There is always something that drives us to live, and ideally, to thrive. Each individual has a set goal, a passion, an endless need for something. It is the key of their soul, a seed planted within the very framework of their body since babehood and each unfurling leaf an emotion and an experience reaching out of it. For many, it can easily be chalked up to seeking immortality. Be it fame, or family, the short expanse of mortal existence leaves a craving for permanence that echoes beyond even the decaying of our bones.

Öde had an urge to spread himself into eternity, both as a foal, but especially as a wraith. It was a maddening sensation from which he could not run, could not hide, could not ignore. It stoked the fires that pumped his blood and pulled in his breath. He was a slave to the desire to repopulate, a need which bore itself like an insatiable gnawing in his gut.

He hungered.

It was this very drive that brought the wolf-horse to the treacherous path of the gods' mountain. He hesitated at its base, nose quivering in the passing squalls. There was plenty of game to be had in this realm, and surely riper places would bear more fruits than this desolate church. Yet, the wolf did not simply seek flesh and blood. He sought souls, and this was the best place of any to find them laid out bare.

He smiled, his tongue flicking between his teeth as he leapt forward, hooves easily scuttling up the cliffside. Up, up, and around, arriving just in time for the welcome party. Hello, my name is death.

He arrived in a splendor of black hair and red eyes. A monster and mayhem he stood before them, his horn pierced in a grotesque way between the fur of his wolf's crown. It was a crown that measured nearly the size of them, though it faded into the sickly, bony body of a small colt. By all argument, he should not have been able to support the headdress, yet he seemed not to struggle as he stood, doing little more than watching.

Then he grined.
The soft skin of his maw twitched over saliva-glistened fangs, quivering up to his muzzle's mid-section, to his eyes, his jawline... but then continuing to climb, higher, further, stopping only when his entire face split open like a crocodile.

"Hi" he greeted easily, his skull splitting with a yawn as he spoke. The weary movement passed down into a shake of his coat part way through, causing his head to spin sideways, where his gentle motion rapidly became a swift attempt to consume Amaris. Much like the infamous stretch becoming a hug tactic, so Öde's mouth gape, spurred into greater success by the sudden propulsion of his hind limbs.