For a minute he nearly thinks something blasphemous, something unfairly hateful as Megaera's presence pins him to the earth like a wounded rabbit beneath her companion's talons. But even he cannot blame this meeting on something so detached and powerful as a god, not when he brought this on himself with his too-big heart and his inability to express his fears and despairs. Even now, standing across from the one he can scarcely stand to look upon, it's easier to put the blame on himself than to hate her for her actions. The gold of his love for her may be blackened and tarnished, but it cannot be washed away. Not this easily, or this quickly. Maybe ever. 

Which makes him hate her all the more, for gripping his heart in her tar stained hands and demanding through her tears that he love her when he has already given her everything he has to give. That she keeps him unfairly rooted here, in this space he doesn't want to occupy, where his skin doesn't fit and their relationship lies in shambles. That Megaera ask this of him. Because the Sunspear is selfish enough to make him hurt by asking him to forgive again, to keep loving her when his heart is already too broken to even beat properly and keep himself going.

Sometimes the Golden Prince fears that his dying breath will be heralded by giving too much away from his beating heart, that it can no longer physically sustain the needs of his body. That his heart will fail, and he will die loving. 

Perhaps it's not such a bad way to go, to die from loving so hard he could not even spare an ounce of love for himself. 

She speaks, and he listens. Even now he cannot deny her that, and he stares continuously as she speaks. As she repents. His soul stirs in agony of understanding because he doesn't want to understand her. He doesn't want to forgive, to empathize, to see himself in her eyes as they stare at one another. He looks at her and sees a smaller version of himself from years ago, kneeling at his Lord's shrine and crying with all the grief his body could supply, praying in supplication for forgiveness and deliverance from the hate he had fostered in his heart. 

It is harder to forgive than it is to hate, Cera. Onni told you that. Our Lord told you that. Cera flinched against Ilaria's soft, sad voice. But she would not be ignored, not in the space between Megaera's breaths as she fought the Sunspear's battle in the mind of her bonded. Look at her. Cera, look at her. Do you want to lose this too?

Cera's breath shuddered from him unevenly at the impact of her words. The glint of steel directs his eye back to Megaera and her impassioned speech, feeling his own spirit twitching weakly, trying to reclaim its fervor and rise to meet her. The spear was placed at his hooves, and Cera stared at it in silence, aware of the magnitude of this motion. This decision. And her words finally jolted him into motion, and he smoothly lifted one hoof and planted it firmly on the metal of her spear, staring into her eyes. 

"I have never known you to run from a battle, Meg. There is pride in your heart, and it is easily wounded, but you are no coward." She never could be, not with the fire that burned in her heart as steadily as it did in Cera's. There was a reason the two had been so close, after all. They were kindred spirits. 

"This isn't forgiveness. After Midas, and Hector, and Gaucho...it was never you I suspected would try to leave this family. To leave me." His jaw firmed and teeth clenched decisively, and he tapped his hoof against the metal of her spear. "I will hold your vow. With this spear, with all that signifies who you are, I swear my own." The Prince stepped forward and pushed his forehead up against hers, seeking to send her back a few steps in a motion more familiar among siblings. Something like tough love, like bruises and side-eyed glares beneath their mother's eyes. 

"No more. No more running. No more silence. If again you lose your sight against the light of our Lord and run cowardly away from His glory, may he guide my aim when I pin you to these sands with your own spear. And may you do the same to me if my heart ever strays." It was all he could offer her. A mutual vow, one that was archaic, almost barbaric in its wording. But his eye softened and he reached down to pick up her spear, offering it to her and waiting for her to grab it before he spoke once more. 

"Now take it and be the Sunspear. Not Gaucho's shadow, not a passing Sultana, not a cowardly soldier running for the horizon. Be the Sunspear. Because our Lord named you in his image, and it is his image we strive to replicate. Nobody else. Stop living in doubt of your own abilities, Megaera, because you are so much more than a supporting figure." His harsh voice surprised him, considering he was chiding her for her self-doubt instead of attacking her as he had previously. A soft sigh escaped his lips and he turned to look back at the water, his face crestfallen. 

"This herd needs you, Megaera. Even when you want to give up on yourself, you can't give up on them." It was all that had kept Cera going, all these years. They didn't need him like they needed Meg. But he would stay nonetheless, until the gods called his soul to the heavens to rest with his fathers where he belonged. And if he yearned for that day to come soon...well, Ilaria could not tell them of the dark thoughts that plagued the Prince's mind.