Erebos eyed her, curious and inquisitive, as she failed to yield to his simple statement. Do I?, she questioned, and for the boy who’d always known where he’d belonged (deep in the mountains, amongst the snow, the wind, the chilling, barbaric winters and bestial summers, a soldier, a knight, a blackguard), the question was confusing, perplexing, and befuddling. Perhaps he’d been blessed since his birth, pressed into caves and ice, sprinting across the rime, gesturing and hollering and whooping with his friends as they chased down mysteries, stories, and adventures. He’d never truly wanted for anything except more (more anguish, more devastation, more potential, more magic, more invocations to conquer and control). But why shouldn’t she belong, down in the depths of a world her mother had tried to conquer? Why shouldn’t she aspire to dream in the heights of clifftops, in the verdant hallows of valleys, or in the dark, eerie spaces of the Deep Forest? “Why not?” He questioned her automatically, without much forethought, brandishing that bold, audacious charisma he’d polished into his entity, with whimsical smiles and Cheshire grins. How many avenues had she truly explored and not seen herself within? Why couldn’t she make herself a home in the whims and worlds and empires throughout Helovia? Why couldn’t she find herself an ambition, an aspiration, to claw into, to grasp and clench and hold, incapable of letting go until she accomplished it? What held her back? He couldn’t quite fathom what tied and tethered her to nothingness – not when she likely had all the potential, all the prowess, to become something other than a remnant of her dam’s existence. He didn’t imagine her as one of the many who passed through – wraiths, phantoms – and then floated off again, no purpose, no reasoning, tucked into their souls, as if they’d never existed at all.
 
So the fiend grew closer to her, too intrigued, ignoring Orsino as he glided back into the heathen regions of shadow and damnation, speculating in the wild, untamed ferocity he possessed so readily, so confidently. He’d been lost before – down in the doldrums of the unknown, not comprehending the levels of his weakness, of where he was supposed to go next, on how he was going to achieve everything he yearned and craved. Maybe he could assist her in puzzling out the next step in her path? To see where she fit, in between the lines of sand, stones, rubble, and mayhem? He smiled, always the beguiling, alluring, little beast, proffering his guidance as best he could. “What are you looking for?” Was it to harpoon the countryside, the kingdom, the legacies of yesteryear? Was it to reign and rule? Was it to glorify prosperity for herself, for her kin, for all the legends coiled in her blood? He only glanced around for snippets, for advantages, for fractures and chaos that could lead him down the alleys of his quest for revenge – but surely she had something better, something hopeful, to sink her teeth into.