color. A trick? A ruse? Was he being played, beckoned and called into the grasp of titans, behemoths, and colossuses? Or were there jewels to be snatched, crowns to be worn, and treasures to be raided? The child’s mouth twisted into uncertainty, before he sketched out one great bellow into the cerulean pit. “Hello!” His ears twisted as he listened to it bounce back and forth, ricochet off the walls first in gallant, effortless mimicry, then die off and grow steadily quieter, fading off into the dimmer outcrops. The echoing cries of his foolish voice gave forth the notion that he wasn’t alone after all, and he took one mighty, spirited step forward into the belly of the ice beast.

@[Athenä] @[Amani]