Spine cracks beneath the weight of his hooves, and it is a sick and disgusting thing to hear, but he feels triumphant nonetheless. At least, until he turns and sees Gaucho's furious face beside him. He dances away from the fallen body of the wolf, suddenly uncertain, surely wounded. Emeralds snap away from the sight, turning instead to the mangled corpse, the sickness below him. His hooves and ankles sting with acid that makes him wince, but nothing could hurt more than his Sultan's disapproval. Later, he promises hollowly to himself, and finds how badly he misses Ilaria's voice inside his head. Gaucho's vocals draw him back to reality, and he turns without really thinking about it, obedient as he runs forth with his Sultan into the fray. Forgetting the beast he'd just slain, yet another life he'd taken to be jotted down into his ledger. Red, red, red. Why had Midas ever considered him innocent?

The rest dissolves into bloodied madness, over in what seems to be a heartbeat but what feels like an eternity to him. The wolf, the main one at least, is struck down by the goddess in all her beautiful fury. His heart aches with confusion, with a need for answers. Instead, he turns and grab the vial in his teeth, tucking it into the soft down of his wings near the base and dropping his gaze when the Goddess turns to look upon him. He doesn't deserve her kindness, wherever it resides, but he wants it. He wants answers. He wants to know that he has not failed his Lord, by attacking one of His siblings. 

Eyes catch Maren's, as the Goddess finishes, and he wonders what he'd ever done to deserve the kindness that has been shown to him today. Ranjiri is gone, departed, by the time he looks around. With a soft sigh, he turns his eyes to Meg, bellowing out orders, a summons for the next eve over. And another, a stranger who stares at him as if sympathetic, as if aware of the turmoil in Cera's heart. Literal, though he does not know it. (Ashamin) He is left to watch the carnage, strangers swimming past him, the fallen form of a Basin youth...what would you think of me now, Hototo? For a moment he wishes he could speak to Gaucho, but the frustration on that familiar face wards him against it. You are not Ranjiri, he thinks sourly, jealousy and despair rearing their ugly heads. 

He should have known that solitude was only ever going to be his fate in the end.