He waited in the murk of weariness and the haze of fatigue, quiet and still, desolate and forbearing, looking for all the empires like a knight who carried the weight of the world across his shoulders. He expected some form of grievance from her – (how dare you) a growl, a snap, an unfurling of jaws and teeth, a screech, and then he’d bear that too, throw it along his spine and let it carve its way down into his marrow, into his flesh, into his lungs. Instead, however, she surprised him, and the prince should’ve known better, shouldn’t truly understood just who he was conversing with – a mare born for warfare, who didn’t shy away from blades or knives, from renegade potency and the savagery conspired, scorched through his ribs. So he allowed her to study him, to stand there amidst the decadence of battle, in his strife, in his glory, a portrait of discord and refined parallels; an artifact sculpted by acrimonious plunges into the heart of furtive wares and perilous aspirations. The scion’s brow quirked at her question, molding the depths of his tired smile to an indulgent smirk, rekindling a boyhood look as he glanced from the rolling tides and back to his fellow soldier. His murmurs were controlled by mischief but resolute in veracity, touched and sizzled by the embers of his days spent admiring the plains of enchantments and invocations curled, coiled, nestled in the specious depths of his figure, obliged, bestowed, without hesitation. “Magic,” he uttered, then swept his eyes to the sands, to the earth, to the sky, shrugging as if it wasn’t important, when sometimes it was all the world had ever wanted. “I was born with it.” He’d feared it once too, when the shifting shadows had been unleashed from the spires of his anger, or when the flames had burst from his touch, becoming infernal, bewitching, beguiling torrents of destruction – but then it embraced it soon after, diving straight into its merciless echoes without a second thought, surrounded, pervaded, consumed by the notions of darkness and Stygian wiles. “A lot within Helovia hold some sort of enchantment. My father could kill with a touch. My mother could summon rain.” Then he tried, desperately, not to flinch at the sentiments of them being gone, struggling to fight over the agonizing pain clawing at his insides, staring straight out into the sea as if they’d appear there, out of the mist, out of the waves.
 
Erebos clenched his jaw, then turned back to Wessex, pretenses in shambles but still there, still slightly veiled, still partly hidden, even as he revealed the juncture of so many sojourns and adventures (because she wanted power, and he couldn’t fault her for that – he was one and the same, an avaricious devil clinging, grasping, reaching for anything and everything). “However, there are some occasions where Gods or other creatures will grant you a quest, and you may be able to receive magic for completing their tasks.” His smile returned, a little wicked, a little rough around the edges, a laugh poised along the tip of his tongue, where memories seared and simmered, where nobility faded away and lethality haunted the outline of his physique. In his sinister depths, in his clouded, exhausted whims, he wondered what she would want, what she would crave, and if she thought her strength simply wasn’t enough without that blessing from a deity or scrap from a magician’s oeuvre (and was tempted to tell her that she’d probably always be mighty and determined and potent, with or without the temptation of invocations). It harpooned him then, in between Enyo’s knowing gaze and Orsino’s blatant disregard, shoving past any furtive regards, mercurial and inquisitive still, a little beast who could never rid himself of corruptive curiosity. He queried her, grinning and Cheshire, a General, a fiend, laced with ambitions, longing to know which path they all tread (and if some were one and the same). “What power would you ask for?”