Kiuaji had changed, and then he hadn't at all. The aftermath and ruin of the Government as they knew it would have any snake shed it's skin in order to greet the dawn, Kiuaji had been no different. However, a snake could shed it's skin, but the colour and what laid beneath always stayed the same. Most of all, the venom it kept stored was most definitely still the same. "Ah, forgive me then, your grace." Bright eyes slide to side glance his oldest friend, as his marked lips pulled into a smirk. "I'll take care to not tread on your hooves, but I feel they're a rather large target to not miss."

One ear flicked forward to catch Rein's reply to his question. "Is that so..." The reply trailed and he gave it no conclusion, he let it fade out into nothingness in favor of his own thoughts. Rein seemed proud that he bore the union of his mothers and fathers names, whereas Kiuaji found it a rather extreme form of vanity on his parents behalf. The irony wasn't lost that he, a vain creature himself, was chiding his parents silently. They had created him, and no doubt he carried the coat of his parents neatly packaged and blended into one, and then went one step further to brand him with their own names. Did all Helovian's do this? He hoped not, it'd be a rather dull affair to learn everyone's names if they were all named in the image of their parents.

Rexanna received coldness from the poisoner, ringed ears swept backwards as he regarded her once more. He does not falter when he felt the iron hot daggers thrown his way by Tembovu, he'd been given more volcanic ones by Dorobian Politicians as they realized he'd danced circles around them without lifting a hoof. He'd also been given harsher ones when noble soldiers had realized they had sparred in the hopes of winning the heart of the lovely maiden that wasn't quite the maiden she appeared to be. He'd contend with Tembovu's choice words later when the gilded mistress and her foal were a long way from the pair, safe from whatever would be said between the venomous stallion and elephant king.

She gazed at him with a piercing look, as though she expected it to move him, what did she want? What did she expect? For him to flinch and retract his statement? To be rattled by those winter cold eyes?hardly. She had stepped into the spotlight with those eyes, and Kiuaji answered them with his own bite, unfolding the venomous and acidic gaze often reserved for those that he had marked for misery and misfortune.

"If everyone spent their days holding their tongue, nothing would ever get done, hm?" It was a curt response, not filled with warmth or jested undertones he often laced upon his words, and it was certainly unapologetic. Long gold and silver stranded tail caught in a delicate sweep to lash around his legs, splayed across the ground like liquid rivers of precious metal as he shifted his svelte frame into a more comfortable position. "Did you? What a remarkable hand fate played." Crowned head tilted to the side, catching the wondrous horns upon his brow in the shutters of sunlight that leaked through the canopy to illuminate them in a gentle halo of light. How interesting that fate had decided to throw a ghost come again to Tembovu after making such a long, tiring journey from a land filled with ghosts to a promised land filled with new beginnings. Amethyst danced between the two sets of blue and finally landed on the most innocent of blues nestled by their mothers breast when attention had been drawn back to him.

Would she be so soft, so encouraging of Rein to welcome him if she knew the plague they were welcoming to their land? Would she try to press on past the statement he had declared so nonchalantly if she was aware he had made widows out of mares like her, and orphans of foals as precious as her own flesh and blood? What would she do if she knew most intimately that his heart was a nest of serpents and his veins flowed with every ounce of venom they had to give?

He would remain unmoved from this slight, and neither would he forgive the image of Mara she wore.

"Your welcome is much appreciated, little one." His eyes fading from their malicious edge to one of warmth and mirth, beating Rein to the punch of delivering his own version of his mothers welcoming.




_______________________________________________________________________________

notes;;

talking