EREBOS

They were rolling flames and cast-off shells of shadows, legends in the making, princes and thieves, musketeers and brigands, showing the world what they wanted, what they could be. But even in the distorted cataclysm, even amidst the squabble, the skirmish, the heat, the dust, the debris, the wreckage and ruin, Erebos was tied and knotted in too many directions.
 
I’m sorry, he yearned to say, as the waves of crumbling rock were cast into delusion after delusion, while Orsino shouted at him throughout their connection Who cares!, and the entire thing continued to unravel in one ridiculous mess.
 
He’d always wanted to fight alongside Rikyn. There’d been dreams of grandeur tucked between their boyish, mercurial adventures – where they’d march upon empires and face down opponents, laughing, snickering, smirking, a plague upon every house and kingdom. They’d take over the world, one realm at a time, feared and idolized.
 
Dueling against his childhood friend had never been in the picture.
 
The world trembles in awe of us!, Rikyn had proclaimed, and the blue boy could feel Orsino laugh. Not in this state!, he rasped, grated, and hissed, almost defiantly twisting against their bond, almost instigating over and over again, and Erebos so desperately wanted to fight it all away. 
 
It was harsh and brutal, unrelenting and treacherous, rancorous and bitter. The sentiments tore against his mind as Rikyn maneuvered towards him, closer and closer, and the scion faltered, stumbled against the moving, ricocheting floor. His dodge was pathetic at best, legs shaking, trying to grapple with the intensity and confusion of the earth’s treacherous movements, and his brethren’s hooves landed along his right shoulder in a smarting bruise. More pain flared as he snorted, as he tried to contain the barbarous layers of agony, misery, and frustration piling on top of him. In all the mayhem, in all the perplexity, the rocks tumbling, the ground threatening to gape open, he managed to miss the second round of flying limbs in a stumbling, fumbling leap. Still, the little fiend simply wanted to go home.
 
Enough, he beckoned again, but received no answer besides another hiss, another torrent. He was so tired, tired of everything pummeling and firing against him, the aches and pains, the brutality and condemnation towards a friend, the way in which he couldn’t find the urge, the kindling, to try and destroy someone who meant so much to him.
 
His heart wasn’t in it, and he knew that wasn’t fair to Rikyn.
 
It should’ve been, because he’d always wanted to become better, stronger, and more powerful than everyone else. He wanted each and every realm to shudder at the sound of his name, at the quake of his motions, at the stories and legends he’d one day write. He wanted them to know the depths of his prowess and the layers of his potential; how they’d rue the day they ever harmed his kin, scarred or obliterated one of his own.
 
But Rikyn had never done any of those things. He’d never wronged him. He’d never scorned him. One day he’d just left him behind.
 
The same haunting thought pervaded his skull, again and again, like a vice, like a sermon, like a disastrous chord sung by sirens. Maybe I’m just not good enough.
 
Their eyes met, Rikyn’s full of joviality (for the spar? For the skirmish? To watch him whittle away?), and Erebos’ full of nothingness, revealing naught but feeling everything, too much like his father, too much like his mother.
 
On some unseen, unknown drive, perhaps ghosts, perhaps monsters, perhaps demons nestled, curled, and coiled within his blood, the tired beast, with his right side throbbing, lowered his skull, brandished his blade, and attempted, amidst the clamor, the disarray, the turmoil, to run it down the length of Rikyn’s left side.
 
Forgive me, he ushered, mouth parted on the smallest, slightest whisper. 

[3/3. 646 words.
* Erebos attempts to dodge Rikyn’s kick/buck, but with the rattling floor and his wounds, he’s incapable of truly escaping. He earns a bruise along his right shoulder.
* He attempts to run his sword down the length of Rikyn’s left side.]