EREBOS

They presided and pressed into the Deep Forest because it was to their liking: dark, mysterious, twisting and turning with endless enigmas. His mother’s stories could only fill so much of the void, so many of the labyrinths, the mazes, the skeletal remains, and his time before in the vast warren had only served him with bountiful delight (acquiring dear Orsino), so he thought naught of their next adventure into the inhospitable regime. Instead of lacquering ruminations of what could harm, of what could decimate, of what could slaughter, or what beasts lay hidden, plunged like knives into the traces of Stygian audacity, the miniature heathen beckoned ghosts, illuminated thieves, cast curiosity into the brimming, stolen light. The creature at his feet nourished the same entanglements, and together they roamed into its oiled confines as youths of the despicable, measuring monsters and scaling sinister cretins. What myths were conjured here? What monsters were slain? What villains still roamed the decadent, weary palisade, with its enclosed secrets, with its calamitous ruins, with its vicious, toxic entropy and avaricious acrimony? The prince wove his lanky limbs into towering columns of majesty, of grace, of finery, masculine fortitude, hushed, latent bravado, and the other child, rumbling and coiling and slithering, tripped over broken roots and fumbled stones. An overeager tempest, an untamed heathen, the Lilliputian scion traced his earnest, fervent, midnight heart into the boundless trees, into the echoing, thunderous glades, into the piles of soot and ash, into the wraiths and phantoms of yesterday, into the foretold ruins of tomorrow. He drew a breath and watched it dissipate into a haunting, poignant puff, followed it until the vapor disappeared, and drenched his instigated, fueled mischief into imp movements and motions, slipping and sliding into the plunging pits, into the dastardly eaves, into the lofting, lilting bouts of strength and condemnation, wishing somehow, someway, he could embody such a potent, silent menace, such an immeasurable, elegiac horror, supremacy, and dominance. The sable fox at his hooves chirped in agreement – and both devils marched further into the blackened copses. Even if the notion was unattainable, the tiny beast, so enamored, so resolved, built another block of determination into the rioting fortitude, launching another hoard of desires.

They were enticed, beguiled, and allured by the faint sounds of water, spiraled, hurtled, out of its prior depths, meaning something, someone, was very, very near. A devilish grin stole across the child’s features, and in no time at all, the pair altered their path, dusting across nefarious canvases, pungent, hidden daggers, vivid, wild cloaks, thriving on the bent and broken shambles of disheartened sinners; perhaps in a few years time, just as licentious as the brooding factions murmuring past the mired doors. It only took a few passing moments before they interrupted some feral interlude, one blue stare, one golden gaze, narrowed in quiet speculation as they took in the child swimming along the water. Pale, striking and effervescent in the coils of shadows and darkness, reminding him of the ivory pebble he’d snagged from the pool’s embankment, hoping to gain the massive Raven’s favor –

The snag of recognition pulled at his mind, and suddenly, without warning, the buoy of exuberance boomed and rustled from his throat. “Oh! I remember you!” Whether or not she’d noticed him was of no matter entirely to the boy, and he sidled closer to the water’s edge, like a spark, like a blaze, in the curling plumes of twilight. “You tried to help the Raven too!” His voice carried, echoed, bounded off of boughs and rocks, and he dropped his skull to peer, to stare, across the open pond, embodying his friendly, outgoing grin in peals of amiability and impishness. “I’m Erebos!”

@[Auriel]