_{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?

It is only a moment he is forced to bear the affections of his father’s bitch, a moment that is blessedly short, interrupted by his movement. His ear flicks behind him, insolent and careless, listening to his father’s explanation, his answer to the ever burning question in the Prince’s brow. She will find me, says the behemoth, the landslide of a voice rumbling deep and sure through the ears of his Grey-Eyed son, rattling yearling bones that think themselves so awesome, so thick and powerful.

Reginald notices his father’s warning; he lashes his tail, his ears mirroring his father’s—a challenge of boyhood, a mark of his fallen, fully blossomed pride. He is displeased with his father’s answer; he does not care to wait for his mother to find anyone. He wants her now; he finds the panic in his breast becoming something intolerable and incessant. It inflames his bold irritation, initiating the challenge. He continues to stalk into the herdland with insolent steps, challenged but dismissive of the danger of his father’s wrath. What does he care for the stallion’s sense of duty to this place, this salt-laced waste of a kingdom, this poor replacement of a family, his brother and his mother, this place of foul-smelling imbeciles that, somehow, his father has decided to defend?

It is only when Archibald mentions his brother—his great, powerful, capable brother, his younger twin, the larger rib—that Reginald halts his provocative, rage-induced march toward the edge of the world. His breath holds for a span of moments; his limbs stiffen. Salt whistles in his ear. It is the first time he notices the sand that is mixed within the rich soil of this place. Slowly, he turns to face his father—away from insolence—grey eyes meeting the gold, curiously blank. “Have you seen his dragon?” he whispers, monotone and dead, dispassionate; he cannot remember her name. “When he needs me, I’ll be found.” Eye contact breaks, for he blinks suddenly. Does he forgive his father’s ignorance of his mother’s whereabouts? No—for she’s still lost to Reginald. Yet the Prince’s anger has diminished somewhat, and he can still taste the echo of his father’s words on his tongue. A beast he may be—but he is no hypocrite. Their parents have passed some wandering germ through blood and sperm and marrow; the mirror has been turned.

“Why are you here, father?” he suddenly asks, eyes snapping back up to his father’s face. The challenge has been brief; now, it is genuine curiosity that stirs him—a curiosity tainted with contempt, surely, though the idea remains foreign passed his scorn. “Why do you live in a herd?




"talk talk talk"