A portion of him wanted to be a child again – crawl right back into a ball of juvenile simplicity, where the world didn’t hurt, where pain was momentary, fleeting, where anguish hadn’t meant a damn thing. But then he knew there’d be no growth, and he’d merely be the same chunk of useless, ineffective muscle and bone he’d always been – naught would come to fruition, no dreams would take flight, no ominous beacons would pervade the realm. The Sun God had told him to stop looking back long ago, and the youth couldn’t help himself, because that’s where everything he missed seemed to be, incapable of holding on to anything but his greed, his avarice, his desires, and his foolishness. He listened to her spell everything out to him, write her proclamations across the air so his thick skull could understand, for he had to be told over and over again the measures of worth, the declarations of another, so utterly incapable of anything and everything. The youth couldn’t see the glimmer of accomplishments that had already lead him there – the unrelenting focus he’d had on acquiring a companion, the determination, the audacity, to kneel before King and Queen and proclaim his loyalty, to simmer and boil in the glories of warriors and irreverence, the drive he’d amassed through his flesh, through his coils, through his persistent, infernal regard. He only saw the failures, the ineptitude, the self-doubt warring across his mind, tempted and taken into the spellbinding venue of collapses and downfalls, wondering which path he’d putter upon that would end in one more layer of ruin. Too many things, too many moments, had obliterated those once idealistic qualities sparking against his youthful mind – as a boy he’d just chase the stars, the sun, the heavens, searching for answers, proclaiming declarations, offering a wealth of promises and oaths. Now, he just stood there, wanting all the exploits he couldn’t have, circling right back to where he’d begun. “Maybe,” he shrugged back at her, her responses earning a singular curl to his lips, half a smile sprouting between the layers of sorrow and ignorance, fighting for a threshold amidst the speculation and devastation.
 
He leaned into the rapier she held against his chest, bold but not fortunate or favored, chiseled stare firmly glancing into her own gaze, wondering just how far she’d push and how much he needed it. A small blow pervaded back into his soul as she spoke, as she told him to be who he was, and he laughed – hollowed and hellish – because he didn’t have a damn clue as to who he’d become anymore. Some days he was the little fiend, calling out to fellow heathens, conspiring with a revolution of demons, and other days he was just the sad prince, doomed, damned, and stupid, yearning for his mother to come home, for his father to live again. Other moments he promised his friends the world, tried to bring it back to them on his broad shoulders, on the edges of potent vengeance (where he’d bleed but so would his enemies, all slashed to ribbons, all consigned to oblivion, and he’d be burning, burning, burning from the inside out, a vicious, callous beacon on the horizon). Then there were hours spent only chiseling and refining his techniques, ready for a day when he’d be permitted to darken the sky and bludgeon each and every opponent, sharpen the Basin into its predacious state. He wanted to be the carnivore they craved, the power they looked towards, the beast, the wolf, the charming, bestial master of a bewitching, scorching army – a pernicious, intangible wake. But how? How was he supposed to be that, when all he did was roam, when all he did was hang his head, when all he did was fail?
 
Idiot, Orsino muttered, shaking his kitsune skull, flashing a brutal edge of disappointment.
 
So he gave finally gave it voice, because if she was going to maim him, it should’ve just been all the way – so that he be shred into ribbons and stitched, sewn, emblazoned back together again. “I want the Basin to be strong and mighty again. I want our army to be the best. I want the world to fear our power, our vigor, and our potency. I want empires to be afraid to cross us. I want demons to shake at the mention of our herd.” The aspirations ghosted and glimmered from his tongue, like gilded titans, like predacious, rapacious tenacity, much more than whims, much deeper than mercurial designs. His eyes narrowed, pinpointed back to her, focused and riveted on the weight of ambition, on the declaration of initiatives, raw, ardent hunger for them to be more than edges and fringes of yesteryears. Would that be better? Was that what his father intended? Would the new generation rise after their predecessors? Or was it a foolish hope, a silly drive, to crave that illustrious sedition, that bestial revolution, all over again?

Erebos

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