Remind me again of the one who first had a child with another?”Her anger lashes like a bullwhip, goading his and taunting the beast which he so tenuously controls. His chest grows warm, glowing as a fiery trunk and tusk try to push free. This push, this backwards slide of his control, shoves the his own, blisteringly angry hurt words from thick lips and clenched teeth, “Are you not listening? Have you ever listened?” Did you listen when I said I loved you? That you were the light to keep demons at bay? “Nyx’s children are not mine. I am no father,” there was a pain (a grief?) than shadowed the overwhelmed anger at his last sentence.


No, Ashamin wouldn’t come.” Angry flames licked higher, a small burst of molten rock flared from his chest. It fell, in a little pile, at his hooves, no larger than a small rock, and burst into pieces amongst the sand. This man she looked to, instead of him, at the Giving Tree, would not come assist her? She preferred this priest, this selfish man who would not help a pregnant mother, to his own company that night? Ears shiver as they try to pin even further flush with his skull. “Why not? I would come, were it mine,” his eyes blazed at her, at some point his gaze has shifted away from the Edge’s cliffs and pointed dangerously back to Rexanna.

His attention shifts to Raeden, hearing her acceptance of his apology. Guilt flashes through him, this mare was fighting her own internal battles, yet now was subject to his— laid bare on the sandy shores that ebbed and flowed around her pale hooves. An ear flicked towards the Thief as she speaks again— though this time her words are (thankfully) not incendiary. They echo the same sentiments she had told him in the last encounter, beneath twinkling stars and tinkling bells. She questions his anger, “We had agreed that we could not keep hurting each other,” tells him she still loves him. The pain that slices though his chest is a broad, icy blade. It is surprisingly effective at quelling the monster that had been pushing to be freed from his chest. “I don’t think we can do anything but hurt each other, Rexanna,” his words are quiet now, deep and miserable as he swings his eyes to Raeden, no longer able to look at his the gilded princess.

The pale woman, Hotaru’s sister, speaks quiet words of understanding. Did hope flash in her silvered green eyes? This was no place for hope. The greedy waves grabbed it, with their endless onslaught, and swept it out to sea. The constant wind snatched it, shredding it with the tumultuous zephyrs. “Let us go, Raeden,” and, with quiet words that belied the shredding of his soul, he began to lead them towards the Edge.