_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

The beauty of the vault is lost on the grey-eyed prince. He doesn’t see it—he doesn’t appreciate it—he doesn’t care. This place is a refuge for lovers, a hidden place where passions and intimacy may converge in secret, to baptize in the waters of mutual affection, of growing need and desire for the one who may have captured your heart. It’s a subtly that’s lost on Reginald, for he is young, and the true stirrings from within will not commence for some years yet.

He wanders regardless. He explores; he discovers. And in his discoveries he’s grown to recognize his body’s strength, for there is strength. Yes. His heart beats a trifle easier; his brain stays cool, the fever of anger rarely touching his thoughts anymore. Anger causes blindness, and now Reginald can see. He likes this; as he walks about, his eyes cast over the dewy trees and the shade of the lover’s cove, a small smile plays about his lips. He’s impressed with himself. For the first time in his rather short life, he likes himself. He is a creature to be adored, and he does adore himself, because look. Watch him walk; watch his powerful shoulders work. See how his mane grows, his tail trail behind him gracefully. Observe his gait; he is losing the gangly amble of a foal, his walk becoming sturdier, balanced. His horn is growing; it’s acquiring a sharper tip, a fiercer gleam in the light. Oh yes—he’s well pleased with himself.

As I should be, he thinks, contempt sweating from his sides as he approaches a mirror-like pool settled in the heart of the grove. As he watches the perfect surface, it breaks; his eyes travel to the source of the disturbance, and recognition follows. He has seen this filly before—this ugly filly that once intruded in his home before. Irritation flares in his breast—but it is tiny compared to the cooling waters of self-satisfaction he feels. His mood is good; he decides not to be angry with her. In fact he approaches, his steps slow and careful, his grey eyes steady and intent on their prey. He will speak with her; he will play with her some. A game of his own. “You,” is his greeting.

"talk talk talk"

_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

He rarely smiles, for he rarely has reason to. Yet the princeling has never before witnessed the tears of another. Has he cried before? Surely; Reginald was a child of frustration, and the hate for his body ran thick and full as it refused to obey his commands. The sight of another’s tears is a novel experience for him; he sees the fat tears slide from her eyes, falling into the tranquil waters of the lover’s grove. A new sense emerges in his breast, an alien feeling he cannot place that rises, bubbling, in his throat, threatening to suffocate him. Reginald comes to learn giddiness.

He doesn’t not know why the sight of her tears amuses him, excites him, entertains him in this deviant manner—but it does. And with this impulse comes the inclination to lift the corner of his lip, a small smile threatening to play on his lips. An instinct insists he shouldn’t smile. To cry is to express malignant emotion, and to smile is to express gaiety; they don’t mix. His game calls for sympathy. So he shifts his face, and as he approaches Reginald possesses look of concerned interest for the emerald eyes to scrutinize. The interest is genuine, for he wonders why she cries; the concern is a fabricated attempt, and he feels he succeeds in his endeavor.

She says she knows him. Reginald suppresses the impulse to snort, for that would ruin the game—but it’s a base thing that she’s said. She does not know Reginald. No one knows him, save for Abraham—and secrets have been beginning to emerge lately. “You explored my home, once,” Reginald says to the homely and senseless filly, correcting her misconception, his voice barely more than a whisper, yet now it is a warmer tone than what he is used to, “You saw me, I remember seeing you. You and another colt. “

He pauses as his eyes seemingly wander over to the surface of the pool, where tears had fallen only moments before. The question burns within him, yet he suppresses his savage curiosity for the curtain of subtlety; his eyes slowly shift from the pond to the verdant gaze of the filly, and he looks into them for a span of moments, of heartbeats. He furrows his brow; he pretends to notice the bloodshot pupils for the first time. “Why do you cry?” he asks in his breathy voice, taking a step toward her, his eyes squinted in apparent thought, “Is it because of your reflection? Why would it make you cry?”


"talk talk talk"

_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

An edge creeps into her voice—is the nameless filly angry with Reginald? Does she see his amusement? The dark prince decides not to hide it anymore; it’s a soft smirk that raises his lip, slight and cold in the twist of it, but he is well entertained by this foolish little girl and her presumptuous, confident scorn. Her words sought to chastise the grey-eyed colt, and it threatens laughter to escape from his maw—but not quite, for his laughter is reserved for other things. He lets her heated, misguided words slide, for he isn’t here to teach.

The interest remains in his iris, however, and his steely gaze continues to scrutinize her emerald eyes, the fall in the lines of her face. He hears her breaking voice—will she cry again? Eagerness lurches in his breast, and he’s suddenly excited to see her weep once more. Could he make her cry? The idea enthralls him, even as the filly calls herself ‘hideous’. “You don’t like the way you look?” he asks, and though he smiles that awful, taunting smirk of his, it’s a sincere question. He knows full well the flames of self-loathing, the crushing, bitter disappointment in possessing a body that refuses to bend to your spiritual will. In this, he understands her pain—her anger—her frustration. It is the fixation with appearance that baffles him, for it is alien to him; he has always looked amazing, even if he never felt as such. All of those in his life have been well pleased with their appearance—or rather their appearance never mattered much in the scope of utility.

