“I don’t know,” he answered, staring off into the void, not lingering on Rikyn’s fallen face, on the tears welling up, allowing him to be alone in those few moments of peril where everything simply seemed to pile up and devour someone. His heart was heavy, dampened, soused, drenched and drowned, barely scratching over the surface of what they used to be (could never be again), incapable of returning to the good, old days where they’d been naught more than an untouched canvas, capable of so many things. The General had never asked the hows and the whys over his father’s demise – had barely accepted it had happened, let alone embark on the justification, the reasoning behind it all. Perhaps, in the darker murmurings of his thoughts and ruminations, he could have employed a whole menagerie of circumstances: the Reaper’s magic had finally caught up with him, tied his essence back into the arts of demise, the eldritch, mercurial whims of the underworld and its caustic, devilish imbalances. Or maybe, just maybe, the god damn empire itself had pilfered him away, exhausted, forlorn, and desolate, enshrouding his every movement and motion until he’d been splintered and severed, driven to his last breath, his final heartbeat. Erebos wanted someone or something to blame, but it never came, never had a rhyme or reason, just ended in the ways things were; and that too stirred, incensed, and kindled his vengeance, but he had no where to pinpoint such an illustrious, tangible rage. “He was just gone,” the boy whispered again, harsh and unrelenting, gaze settling on the outcrops, beyond the rain and the wind, towards the unfreezing lake where Deimos had laid himself to rest. When he swung his stare back to Rikyn, he remained still, a vast ocean of emotions and recoil, curling back into his defensive means, his Machiavellian measures, begging for something other than this retrieval of wrongs, melees, and the unjustified taking of lives.
 
The boy couldn’t even bring himself to ask how the Engineer had passed, didn’t query Rikyn on the particulars, had no intention of pulling him back into the horrors, the terrors, the quiet, unholy insurrection of bestial sires ruined and discarded. It’d been enough to simply experience it – the abysmal hours spent reliving the disastrous events weren’t necessary, didn’t need to be another burden on already sunken edges, fringes, and maelstroms. It was the remaining valorous contortion of his avaricious entity that proffered Rikyn the gift of avoidance, a blistering remnant of courtesy and chivalry granted to a blood brother  – if he wanted to delve any further, it was his choice, and not the blue prince’s. He slipped into a greater diversion, lending his abilities, his power, his layers of armor and devastation into the rime and rubble, casting out the discord, the betrayals, the treachery stored between the bay youth and the summits. If his voice quaked and shuddered, he paid no mind to it, focusing his interest on Rikyn’s pursuits, on his ambitions, on the aspirations Erebos had once bestowed. “Are you here to stay?”

Erebos

i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want