The colt hadn’t expected pleasantness – he reserved that for deeper acquaintances, kin, spirits united since birth or a shared calamity, a vivid distinction – but the mare spared no time in responding with helpful tones and reassuring interest. She was friendly, obliging, and courteous, so unlike the mare from the Caverns, so Erebos found himself comforted, listening to her insistence, to her scholarly traits, absorbing their whims and vigor like a sponge, like the child he’d once been, basking in the glow of knowledge and sagacity, listening to his mother’s tales or Zikar-Sin’s eerie diatribes. The mischief, the demonic traces, the notion of devilish scorn died on his lips, on his thoughts, and even though Orsino likely rolled his eyes at the demise of nefariousness, the boy paid him no heed. Instead, he twisted his harks and turned his ears and watched her in a steady, quiet rapture, churning over the words, the echoes, the throngs of her prudence. "Thank you for your guidance." He found himself whittling along the transcription, almost invoking the tale of all his transgressions, but ceased with blurting out the truth of his pursuits. She didn’t seem like a creature of revenge. She didn’t appear to harbor ill will. She didn’t seem drenched in enmity or rancor. She was innocent, and didn’t deserve to be dragged along contempt, loathing, and revulsion. He wouldn’t lead her down a bludgeoned, burdened road; he’d steer her away while he snagged at brambles and thorns and tore at his heartless ambitions. So the lad tread carefully, wove truth through hazy, vague, mysterious woes, anointing his mouth with more of an affable quality; as though he were one more foolish youth embarking into the strange, soulless factions of the world, and she was another elder showing him the way. “I don’t have enough power or achievements.” He paused, uncertain, glancing towards the boundaries, down the desolate chambers of ice and barren wastelands, imagining the spot where Arwen had fallen, where she’d been desecrated, then buried beneath the snow. “I need to be stronger to avenge a friend – but the foe is mighty and massive.” He thought of the Sun God and how he’d need more than just brawn, more than just durability, more than just fierce, brute strength and the desire to annihilate – but what more was there to gain? What else could he grasp to ensure his success? He knew of the girls who’d sought the same Colossus’ fall, but would anything become of them? What did they hope to achieve? What did they aspire to? He had too many questions and not enough answers, no awakening path guiding him, no sturdy trail granting absolutions. The beast was at a loss, torn between flickering hatred and irreverent enterprises, searching for a sign, a beam, a sword – anything to achieve his means. His eyes were riveted back to her, Calista of the World’s Edge, and any of the provisions she could bestow (and would she dare – he wondered, pondered – to light the way for a passage of vengeance?). I don’t know what to do, he puttered through his skull, ignoring Orsino’s obliging sibilance.