The child is an impudent little wretch that manages to draw my eyes from the roan angel to her diminutive, ivory frame. I had sought to simply let her exist among those much older than herself with the ignorance that adults give the young (I was a foal not so long ago, standing in tall shadows as if the dust beneath their hooves, and I paid my dues, why can’t she?), but the fact that she calls her elder (and a princess, none the less) stupid makes my lion’s tail swish behind me in irritation.

With golden eyes narrowed, I physically lower my head to impress upon her that she is small, and should perhaps be more couth towards strangers who are more experienced in life than she is.

"She’s a Princess, you foul little pest," I warn her, my voice level, calm, a promise that there will be more than words the next time she dares violate the respect due to two of her superiors, superior in every single way a being could be, "I’d be more cautious who you flippantly insult."

Rising back to look upon the fair damsel with the milky crown, she inquires as to the battle that ensued in the background of where we now stand, my smile a dark one which tells of the screams and the blood, the magic crackling through the air, the dust of crystals pulverized by hoof, horn, body, all in the red, red water.

And yet again, the child interrupts, her shrill little voice interjecting from where she has wandered off to like a sulking child.

It earns her another scathing glance.

Surely, I remembered her presence in the field. It was hard to miss such flippantly awful parenting – even my mother had tried her best to shield me from violence and battle in ways that the mother of this wretched babe had not, and she was generally considered throughout the realm to be a queen of war and a murderess. And, while I could commend the child’s bravery, I also wondered how she dared call anyone else stupid, having charged into a fight meant for adults, when she was barely old enough to count to five.

I had no use for spawn of irresponsible whores, especially when the offending offspring wears wings and has a mouth larger than her stature.

"The Spark pulled this forest from a land elsewhere, called the Rift, a realm corrupted by magic in some fashion, as I understood the Storm Lord, and those I have met from the land of the Beast Gods," I explain with more grace than the filly, letting my eyes fluidly slip back to the queen of flowers to sip upon the ambrosia of her image, my features taking on the air of remembering great violence and power, almost giddy with delight and fringed in the heavy cloak of what it had cost (the child was partly blind now, after all, he had seen her milky eye, and there were others even less fortunate that he recalled laying in what could only be the bloody pools of their death), "the God the imbecile of a child speaks of was a great bear, wearing the same boils that she does, a vile beast who tormented his people in order to gain in his own strength. Most of those here fought for the Spark, though some turned upon him…"

I think of these fools with a smile, wondering what sort of torment would befall them at the God’s wrath.

"Eventually, the beast was worn down. Alongside me, Erebos struck with his blade, diving in unison with my own while Aithniel held the heavens above with her fire; a third colt pressed its final leg from beneath it as my rapier split its tendon. At the crown of the Divine Bear was a brutish woman, black, white, with an metal object which sliced the head of the monstrosity clean away from the rest," I remember the death of the God with a shudder, how the power of the thing had ushered through the air in crackling waves of magic and energy in its last moments, "and then, the most unbelievable of things happened. Princess…

"Gods can die."


[ WHY SO MEAN TO ERTHE *kicks him* ]

Whether my words are effective or the child has simply been stricken mute, I do not know; I don’t even offer her a passing glance as the silence extends from where her small and ignorant white frame had been chattering stupidly, allowing my attentions to focus fully on the damsel’s pretty amethyst eyes.

How? she asks the small whelp, and I gather enough in the single syllable to find my smirk revitalized. How indeed? She’d been underfoot gathering crystals, a task (I believe, anyway) was one the Spark had given her to keep the Bear from devouring her, or smashing her flat beneath one of his massive paws.

Yet, the conversation continues, and the Princess sips from my words like wine, the delicate scent of flowers kissing the wind which crosses the small clearing, blessedly carrying away the carrion stench of the Bear’s carcass. Devouring her attention as any arrogant boy would, I delight in each minute change of expression as the tale winds, that she does not seem to waver in her attentions for even a second as my story intertwines with the air.

And then she is stepping nearer to me, on those shapely legs and split hooves, a complement dripping from her lips that makes my heart skip and leap with erratic glee, though I try to keep my smiling face impassive, bold and knightly as she has intoned me to be; a smile still spreads broad across my features, my ego purring like a rather pleased cat.

The proximity of her dark muzzle makes my skin tingle, gilded eyes alive as they mesh with the path of her cool lavender gaze. I angle my own head low, ears lifting to catch the soft words she follows the niceties with.

Of course she would be worried for her baby brother, as I worried for Aithniel during each fight – and yet, her worries were unfounded. Erebos had been strong and bold, and while he had not been as useful in the final moments of the battle, a part of the battle he had been, and the Spark had even bequeathed him with a crystal as a gift.

I will not steal these stories from my battle brother, my snow and stone kin. Such a delightful tale is one that is his alone to share, and so I only answer what she must know to ease the fretful pacing of her woman’s heart.

"He took some minor wounds," I answer with the grin of proud memory, remembering how the blood of the Bear had marked his face, but recalling no other pains having befallen my friend – we had been a force to be reckoned with, the three of us, Aithniel, Erebos, and I, "but was otherwise fine, even earning a gift from the Spark for his efforts."

I had earned only words – but, as I had thought then, so do I now. The praise of a God is worth a thousand crystal trinkets.

Together we lift our heads up and look away to the bones of the beast, though I do not look to the little sky mongrel so much as I watch the lines of Lothiriel’s figure as she dances nearer the devastation, her voice cool and demanding.

"Was, yes," I explain, taking a few long steps closer to the carcass, my nostrils wrinkling in dislike of the smell now that we’ve come so close.


@Lothiriel