“Would you be happy if you were beautiful?” Again, he takes a step toward her, unafraid in his proximity. It’s true he thinks her ugly, but he spares little towards the opinion; he sees truth, and that is all he wishes to see. What does she yearn to see? How can she see it with eyes flooded with salt and water? He wonders how strong her hope is, how brittle it might be; he wonders if it billows in her chest and lights her path with radiance that guides her steps. Would it devastate her for her hope to be crushed?


"talk talk talk"

_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

Her stammer finally coaxes the laughter from his breast, for he cannot hold it back any longer. What emerges is something soft, a tinkling, musical sort of chuckle that rocks his shoulders slightly. It is a laughter borne of the boyish charm he still possesses, the innocent wonder and gaiety he genuinely feels for the plight of the filly; his features are alight with his delight, the youthfully handsome edges softening agreeably in the dim lighting of the cove. In another context his laughter could’ve been endearing, infectious. His lewd rancor poisons the mood, for without it his countenance could be construed as a likeable companion.

The filly obviously does not find him agreeable, and it’s her disregard that amuses Reginald for whatever detestable reason that has clambered in his skull. He’s utterly fascinated by the young lady, though he does not fully understand his enchantment, for he finds her dull inside and out. “You…?” he prompts, attempting to coax her into speech once more—for he cannot destroy her if she closes herself to him. He’s not sure if he wants to see her break, if he actually wants her to crumble to dust—but watching her whimper at the fractures of her spirit are a fine spectacle for the darkling colt.

“You don’t like me,” he remarks; the prince starts to circle the filly, his steps slow and careful, his eyes boring into her, through her, examining every fault of her form, from her spindly legs, to her bushel of buckweed that passes for a mane. “You don’t even know my name and you already hate me.” His voice is a mocking admonishment, and the irony of his words cause more laughter to escape his lips. He is absolutely tickled with himself, with this little girl he torments. “How mean.”


"talk talk talk"

_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

[Sorry for the wait!]

Her futile sense of justice seems to persevere. Reginald can see the desperate pull in her face, though she does not cry. He wants her to so badly, but she doesn’t, and an inkling of anger threatens to break into his sick amusement. “There is no ‘between us’,” Reginald sneers, in response to her blubbering words, “We aren’t on the same level. I am separate from you, because I’m better.”

The anger rises; the fury sneaks closer to his brain, away from the hidden churning in his breast. His good mood has started to evaporate with her valiant efforts to deny him his wish—to see her break down in the despair of a petty disappointment. He could have understood her better. The dark prince could have related to this lost little lamb, this fallen angel; they were creatures of imperfection, innocents to a cruel world. They could have been each other; she could be gazing upon him with liquid eyes of silver, and he could be standing there, his eyes puffy and red, wondering why he wasn’t blessed with beauty from birth.

The wrath of the grey-eyed colt denies this understanding from its fruition. He hates—and so he hates her, and her unwillingness to bend to his will. How dare she deny him her tears! He demands them. He wants to see her fall.

“You’ve got some dirt in your mane,” he whispers on a mocking tongue, almost crooning, continuing his slow revolution of her body. He pauses, opposite from the shore of the lover’s lake; his chest clenches, his quarters furl; the tiny beast launches himself toward her, aiming to crash into her, to throw her into the mirror-smooth waters of innocent affection. He does not posses the endurance of his brother, of his father--though power does grow within him, even in the brief bursts such as this. She will fall to him; she will bend to him, in some way, in some form. The frenzy of his anger demands it; the fever of his childish amusement begs. Fall for me.


"talk talk talk"

_{Some say you're trouble, boy Just because you like to destroy All the things that bring the idiots joy} Well, what's wrong with a little destruction?

[WOW I'm sorry it took so long for this response! This will be my last post in this thread, at any rate.]

She squeals; he watches her stumble from his blow, watches the spindly legs wobble as they strive to bring balance to the fragile body. It is an ugly snarl that sits on his face. His eyes watch her greedily, careless and vulgar in their scrutiny of her struggle. They are blocks of flint striking against the timber; they spark; they spit their flame of hatred.

It rises within like bile, and it is unbearable. It’s a torrent of acidic flame, and he feels his pulse quicken, his lungs burst with the strain of his own desire to strike into her once more, to pound her into water and dust, to mold her into the mud that her pelt resembles so closely. He doesn’t quite understand this hatred—but then he realizes the folly in the idea of it being hate. The truth presents itself to him in a glorious stroke of inspiration: it is not hate with which he desires to destroy the filly. It is a burning desire for conquest. He aches to lord over this nameless mite of dust, and what an infuriatingly feeble charge she would make! The only other available action would be to kill her, and be rid of her useless bones.

His thoughts race passed him. His desires emerge in a body that can’t contain them; he feels a pant pull at the back of his throat. He feels a wobble in the pit of his knee. The lesson of his rage plummets into place in the midst of his rising passion: it does not do well to loose himself in anger. It makes him stupid—it makes him weak. The darkling colt decides it is time for him to quite this place of secluded passions and intimacy; he has become intimate indeed with a filly he does not even know, and he is done with her now.

He leaves her, turning his back on her quivering gaze, uncaring, snorting through his nose as he masks the racing beat of his heart, the tremble in his gait. He becomes angrier with every step, but he masters it; he leaves behind his passion in the mirror-like pool, where it belongs. He is stone.


"talk talk talk"