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Perhaps there were two playing games now; circling one another, poking at snares and traps, glancing past specious venues and charismatic smiles. They were dual beings ensconced in legends’ shadows; inevitably, the soulless, rapacious chords of their kin would slink between their veins and intertwine amidst their cores, their souls, their essence. Erebos had to wonder how much of Confutatis bled into Volterra’s pursuits, motives, and thoughts – if one day he’d wander into their midst and try to rip them all apart, if he’d continue the ways his mother set before him – corrupting, instigating, kindling, and incensing a bloody, barbaric feud. How many times would the cycle bear repeating? How many hours would they whittle and flay away, donning their vengeful armor and their vehement pride (he’d already conjured a lifetime’s worth simply in mutinous sentiments and efforts – this would be more contempt, more loathing, spiraling and curling and coiling through his blood)? Would it end the same then, if he restarted her illustrious movements and motions? Would Volterra be seething and slinking and stalking their icy corridors, and would their chilling, acerbic empire fight back (of course his mind repeated over and over, because he knew his father and he knew the way his world machinated – he’d be there too, the little prince smoldering and rampaging, forgetting and forgoing the days where dragons and kitsunes could have been allies or fire-forged companions)?
The boy watched the others’ gaze narrow (in uncertainty? In distrust?), allowing his to remain unchanged, ebullient, exuberant, a Cheshire cat’s guile glinting behind a kindled pretense. There was a yearning, a need to hear the others’ side, to ponder and understand why the wench had committed such atrocities, such animosities, such unholy, irreverent things, to those of his own nation, of his compatriots, of his friends. He hadn’t understood it, hadn’t managed to devour or relish the reason behind her actions – except pure, antagonistic chaos, the way bedlam sprung from shadows, the way mayhem clung to hollowed vessels, the way menace shifted and fractured and drained everything around it whole. Had it been greed? Had it been glory? Had it been the satisfaction of knowing she’d been able to take from the Basin, from the powerful, from the potent, from the dangerous?
And after all of the melee, rubble, and ruin, what did Volterra seek?
His ears flicked at her calling pooling from the dragon-lad’s voice, as if beckoned by curiosity, by intrigue, by interest; diving headlong into the layers and lacquer of heresy left long behind. The scion’s head tilted a fraction, his eyes glinted in absolute reverie, enticed and beguiled, while Orsino looked on, silent in his vigilant regard. “Confutatis,” he tasted the word on his tongue, listened to the rattle of poison and rasp of venom on the final syllable, heard the sneer, the violence, behind each sound. “It sounds vaguely familiar.” Then, Erebos, poised and prosed, delved further into the rabbit hole, polishing avaricious refrains, treading carefully, cautiously, as if he wandered through the vast world of ice ignorant and unaware – when he knew and grasped and snagged so much more. “Did she do something?”
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[P] Blaze rage red is the color of youth
