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Purpose fueled him, drove him, caused him to rise in the morning so that he could forget his weaknesses, his flaws, his nightmares, his ineffectual talents; brimming with aspirations, with fire, with motivation, wielding it like a bow, like a sword, like a knife. He sculpted through the webs and channels of his homeland with meticulous machinations; stopping first at his father’s tomb, bending his head down until his horn met cold stone, then rumbling further down the mountain, a piece of the wilderness, a maneuvering contortion of the glacial backdrop, born into its hills, into its valleys, into its sanctions – living, breathing, and dying for it. He guarded and protected, swore oaths, pledged lifelines and blood, solidified convictions as his sire would’ve done, as his grandfather would’ve done, as the whole lineage of fury and might would’ve brewed, howled, and coiled within their grasp – alive again because their empire needed it, because without the stark, desolate, forlorn world, he’d be utterly lost.
They didn’t wander; his path was completely intentional: eyes narrowed, focused, riveted on borders and outlines, stretching his limbs along the outskirts of pine and caverns, hunting for something to occupy his time – carving his nuances into the lines of a predator, a carnivore in the making. Orsino growled and huffed, pausing to sniff the air, and Enyo stalked the kitsune’s tails in silence, until a call, a summons, broke over the entryway, across their only aperture, nestled and blistering from the ramparts of their decaying sentinels. The prince ceased his movements, widened his nares, pondered, wondered, speculated the newest turn of events – and why so many had called amidst their glacial home lately, what they hoped to achieve, what it meant for the mountains to be received by the Dragon’s Throat.
Erebos chiseled, turned, towards the venue with hardly a thought, intending to protect, to shield, to become a garrison, a fortification, if necessary; but his memories of the sand and dunes, the hot, scorching sun had only been amusing, a distortion of diversions when they where children, playing and praying for adventure, well-received, never chased away, even when their tongues only held lies. Those days were gone though (Aithniel’s presence within their midst had solidified that – she’d hardly even glanced his way the last time he saw her, as if he’d been nothing; and he couldn’t argue the sentiment), and the wiles, the trials, the tribulations of yesteryears would always be at the forefront. Despite his lack of political ties in the past, because he’d run and yelled, whooped and hollered, instead of playing in the Reaper’s shadow, the General had every intention of molding himself into their sector (partly due to Isopia’s words, and another portion melded simply by outright interest), into their party, into their ambitions.
He wasn’t surprised, as he strode along the valley, all prestige, all charisma, all blatantly tied into the rime, into the glaciers, into the walls (it ran through his blood beside the fury, beside the wrath, beside the abhorrence), to see Weaver had arrived before him. He smiled at her, arched a brow for amusement, nodding at her presence, at her ability to guard and shield their borders, before glancing at the party before them. One was eerily familiar; the stoic, Stygian presence of Volterra; when they’d been boys, stupid, youthful, ridiculous children, they’d challenged each other in a bout of wit, in a clatter of history and lineage, underlying currents of potency, of lethality, running through their veins. Erebos had never spoken of where he’d belonged, but knew of the great beast’s blood, his mother’s once brutal assaults on their mountain range. He must have followed somewhat in his dam’s footsteps, grasping power, tenacity, and boldness. How he intended to wield it was another inquiry altogether. “Volterra, how nice to see you again!” Erebos laughed, bright and incandescent, forging his pretenses right, left, and center, following suit with a sweep of his gaze along the rest of their forces – the blue Pegasus mare he’d seen before, likely during their whole host of chaotic events, granting each of them a swift, respectable nod. “General Erebos at your service,” he obliged once again, the dark, steely sanction of his stare offering the barest of hints that their empire was still not one to be trifled with.
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[O] Fire and Ice [AB DT relationship]
