The two princes wouldn’t be the only creatures basking in the Haruspex’s fountain of knowledge, and Erebos watched, witnessed, and paid close attention to the followers of Zikar’s call, for most he didn’t know. The first trickling in after him was an older, golden filly, with interesting green eyes, lingering on the outskirts, and ever the intrigued, the little lad wished to know why. Undaunted and unafraid to take part in meeting others and making new acquaintances, he could only hazard guesses and surmise various points of her personality, but he frowned a bit at her apprehensiveness (surely they weren’t going to bite – they were brethren after all!). Maybe she was uncomfortable in a large group setting, as this lesson was likely to be, irritated, vexed, or anxious about teetering throngs and riotous dins. Perhaps she didn’t like them, though reaching for a reason beyond the notion befuddled the imp and he reflected no further. He regarded her with a bountiful, curious nature and his solid, corporeal form, a voice emblazoned from his riotous convictions. “Hello!” Another quickly flickered in thereafter, and his eyes adjusted to the differing color scheme on her pelt, a vibrant pink rolling and tumbling with sienna, and she even seemed to only extend her greetings to the master of stories. For a few snippets, the boy thought they smelled bad or produced some foul display; no one seemed inclined to gesture them with greetings or introductions, and he felt a bit foolish for being the only one inclined to do so. Regardless, he continued in his stalwart act, brushing his blue gaze over to the rose hued one. “Hi!” No sooner had he done so than more trickled in (cloaked in ivory, one a sister of the gilded) and he was silenced due to their arrivals. From there on he just became another observer, another body, in the blended foray of mixed colorations and heritage, all marked by the distinctive sword on their brows and the indomitable pride in their hearts. He even felt a bit sheepish at his lack of manners when first roaming in, because somewhere he knew Huyana would be sullen at his impudence (but he’d been so excited…), and so he cast his eyes elsewhere, listening to the Haruspex’s speech and answering his first query after igniting his boldness again, somewhere deep in the reaches of his essence. “I’m Erebos!”

The second question, however, would take more consideration than a simple calling. What did the flower and the skull have in common? He rather liked Rikyn’s response, as both were most certainly dead, laying amongst the earth with nowhere else to roam, nothing else to do but become part of time’s ancient role, eventually simmer deep into the soil and reemerge as something else. But he knew he should provide some other venue of thought, and so his stare roamed back upon the objects, concentrating immensely on their capabilities and faculties. His ears flicked back and forth at Aithniel’s arrival, the gruff rebuttal, nothing, but surely there must have been something calculating, swarming, brimming and brewing in the Haruspex’s mind, otherwise he wouldn’t have called them. The boy drew his lips into a thin line and narrowed his eyes, then reveled in the notion of power. Perhaps neither had had any; inept, frail, incapable of fighting off whatever had stolen their lives, absconded and collapsed from the brutality of others. The flower, though beautiful and well-kept in their sage mountains, hadn’t poised any defenses, carried no rapier, no poison, no cutlass to harpoon its enemies, and the previous owner of the bleached cranium could have been ignorant, oblivious, unwise about the follies of the world. Both had been laid to rest, suffering in quiet demise, because they couldn’t protect themselves. Satisfied with his solution, the scion emerged from his cocoon of thought and mustered the remedy towards the monocled stallion, hoping he’d constructed and composed something worthwhile. “They were weak?”