Rikyn

Not that I hadn’t thought or found the time to think before, but being alone gave me lots of time to dwell, to realize. Sure, Erebos knew the world was pain. He knew that it ended in death, and that there were struggles leading up to that oblique end; he knew innocence could be lost to true wickedness, that mothers could walk away, to never return; he had learned, most importantly, that this life was filled with loss. What he didn’t know, and what I am so sure of as we lock eyes in disagreement (it doesn’t have to be, he insists, and I almost snort my derision), is how very much hurt is yet to come. Like etched ice, the images drift about in the black well, surfacing to drown another; I see them each when I call on them, when I ask to remember how pitiful the struggle of this life really is.

A slender filly half starved in the meadow, her Father God beating his light down on her body, relentless, cruel; the bodies of women, children, contorted and bloodied by the striving tangle of hoof and horn. A beautiful mare cleaving to my side for strength, her ribs and hips hard ridges against my skin, and the shuddering death of a being who thought itself immortal; father’s given magic flowing through cloth and metal, unused, unwanted, wasted. My mother’s laughter, thin, like the false warmth she’d draped the ice of her soul in.

It wasn’t all glory, ambition, and knight’s vows; even if there was an empire at the other end of this struggle for us, as we’d always wanted, there would be a cost. I wonder now, as he makes promises with his mouth that the world won’t let him keep, if more space has grown between us than I’d thought.

Perhaps I had lost my half of the ever grinning coin when I’d, at long last, seen the sorrow of the other side; perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh to him for being happy still. He hadn’t done anything but be my friend, after all… well, and give me a half assed fight in the best place for an epic one I could ever think of.

I let his belief that life can be more than an endless pit of woes trail into nothingness, not knowing what to say that doesn’t make me sound bitter, simply staring back at him with my tail sway, swishing behind me still in arcs that read more of the emotional turmoil within than my face does, for once.

His anger is fascinating as it blooms to life behind his dark eyes, the deep sapphire of his gaze hardening under the flame; it leaves me frowning and staring even after his question is left ringing in the cavern. I can’t think of a time when I’ve roused it, this dark dominion that suddenly rises up over the chivalrous friend that had stood there moments before. Of course I’ve made enemies, I want to say, everyone does. They aren’t all that important, though. The domination over or taking of their life is not a noble cause, like the salvation of our race from the cesspit of this world. Did you not hear me?

The small flicker of anger with him roars to a real flame as we continue, my thoughts stalled to watch the toppling of his carefully constructed, shining armor to the cavern floor. Hah! mocks the child within me, now we are on even ground!; I simply listen, drinking in Erebos, the no holds barred version. I hear him, as he is, without his princely training, his concern for feelings, for politics, cast to the depths; he calls me a coward, a stone, a creature.

I forgive him, almost immediately. I’ve thought worse of myself on better days than this, and he has a point; the boy who grew a Prince of the auroras and Time’s Weaving certainly doesn’t give up.

"It would crumble around me, in about a year or two, if history serves as a guide to the future," a cold smile covers the hostility that still holds taut each muscle along my body. I remark with my commonplace arrogance, cold calculation flavoring my words now, "I want real enemies, Erebos, not dominion over idiots I already know we’re both superior to." I find I don’t know how to verbalize what’s next. I frown, looking down at my hooves for a brief second, hoping he’ll give me time to get it together before I look back up at him. "I haven’t gave up anything. I just… I don’t want to fail, either. It costs too much."

It could cost me you, I want to say, but don’t; it could steal away the dream that keeps me going each day, despite the ache that only seems to build in my heart: to be Kings, together.

And I wouldn’t ever forgive myself.

"We need a better plan, is all," I grumpily snort, stamping one hoof down onto the stone, "one where the winners keep winning, and I can’t think of one."