The little cretin watched her through the rainstorm, specious, divine, and devilish, intertwined with too many elements all at once and bursting through the seams of his skin; yearning to twist, to encounter, to entangle himself back into the ruins of the river, but also to compress his interest, his intrigue, to the femme yielding to cover and shade. Her questioning glances, her lingering inquiries, however, kept him at bay, tethered him to the babbling of the brook beneath his hooves, and strayed, stayed, breathed amidst the fumes of showers and mist. A part of the sun, the shoal, the clouds, the surf, the ice chiseled beyond their sights, the boy tilted his head in wonderment, made entirely of mischief and mayhem, colliding temporarily with the bank as one of his daggers rested along rocks and stones, restless and divided. Were you born with such an ability? her voice reached his ears, snagging and ensnaring, so that they swiveled back and forth in impish degrees, shameless and silly, fiendish and deplorable, curling the same boyish smile between his lips. Oh, he’d been christened and anointed with many things (some he’d likely never even touched, had no knowledge or wisdom of) in his short life, blessed with the entity of damnation, corruption, and embers from an early age. While sometimes it scorched, shocked, and unraveled him, he’d begun to embrace it within his tender years, stoking the fires kindled within his soul, funneling the darker predilections smoldering at his edges, ruffling the plumes of his anger, of his wrath, to fine-tune their contemptuous convictions. Magic was a collection of power, of wonder, of notions and nuances and sentiments that could undo or enrapture an entity; and he didn’t know where he fit quite yet – if he’d already been ruined, intoxicated, ravished and ravaged (bit into the savage apple and swallowed all the toxins, all the poison), or he’d simply not gained enough, thirsting for more and more and more. The beast’s voice shattered through the deluge again, innocent and buoyant despite the stitches of trickery and duplicity hovering over the taut strings of his figure, proclaiming the parcels of sagacity he’d managed to squander and clench through seasons and cycles. “I was born with it!” With fire, with darkness, with water he laughed to himself, as if they were everything he needed, everything he required (but it’d never be the case; he was too wanton, too covetous, too greedy, clinging with avaricious claws and charismatic grins). Then he yielded closer, springing from the river with a few shakes of his frame, sending droplets cascading in wild, untamed disarray, mane matted to his neck. Erebos’ gaze peeked under the tree’s branches, brow arching, a lingering piece of promising destruction. “Though, I’ve been on a quest to strengthen their abilities.” The boy wondered if this would entice the mare further, if she was another soul burnished and furnished with incredible interest and the thirst for prowess (to be something, anything, grander than their present beings). Would she want to know how he’d acquired such a journey (how he’d suffered, how he’d serenaded, how he’d tricked and inveigled?)? Or would she be one more accepting creature, lost amongst the ferns and fields, indifferent to each and every cause?

Erebos

clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in