Here was hell, he surmised, through the coffins, the webs, the catacombs, the parchment of tales and stories of a heretic’s beginning and downfall. It came on devastation and unhinged, dissonant immorality, a licentious ensnaring of souls born to capability, but forced into something else entirely – forged into brutality, into calamity, into corruption – because of weakness or nature? He couldn’t tell – he’d known so many souls who had been enslaved to decadence, who had only known the squall, the tempest, the viciousness, and never turned into this harsh, unfurling, ravenous complexion, who lacked control, who drowned in the wake of their own misfortune, who’d fallen apart and been incapable of escaping it. The prince stood, frozen in place, a still, reticent statue, entirely grateful for the days of his strong father, the true Reaper who’d allowed his son liberation, deliverance, and freedom, who didn’t beckon him to death’s gates or yesteryear’s ferocity, and for the wisdom of his beloved mother, who taught him kindness and valor, who smiled and beckoned him to her side just to hear the silly remnants of his day. The youth had been entitled, lucky, fortunate to have been loved, cherished, and adored – the crumbling beast in front of him hadn’t been given the chance to feel a flicker of those emotions (then why didn’t you fight? Erebos wanted to ask, wanted to hiss, wanted to growl - why didn’t you try?). Was giving in the easiest way out? Would it have mattered if the fiend had fought back as a child? Had he done it simply to survive, and then knew naught else, condemned, ruined, and consigned to oblivion before his first year of life? Could he have disappeared, run, clambered and climbed his way from the savage, distorted world, or had it been too late? Erebos didn’t know whether to pity the monster in front of him, or turn his ruthless, bestial gaze upon him, chisel a reflection, fire upheaval into the flames, conjure every ounce of nefariousness back into the reaches of this seething, puncturing enamel.
 
There was no one here to stop him.
 
But there he was too, crawling amongst these pendulums where seraphs no longer existed and the empires threatened to flare into chaos, into bedlam, into infernos – enticed by minatory predilections, swallowed and devoured by the need for revenge. He was calm, a wicked wind stirring from Poseidon’s keep, he was composed, a brooding, brewing figure, drawn to the shadows, to his hate, to his wrath, to his fury. The General would’ve been completely, silently poised in his executioner elegance, in his Mephistophelean finery, in the wicked munitions gathered behind his eyes, had a familiar name not flickered past his ears.
 
Then there was Rexanna, it echoed, it spun, across the cool, rancorous fringes of his cranium, and the enigmatic immorality twisted, contorted, and coiled back upon him, lingering down into the treacherous yearnings, the ferocious tidings, the seditious mayhem snagging over the gallant edges still remaining in his figure. He thought of the femme he’d known, the gilded mare who’d helped their icy lands prosper, whom he’d battled when he was a mere fledgling soldier, who’d tied herself to the Elephant King and left their wintry home – only to return after his father had perished. The boy had been so angry at her, because she’d left, because she’d fled, because…now he understood – she earned her freedom in the only way she could, for history had told her to vanish, to take what she could and think nothing of the consequences (and there’d been none to speak of – the Reaper had been saddened and told no one; faded away on the embankments of the lake).
 
What about all the other palaces he’d destroyed? What about the people within – innocent, blameless? What had they done to deserve Calstron’s infamy and abhorrence? What about all the ruins left behind? What gave him the right to take and take and take, simply because he could?
 
Erebos could feel his heart quicken, vicious and mauling, his breath losing its distinct nonchalance; he swallowed down the virulent, hostile indulgence, the desperate need to release his primordial fury, and then the fool spoke again, and the boy was forever lost inside the torment of another day, another moment-
 
I even almost killed someone here, in these very caves.
 
Everything else was hollowed, carved out, nothing afterwards. He didn’t hear the bittersweet end to his tale, where he’d found love and devotion and all these other things he didn’t deserve (how many had he taken from that, how many had he destroyed who’d never even had a chance for happiness and contentment?). He didn’t hear anything about understanding, because the prince wouldn’t, couldn’t, had already been bottled up with enough predacious ferocity to make another break apart. The beast forced his eyes to look upon this monster, this foul, disgusting, vile piece of filth, and he hoped the other beast saw his finality, his demise, there, riddled in the bits of sea slate and machinations, the predacious, sinister slide of his wolfish movements, haunting, promising only wickedness and naught more. He was a blade, a rapier, a cutlass, ready to run him through. Orsino and Enyo only stood back, amidst the shadows, not necessary for the foretold retribution. He sank into oblivion and didn’t think twice about it, couldn’t hear Enna’s begging pleas for him to cease, couldn’t process anything else but the fervent, callous need to rip, rampage, and avenge (just her frame, bloodied, battered, too still, too silent, nearly encompassed by death).
 
“Your story hasn’t changed my mind.” His vocals were eerily tranquil, eldritch, otherworldly, a cloaked, choked infusion of fellow, heinous beings, ravenous and sinister, crossing over a line, a point of no return. The warrior pressed closer and closer still, until they seemed chest to chest, and he’d be able to watch everything unravel and fall apart, relish in the intoxicating, vicious end to a pathetic menace. “I’ve been hunting you for some time,” and here a smirk appeared at the implied layers of his persistence, right at the corner of his mouth, and he was neither his father nor his mother in that moment – a heathen all his own – content to witness the impending destruction. He breathed again, took in the toxins and smoldered, seethed, fumed, bristled, awakened and on fire; and the invocations, the enchantments, within his soul simmered to the forefront, beating a derisive, bloody crusade through his veins. They slid towards the foul beast, potent and infuriating, and while he spoke, they attempted to sketch themselves in lines and scars, in pain and torrent, in brutal, remorseless, fierce cycles; a mirror of Enna’s blemishes and lacerations, dark, malicious intentions cutting, sliding, gliding through flesh and bone. “I’m glad you remember my friend in the caves.” He relished in the crescendo, in the rapid twists and turns of his magic, lingered there, in the wild springs of carnage and contempt, feeding into the frenzy of hate, of malice, of vindictive, infernal creeds. At least this was one oath, one promise, one proclamation he could finally keep. The son of the Reaper’s voice lowered to a whisper, merciless and iniquitous, a step away from slaughter. “This is for her.”
 
I will not grant you peace. I will not grant you mercy.
 
The violent, seething ends of his fury pulsed and pervaded the makeshift tomb, his eyes were pictures of fervent derision, his body an audacious, emboldened declaration of retaliation, contentment, and brutal, sadistic satisfaction. The dark, loathing forces gathered in his soul, in his sorcery, blended together in a sickening, invoked calamity, intending to strike, to hit, to devastate, to destroy, aiming directly for the monster’s heart – intending to murder what little bit of its essence prevailed. The devil’s hand pointed him down the right path, and he swung his scythe.

Erebos

clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in