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The Reaper wouldn’t have stayed during this nonsense. The King of the North would’ve yielded to a higher power, to a modicum of composure, to hiding the wrinkle of a smile or the gruff, coarse laughter until he was elsewhere, moderately amused by the antics of an idiot. His father hadn’t had time for too many diversions, not when the world churned and burned, not when he brewed misdeeds and calculations, not when the Siberian realm called for him to go back to its lairs.
But Erebos needed this ridiculous absurdity to flicker past ghosts and what ifs, to not be subjected to constant torment, to an unwavering agony blistering just along his heart, settling along his marrow (loss, loss, and more loss - when did it end?). For a few spells of time, he simply watched, maneuvering his head back and forth between all the talking occupants, struggling to decipher the meaning beyond mirth and merriment, shuffling a small amount of logs out of the pool’s reaches before becoming distracted all over again. His ears shifted to Rikyn’s words (she could blow up things, and he suddenly wondered what it would look like if the whole earth just ruptured from her power; if they could combine their forces and bestow naught but smithereens), then to the girl, who layered her statements in almost naught but crass oaths and blunt phrases. His echoing laugh was hollow, like a bark, bestowing the yearling with an arched brow and an ominous delivery. “Don’t give him any ideas,” and then he shuddered momentarily, narrowing his eyes at the disturbing image brought to life through his addled brain – Orsino uttered some feral hiss (disgusting), and they managed to sidle a little closer to Rikyn, one of the din who managed to remain tethered to sanity.
Another even joined; perhaps drawn to the veins by the sheer racket, by the quandaries, the curling, coiling chaos implored by jackals and Cheshires, by the vivid mass of confusion and vulgarity. He studied her for a moment too (quite different from anyone he’d ever seen), quiet and methodical, while she spilled out more questions than answers – and they were merely left picking up pieces of inaction. The boy waited, stupefied and torn between saying something to push them into convictions of disaster and upheaval, or to drive it all away, lull them back into calm, dignified ambitions. The bones felt entirely forgotten, resting amidst the eaves and lava flows, almost no longer a noteworthy piece of conversation along spellbinding glimpses of the ludicrous.
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[O] we're stripped down to our skeletons again [bone collecting/cleaning]
