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Erebos had never gone out of his way to snag an opponent for himself – the opportunity had simply been garnished out of deceit, mayhem, and bloodshed. For all his intents and purposes, his world before Arwen’s death had been mischief, dreams, and wishes, days spent claiming wisdom from each and every source, seasons christened with aspirations and collisions, laughing at the way his friends joked and marveling over their adventures. He’d rarely worried, only wanted - a companion, friends, adventures across green grass and knotted roots. The world had only tilted when death sang a disturbing lilt in his ears, when violence meant something other than a scratch or loss of hair, when might and power crashed, gnarled, and distorted things he’d cherished, and he’d been too late to do anything about it. The world had spiraled further out of his control when he’d become naught more than one more being marching across the grounds, not a prince, not a scion, not a disciple of anything other than a pawn of someone else’s schemes; and he gnashed his teeth together, declared mutiny as a peon of fate, and laced determination in the art of vengeance. It’d been disturbingly easy to invoke and charm his intentions into something real, something meaningful, something that others wouldn’t be able to simply ignore. He found anger, he relished abhorrence, he savored wrath because it was a tangible piece of his schemes, of his notions, of his stratagems and snares. He could understand hate – how it spurned and led others to do great, horrible, terrible things, how it fueled and instigated and incensed, how it caused weakened creatures to fall apart and malicious cretins to rise. The beast didn’t know which he’d become, but he knew the road there was due to be littered with the ichor and wailing of his enemies. He just needed time. He just needed allies. He just needed everything to fall perfectly into place.
So he looked at Volterra, at his power and his brawn, heard the intrigue, the curiosity, funnel from his voice, and set the trap closer – at first, only his stare resonated across the ocean, glancing at the wide open palace, the searing lizard, the emblazoned future open to them, and parted his mouth to impart the short story. “A painted beast with two dragons murdered my friend. I was too late to stop him.” The slated gaze filtered back to Volterra, and perhaps the other stallion would be able to see the sparked of malice tucked in there, past the Cheshire grins and the layered, lacquered amiability, brooding and brewing in such a riotous din it was a wonder the boy had yet to explode from his loathing. “We were all children, and for the longest time, I couldn’t understand why that fiend would want to destroy someone innocent. She didn’t deserve it.” He swallowed the bitter nuances and looked away again, listening to the short hisses of Orsino and his promises of treachery, unfurling all the demonic sentiments stored in his tiny, kitsune body; the boy almost laughed.
Then the topic shifted, and he was allowed to have the earnest, smidgen of pride for a kingdom he’d always lived within, for a palace of ice and a sovereign of chilling, acerbic whims, where power was absolute and hate curled in the pits and pendulums. While the Heavenly Fields was probably a wondrous place to live, dream, and prosper, the boy couldn’t help feeling biased towards the beautiful land of glaciers and snow, of deep, resonating valleys; where he’d spent years cultivating strength and diligence, where he’d learned how to grow strong, how to harbor and harpoon resolution. The lad didn’t stop the regard in his voice, the delight in his vocals. “I was born in the Aurora Basin.”
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[P] Blaze rage red is the color of youth
