An insistent squawking interrupted their conversation, private at first, and he sighed, arching his brow in the direction of the talking crow. “See what I mean?” He gestured towards Ode, caught in the throes of his own words, and incapable of running away from the snare he’d run directly into. The prince turned to her, this mighty, flapping soldier, tilting his head, indulging her in the largest Cheshire grin he could muster, nearly serene had it not been for the steely gaze piercing through his shell. “Maybe it’s the tone-“
 
He would’ve said more, would’ve been blistered and scorched again by her stone edges, had Toulouse not uttered a sharp outcry. The General’s head turned immediately, expecting disaster and ruin, and all thoughts of mishaps, misdeeds, not being liked, or what Ode would do if the rest of them were endangered, were pale in comparison to the newest discovery slinking from the altar. He followed after them, a hound on the hunt, eyes narrowed and mind speculating as they drew closer – he would’ve endured and calculated a lifetime of chaos bubbling from beneath the murky depths of the Marsh, would’ve presumed a whole multitude of bodies crooning towards the surface, victims of long-forgotten wars bursting into the scene – but not something verdant and plentiful. He paid no heed to Toulouse’s hoof getting closer, Oizys’s warning was enough, and instead, leaned in, skull lowered, maw dangerously near, almost touching it himself, intending to savor the rush of curiosity. There was greenery – as if the world intended to grow and become nourished from the wicked maelstroms and the torturous void, as if bargaining against the grain, soil relishing and bright, ebullient and siren, harvested from carcasses and shells.
 
He gasped though, as Weaver touched the liquid with her beak, and he waited, loosening a hold on his choked breath, awaiting the inevitable – presuming this world would churn and devour them whole when it was ready, eager for the next bite. “This feels like a trap.” His muttering was specious, another disastrous blow into the denizens, and instead of touching and dipping his muzzle into the fray, he raised his crown, narrowed stare fixated on the edges and fringes of the malicious desolation – for they’d all been drawn there, moths to flames, entranced, beguiled, and allured, enticed all over again, incapable of learning the very same lessons, and he wouldn’t allow them to come to harm, poised as if he were reaching for the very blade settled upon his brow.