That is the overwhelming thought that his dragons radiate to him as they dance above him, their tempestous minds for once in agreement about something. This is not the man they know. He is numb, devoid of anything except pulsing rage and a constant, throbbing confusion. He has so many questions, questions they can't answer, questions they wish they could ask Hubris - but he's gone, too, gone with his bonded. Gone with their bonded's sanity.

He marches, he prowls, into this sacred place. He does not know why. It isn't like Isopia's father is just going to appear to him, is it? Oh, how he worships that giant of a man! How it honours him to have his magic flowing through his veins! He likes to think himself liked by the great deity for his relationship with Isopia, or as liked as any mortal can be by a God - but now, with that relationship soured, he half-wonders if the Earth God will instead drop a mountain on his head and watch him scream himself into oblivion.

He wonders if he would quite like that. At least terror would be something he could feel. At least his lungs filling with dirt would remind him that he's alive.

But he has no wish to die - he is quite sure that he will recover from this melancholy one day, because he is far too strong to allow one lost woman to crush him. He has so much to accomplish, so much to do - this will pass, it has to. But his misery has planted the seed of an idea in his head, a seed that perhaps Isopia's esteemed sire can help with. He wants to be cursed, and he's quite sure the Earth God will be only too happy to oblige - what protective father would not wish to condemn his daughter's former sweetheart to such agony? Volterra wants to become the monster Isopia thinks he is; he wants to channel every ounce of hatred and blackness in his soul and use it to add to his strength. But he wants it to hurt. He needs it to hurt.

So he arrives in the Veins with his head held high, but his spine tightened with sorrow. He stands tall, but there's a hardness to the lines of his body that tells of the nothingness within, the coldness that has devoured his passion and replaced it with naught but anger. His dragons circle in the distance, content to watch their bonded speak with the great God of the Earth - if the God even deigns to converse with him, that is.

With a humourless chuckle, the beast looks to the skies, hunting for any sign of an imminent mountain about to drop on him.