The game was up before it even truly began: in a muddling, confusing turn of events, she hastened to leave, fizzling into the evening hours, turning tail at the slightest hint of entertainment and diversion. The colt stood stock still in the fading glimmers of light, brow quirked, fastened into a shade of bewilderment, incapable of discerning her mercurial efforts, sliding backwards and forwards at any given moment. He knew not all elders were like that, his sire was potent and steely in formulated responses and resolutions – but her final words left his blood running cold. She knew he’d lied, had fabricated and deceived, perhaps not something noteworthy or unforgiving, but had invented and falsified information all the same. How? The tiny heathen’s skull attempted to sort out the mess, pondering and wondering where he’d gone wrong in the bewitching, beguiling tale (had he given something away, the bare traces of a hint, unpracticed in his subterfuge and tactics? Had she been suspicious from the start, and would only truly know if he reacted?). He shivered in the barest chill, in the kindling, in the instigation, of vexation all over again, frustration boiling and unwinding from his columns all the way through his barrel and bursting in his chest, grinding amidst his teeth in a tight clenching of his jaw. There’d been no success here either, no strategic ploys, no gallivanting, no juvenile antics to be laced and lanced; Essetia had only given him the smallest morsel, then punctured a deeper wound. He waited for her to pass, saying nothing, exuding naught, just a miniature infidel lost and anointed in the crisp, twinkling dusk of beckoning twilight, presenting a mask, a rune, an enigma as she wandered back in the direction of her realm. When she began to disappear into the midst and mist, he tilted his head, angling and inclining his gaze towards her retreating back, and raised his hackles in a vicious, furious sneer. It mislaid all pretenses, it forgot all furtive notions, collecting and colliding in some ferocious promise, in a vehement haze, in a reverential credence and decree; like vengeance building blocks. Little Erebos waited a few more moments, for her to no longer linger, for a wolf to no longer waver, and polished the tides of his regal features, then marched back from whence he’d came, swinging into frozen arches and perfected summits, remembering secrets, names, and opportunities. They’d meet again, and there’d be no more capricious assaults and scolding.