Kianzo

Stars hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires.

There is a crowd milling around the Rotunda in the wake of Kis’s announcement. But it is in this crowd that the dark prince hunts, Keusi at his flank as they prey after the deformed colt and his perfect sister. Slitted, sharp, venomously blue eyes do not blink as they glare after the leaping griffins and foxes on his twin’s back—but the colt does not realize that he is not hunting alone.

No. Another hunted. But hers was a dainty, deadly prowl as opposed to his stealthy, vehement stalking. And she loomed just before him, unmistakably after the beauty and beast that so easily slipped off without even thinking of their other halves. Or, at least, Kianzo knew that Kiada had not thought of him—the leaping foxes and griffins along her back showed him that.

Sharp eyes now study the doe-like creature between him and the interloping traitors. The filly was different than he; small and dainty, yes, but also… mutated. But not in the monstrous fashion as the splotched beast with Kiada. No, hers was a delicate; her skin a soft rose and and her nose a single, plush, wetness. If hateful hurt was not running so heatedly through his ashen breast, the dark prince may have found the rosen filly fetching.

But it did. Hate did pulse dangerously through him.

Thranduil’s teachings spread through his mind, fueled by loathing, as he quietly tracked and hid back from view. Not only had the immensely talented Laurelin taught the young colt well, but Kianzo also had an inherent penchant for such things.

So he watched his twin with Ru’in closely. He watched her smiles, her sighs, her glances, her flaming foxes. He watched the monstrous colt’s bi-colored eyes linger (Kianzo barely suppressed a disgusted snort) on Kiada’s skin; on the bruised scar that marred the gold of her shoulder.

Guilt and bile gather in his throat. The first from not protecting his other half from the griffins; the latter from this sickening show. Black rimmed ears are flush with his skull, his body wound so tight with repulsed anger that his golden hide twitches as Kiada breaks a branch free of the snag.

And then the other filly comes forward—and it is only now, seeing her with Ru’in, that he realizes they are twins. Twins Kiada had spoken of before—though Kianzo cannot remember the girl’s name. She held no importance to him, so why would he?

She did hold importance to Ru’in—this much is glaringly evident as the beast comes to heel. The anger drives his cruel thoughts, finding such submissive behavior pathetic. It is likely, were circumstances different and Ru’in not courting the Kiada’s attention that should rest solely with Kianzo, that the dark prince would have grown irritated with Romina’s control over her twin. Perhaps because these twins were like a mutated mirror—and never wanted such submission for either he or Kiada. To be truthful, there was a large part of Kianzo that marveled at Romina’s power and control over the monster—but this was buried beneath the betrayal of his sister.

So, as quietly as the Laurelin had taught him, he emerged from his hidden shadows. A dark cloud of ash shifted in and out of existence at his chest, ashen teeth snapping viciously before slipping back beneath the colt’s control.

Eyes darkened and glowered—so much like his sire’s—at the offending trio. “Naye? Kweli, mlongo?” His deep voice whipped out in their own language, as if it would somehow unify them. But then, the colt not hiding his hurt anger as the fawnling filly did, he switched to the common tongue, “He is a beast.”

And, while this last phrase was thrown out as an accusation, beneath it (and beneath the dark anger of his sharply blue eyes) there was an aching, pained question: You choose a monster over me?

Keusi glowered up at Khairi as her jaws closed on a bone already on the pile, splintering it with loud cracks in her jaws.

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Naye? Kweli, mlongo? = Him? Really, sister?