_{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 visions behind Reginald’s eyes are interrupted by the echo of hooves against the vaulted ceilings. His ears cock backward; he scowls easily, at once outraged by the desecration of his private state of peace. He knows it would happen—he expects other souls to wander here, captivated by it darkly glittering beauty. He knows it would happen, yet it still enrages him when his predictions come to fruition. He sighs softly; he sucks in his control through the gap of his teeth. His shoulders fall, and he is at reluctant peace again.

Initially the darkling colt refuses to look on this new comer, trying to keep aloof, disconnected. He fails in his endeavor, for the heart of a child is a curious one, and his inquiry is a voracious holocaust bursting forth from his chest; he cannot help his eyes. They wander toward the powerful body of chestnut gloss, the pillars of onyx feathers and the whip-like, frosted tail that brings up the rear of this ensemble. His gaze lingers on the dangerous sharpness of those horns three, the daggers and dragon’s teeth protruding from the stallion’s bone in a manner that Reginald has not seen before. On the pale face there he sees the tint of the brute’s eyes, his interest piqued sharply, for they resemble the eyes of his brother in their unevenness. However, instead of a shy, indecisive greenish hue, his other eye resembles Reginald’s own irises—save for a curious gleam to it, a gem-like brilliance that whispers silver in the mind instead of grey. It is too bright to be a perfect match for Reginald’s eyes—for his eyes are properly subdued, its harshness likened to atrocities instead of riches. He gazes on the world with proper wretchedness.

The monster speaks to Reginald. He thinks monster because that is how he appears to the child; large and thrumming with malignant energy, his voice ringing forth like the boom of a war-drum. Reginald knows he demands an answer to his inquiry; his ignorance of those terms fails to humble his tongue, and from his mouth bursts the desires that roil in his mind at that moment. “Fire,” he whispers, eyes falling back to the fountain and the strangely-marked walls before him. Fire, he says, because it excites him, soothes him, bellows forth on his command and captures the fancy of his destiny. It destroys; it starves for destruction. Fire is a good thing, indeed.

He looks up again suddenly into the monster’s face. He is a child; he cannot help his ignorance. He cannot stop his hunger. “I don’t know what those are,” he confesses quietly, and for a fleeting moment he is vulnerable before this stranger, bearing his childish obliviousness forward on a silver platter, begging it to be devastated. In his words the question lingers: What is an angel? What is a demon? What do they mean to him? What should they mean?

Something looms behind them; Reginald turns around, the snarl evident on his features, for he is tired of the interloper; he will bring an end to this. However, the scowl dies on his face as he looks into the gold of his father’s eyes, and he freezes. He does not know the significance of his father’s presence. Is he here to reprimand his son? Is he here to take him home, to safety, and bar him from this place of secret diamonds and fire-water? He keeps his gaze steady as he waits for his father’s tongue—it does not come. In the silence of the cavern, Reginald’s inquiry surges from his mouth, unable to keep his curiosity in check. “What are angels and demons?” he asks the room at large—careful to keep it a question and not a demand, as he is wont to do sometimes. He must not demand from these behemoths—this monster and his father. He must play the child. He must wait for the future, for haste will only tie the noose with faster fingers.

He does not care who teaches him; he only wishes to be taught.

@[Belial]
"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?

"Ignorance is weakness,"

A beast unfurls within the prince’s breast; it breaths smoke. “I—“ he mutters a broken phrase, severing it before it reached its impudent completion. I know. He knows to keep his impatience at bay when in the presence of those older, greater in age than he is now. It does not stop the rush of frustrated flame that sears within his gut—for he knows his own limitations. He is a child—and whoever told him tales of demons and angels, anyway? In his indignance he becomes unruly in his thoughts, a sour taste blanketing his tongue at the cold inattentiveness of the monster-stud.

Water rustles in the quite that follows; the only sound comes from the drip of stalagmites, the stud’s heavy breathing and the prince’s own pensive wheeze as he looks from the water, to the monster, and back to the shadowy obelisk of his father, waiting for their speech, wondering if he will ever be given an adequate answer. His temper flies; he catches the end of it, securing it back into his breast, keeping his grey eye cool with poise and curious as a child should be. He is starved, and the runes do nothing to help his hunger; it is only when the monster finally speaks, his voice rasping in the echo of the vaulted chamber, that light is shed in the darkness of the prince’s mind. Grey eyes snap to the beast; they drink in the words of archaic, evil wisdom.

Reginald frowns as he listens; he cannot help his mouth, for he ponders the monster’s words and his thoughts sail away from this realm, this time, this universe into something different entirely. The laws of a child are chaotic indeed—and here Reginald has written his decrees.

*"Angels are light, the forces of sky. They ride through the Heavens with swords of flame and righteousness…”*

*"Demons are darkness. They are the reason why fools skirt away from the dark, why fear clings so tight to the back of your heart…"*

Reginald has decided: this explanation of things is distasteful indeed. He listens, and listens well, yet his counsel is conflicted in the sureness of the monster’s tongue; Reginald does not know fire to be righteous and good. It is not. His mother taught him things that are good; a child alone and sobbing in a burning plain, their flesh being eaten by blazes while the sky looks onward, mocking in its obstinately dry darkness, is not good. Just the same, he cannot claim his demon-hood by these terms—for demons lie, and the darkling colt cannot ever remember a falsehood to ever escape his tongue. He discovers the reason for his disquiet: these are rules and guidelines, stipulations with which to live his life. A model, an apparatus, a mold within he must comport himself.
No, he decides. He does not care for good or evil—he only cares for his ever burning hunger. To complicate it with tags and titles is a waste of his precious energy, his valuable time. Fire he said, because it destroys as he does, starves as he starves, and rages in a fury that matches the fervor in his breast….

……however. The monster does not ask of that. Like a rusted automaton whose artificial skin gleams wickedly in the twilight of this hallowed ground, the monster asks angel or demon, and Reginald must give his answer, for he is a child, and the adult is not. “….Demon,” he says quietly, speaking into the waters before him, almost hissing his assertion as though his spittle would poison the immaculate pool.

He glances behind him, at his father, wondering what the obelisk would think of his choice.


@[Archibald]
@[Belial]
"talk talk talk"