He had to admit, the girl had pluck. He wasn't sure if he admired that though, if only because what he wanted was the inevitable bowing of her pretty little head as she shriveled back in terror. He wanted to feast on her fear, sew his discord in her flesh then harvest it bit by aching bit just like the Skullmaul, but she was ruining those endeavors with her confidence and her rationality.

Hmph Öde thought with an inner sneer. He couldn't break her physically, it'd ruin the game, even if it would be so easy to execute a well placed kick to her thin little knees. No, he needed Erebos' loyalty, to whatever extent he might offer it, and this girl was now an unavoidable key to that. He's have to break her in other ways, teach himself how to snap someone from the inside without so much as touching them - remove whatever support beams she had built herself up ona nd watch her tumbled down into herself, none the wiser.

So what's a boy to do?

He wondered this even as Belial gave more life to his tail, more attributes to his phantasmal monster decorated in fox fur. Then the idea came to Öde, who moved it up a step from Belial's in-place shivering.
"RUN!" Öde shouted suddenly, his voice leaping from his throat with such an urgency it scratched along the way as he went. His body leapt out with the sound, moving as if to block the space between her and where the Skullmaul seemed to be fast approaching. Words were one thing, but action was quite another. They could tell her stories and hope for fear, or they could enact it and create it, real or otherwise. This the young stud knew from his time on the battlefield, where the action and the fear were very real.
Of course if he'd had any sense of observation he would have seen she was on similar battlefields, facing monsters already - but that was with an army, this was with two young stallions.

"QUICKLY, BEFORE IT SEES YOU!" he panted in desperation, hopefully close enough to the dove now that she could feel the heat of his breath, see her own reflection in the white-rimmed pool of his gaze, if she hadn't already run. He hoped to convey in that one, aching stare, his need for her safety, his great wanton for her survival. Passion was something the boy did not run short on, and though it often bled out of him in ways he couldn't control, this notion of harnessing it and turning it into something useful, something deceitful, was an exciting prospect. Could he manage the ruse that he cared for her? Could he heighten it further and insinuate affection? He hadn't started off on the best foot, but she was young still, easily swept away by the present sensations, and he hoped for that.

False hope, that's how he would break her.


The moment was over nearly as fast as it had started, unwilling to let it linger and ruin it, he snapped his head back around. "BELIAL CAN WE HOLD IT OFF?" he bellowed to the back drop of the screaming kitsune. He turned, his horn lowered and ready, flanks heaving in preparation.
If she ran, just a few more moments, and then they could give chase.