The prince basked in the glow of the Bloody Falls as if he belonged there, hastened by the desire to shed ichor, commanded and summoned into its wretched, stained halls to commit memories of battles and campaigns to vicious, vehement reverence. He and Orsino waltzed beneath the convictions of red and the creeds of crimson, unveiling nothing, scorching naught, smoldering and dreaming and aspiring the drums of revolution. However unwieldy the notion, however far away the ambition, he carved it over and over in his heart, in his mind, in his soul, sculpting the ferocious nuances, playing the stalwart, kindred spirit while his skull pulsed Mephistophelean delights and conjured the relish of an enemy’s demise – perhaps, one day, he’d be able to invoke it into tangibility, reality. When everything aligned, when justice could be served, when vengeance could be more than just a whim, a fantasy, a chimera haunting his endeavors, perhaps he could trace more than monstrosity, more than calamity, and touch the world, sculpt kingdoms, trace sovereigns, into his tenacious, intrepid grasp. He remembered golden frames and pale cheeks and bloody pools, he remembered ivory dragons, he remembered miniature beasts; and he remembered how it felt to help fell a god – and his enemy was no deity, no divine being. If a God could be destroyed, so could Goliath.
 
They paid homage to the clearings, to the glades, to the copses lined with images of persecution, of death and demise, of the sweet, nourishing blades of danger, of the flickering barbs of destruction curled at their feet. As Orsino rambled through moss and undergrowth, the boy narrowed his eyes and stared amongst the bracken, Stygian abyss. When only a strange spark of color, white, ivory, vivid and bright against the midnight plain, appeared beyond the damask leaves and the damning decadence, he first thought to ignore it. Perhaps it was one more being rustling about the everlasting night, dreaming and drinking and casting aside their wares of hallucinations of grandeur, for tales and rumors sparked about the treasures hidden below lakes and streams of gore. Perhaps it was some other creature beckoning for absolution and could only find it in the torment of veils and shrouds. Perhaps it was nothing at all – or a beast, a monster, flanked by its fallen comrade.
 
Orsino hissed, then chuckled across their connection, staring at the gliding filly, the only thing reverberating with light. Only child!. Thereafter he laughed again, quiet and mocking, derisive and bitter, as if intending to torment the lost babe. At this, Erebos arched a single brow, standing perfectly still in the midnight canvas, just another soul etched upon pathway after pathway, lingering in the breadth of silence and listlessness. While Orsino would have gladly tortured the youth with visions of madness and mania, Erebos merely stepped out from the threshold of a bloody tapestry, nodding his head in her direction, tilting his cranium in sheer, damning curiosity, in speculative wonder at how she could serve him. “You wander alone?” His voice curled over the twilight gloaming, tracing over the quiet, amiable and affable, cordial and inquisitive, no damning mentions – for he too had meandered across many a throne with little to no guards. Maybe the filly was much like himself, confident and assured, resting on laurels and not the art, the thrill, of dangerous foes and treacherous snakes, and his mouth coiled into a soft, impish smile. Orsino maintained his distance, staying amongst the brush, waiting, watching, listening, and stalking.