It was agonizing to watch the myriad display of emotions that ran rampant across Deimos' features. Ones that began with hope and childish joy swiftly crumbled into stony dismay and embittered doubt. The urge to lean forward and tuck the boy into the nook of his chest flared briefly in the Fire Sword's consciousness, but he dismissed it with a casual flick of his tail - hugs would not solve the world's problems for this stallion who was no longer a boy. In the years that Deimos had aged, however slowly his youth paled, Ignatius had remained as he was that eve he fell, sobered only with snippets of knowledge he gleaned from the mortal world that spun on. It was difficult to remind himself that this was not the Tides, that this was not his boy.

That his crown had fallen, and been taken.

That Deimos would ask him about the makings of greatness was nearly laughable given the prideful decay that the Fire Sword had permitted himself to succumb to. The blind faith in blood was as strong as ever, and just as damning. "That you question your finery is a start," he breathed in response, soot tumbling from the red glow that parted his dark muzzle. Given the composition of his form his emotions were difficult to read, not unlike he was when he'd been of flesh and bone, but the old king smiled now, and meant it.
"When you think yourself great, is when you are not. When you think yourself safe, is when you will fall. When you think yourself needed, is when you will be overthrown." Fire filled the silence, speaking in crackles and flares that spooked away the shadows creeping in. "It is only when we search for improvement that we might find it."

Action over inaction, isn't that how Ignatius so often thought? Why he led so many marches beyond his borders, so that he might show his strength to those that wondered at his weaknesses. Yet action is not to be confused with greed nor haste, both of which ultimately drowned the Fire Sword in rubble and ruin. "Know your people, love them, and in doing so you will never rule them, but you will lead them. If they follow when you lead, then you will know you have done something, magnificent." He exhaled slowly, the sound like a dying furnace. He blinked, dimming subtly.

"We may mimic stone, but we are made of sea. Her waves are both strong and gentle, smooth and rugged, beautiful and dangerous. Do you remember the sea, your home?"