|
He’d failed again.
The prince should’ve been used to the feeling by now – the perilous scrape of nothingness rasping along his chest, down into the funnels and sinew of his flesh. He’d been cast into its wares so much recently it was like his newfound home: a wide-open chasm, ravaging and ripping him apart, echoes and throngs of days he’d spent hoping and dreaming, wondering when they’d become broken, discarded things. Perhaps when his father died, when his friends were massacred, beaten, when Kaos erupted from bones and fallen Gods, or when a yeti never looked at him either, turned away from him again and again. The boy asked himself why many times, as he wound his wanderings through the borders, along the meadows, down into the thickening strands of grasslands and prairies, and the answer was the same each time. Unworthy, the world seemed to spit upon him, seething and ravenous, mocking and sinister, a savage snicker on the wiles of a youth who’d only craved entirely too much. Was there something he lacked? Was there a flaw, a defect so poignant to others, but nothing he was aware of? Or were they mere coincidences, strung together like tangible forces, tempestuous and sudden, vicious onslaughts, Stygian mayhem and bristling nefariousness.
Erebos had always been a determined beast, a pulsing, pervading maelstrom of conviction – sometimes unholy, sometimes virtuous, something gallant, sometimes caught in the feral decadence of raptor predilections. But nowadays his head hung too low, his eyes stared at the ground and not at the stars, and his persistence seemed to crumble, bit by bit, until it waned off and on, relished by the notion of friends or the challenge of another day, tormented by insurrection, sedition, or simply giving it all up. His oaths and convictions had grown empty and cold, no souls lacerated, brutalized, or carved apart, no treachery granted to the ones who’d deserved it, trails gone flat and senseless, petulant, inept, ineffectual. He was like a legion of fortitude and might with nowhere to put his sword but into himself, and his soul ached, his mind craved, his body warred against the savoring of frustration, agony, grief, and smoldering, severe havoc. He wanted no more of it, of anything, of anyone.
The bewitching essence of Orsino was a meticulous force too, constantly in his ears, drumming a remorseless, iniquitous noise, beseeching him to cover ground, to strike at others, to train for future diabolical yearnings – and the youth listened because it was the only thing he had left: this damned herd, this ridiculous, splintering empire his father had always tried to keep from cracking. If winter and rain, if death and fire were truly in his blood, then the kitsune must’ve shared it too, scathing and wicked, imploring him to search beyond the runes of their archaic kingdom, sniffing the air and hissing a bestial storm.
But today the beast was too far into his own head to pay much attention to the quick, sinister quips of the fox, stretching his limbs at a brisk pace to get away from the deplorable thoughts haunting his skull. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he wanted to yell furiously at the top of his lungs all sorts of severe, Tartarean things, but he remained mute and detached, eyes seeing nothing but endless lines of greenery and snow.
Until Orsino wandered over to a cave’s aperture, drawn by the bright lights of flames (and where Erebos didn’t crave to go – he presumed it was just another Basin inhabitant, struggling to keep warm despite the release of spring) – started rasping, started growling, started his heathenous, heinous taunting. The boy followed, ducking beneath the shadows and veils of the cave, his vigilant, steel stare reaching past the two other kitsunes, registering solely on the griffin in the corner, trying desperately to escape, to fight, to flee.
While Orsino, in another time, another life, might have joined them in their zealous hunt, just as malicious, just as wicked, just as hell bent on destruction, mayhem, and hunger, the cunning, crafty kitsune had an entirely different vantage point now. He saw an opportunity, a chance, an instant for the prince to reign supreme, to heighten all his diabolical schemes, to relish the rapier, to drown the wicked in their misdeeds – so as the General understood what was going on (persecution of the innocent again), the deadly elegance of his voice pierced through the cavern walls, echoing, resounding, as a prelude to disaster. He forgot his ineffectiveness. He didn’t fall into his flaws. Instead, he straightened, proud, dangerous, a writhing, wrathful wraith, clawing against the undulating onslaught of portentous skills, promises he could finally keep, eyes focused and narrowed on those who dared to challenge justice.
“What are you doing?” He demanded, commanded, listening to Orsino’s annihilating translation, hoping he hadn’t arrived too late to finally save someone from a cruel, molten fate.
| |
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
