Tell me what is on your mind. Seven words that create a whole world of possibilities for the blackened leviathan, seven words that give him free reign to spill out his problems towards a man who possesses power Volterra can only dream of. Seven words that offer him the opportunity to unburden his troubled soul and share the deepest, darkest workings of his mind towards an all-knowing, benevolent deity who he is quite sure will keep his secrets safe.

They are also seven words that could ruin him unless he treads carefully. Speaking about Isopia to her father is like stepping towards a minefield - one wrong step, however unintended, and he will be naught but dust.

"I do not even know where to start," he says, with the smallest attempt at a lighthearted chuckle that sends crippling spasms through his side. But of course he knows where to start. There is only one place to start. Her.

"Your daughter, Father Earth, is a remarkable woman." Remarkable is quite the understatement. She is strong, intelligent, mysterious, dedicated. She fights like a woman possessed. She is...the childhood best friend that he'd felt himself blessed to have, and the adulthood more-than-friends that he'd dreamed of since the first time she led him towards her clearing. "We have been close ever since we met as children shortly after my dragon hatched." He thinks fondly of Vérzés; loyal, stoic Vérzés, physically inferior to his golden sister but possessing ten times more trust from Volterra. He, far more than Vadir, understands how much this conflict with Isopia will have hurt his bonded, because he's been there right from the beginning too.

"A few days ago, we stumbled across each other again, and she..." With his muzzle, he gestures vaguely to the broken ribs of his right side. "She revealed that she was pregnant with....with my child." He chances a glance upwards, half-expecting a mountain to be dropped upon his head for his revelation about his activities with the Earth God's daughter. There would be a certain poetry to that, given the damage that a Mountain has already caused him. "But something must have happened - she must have miscarried. And I....I don't know what to do, föld királya." The Hungarian slips easily from his tongue, as it often does in times of high emotion for him. This is one of those times. His chest aches with memories, his mind heavy with the grief that he finally allows to wash over him. It is an odd sensation, one that ripples through him and clings at his innards, pulls at his mind and makes him wonder if happiness is ever a thing that he will be able to feel again.

But then there's guilt, too. Not just guilt for the fact he could have done more to save their child, but guilt for the fact he's feeling grief in the first place. After all, the foal wasn't technically alive - it's not as though one of his living, named, breathing children has died. As a result, he almost feels like he's stealing when he is bombarded by such mourning for something he never met. Does he have any right to feel that way over his unborn son or daughter? Isopia, in contrast, carried the foal; perhaps she even felt it kicking inside her, moving against the walls of its warm, snug home. Volterra felt none of that, only the deep rackings of pleasure at the conception of said foal, a sensation that seems dirty now when he thinks of the beautiful thing it created. He didn't have the chance to develop a bond with the fetus, so what business does he have grieving for it?

He feels like a thief, like he's taking something away from Isopia's emotions by feeling them as well. It is a bizarre sensation, and not one that he can put into words, especially given his limited ability to articulate his emotions at the best of times.

It isn't helped by the fact that he's grieving for his relationship with Isopia, too. No matter what happens from now on, things will never be the same between them. That hurts almost as much as the knowledge of their dead foal, although for entirely different reasons. All of these things brewing around the mind of a man as simple as Volterra, for whom feeling more than one emotion in a day is quite the revelation let alone so many at a single time, combine to make him confused and frustrated.

"I don't know how I can make it better. I don't know if I can make it better. I know there must be more to it, more reasons for her attack than just grief, but I'm too fucking stupid to understand them." Another bubbling geyser of frustration explodes inside him. He has pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole; he knows Isopia discovered his other children, but has no idea what it was about those meetings that led her to turn against him so quickly. He assumes it was because his offspring probably mentioned him being a poor father to them, which in hindsight - given that she would have been pregnant at the time - would have given her reason to be pissed off at the man who seemed to treat responsibility like a hot iron to be dropped or passed around. If only she could see them now, though! He's worked so hard to change, to seize responsibility, to be the father he knows he can be...but it's too damn late, the damage is done. And he isn't sure whether the existence of his poorly-treated children would be enough to incite such rage in her, even when combined with mourning a dead foal.

That only adds to the heady concoction of confusion, and the stallion gives a small, sad snort.

"I'm sorry, föld királya. It is selfish of me to bring this to you, of all people, because you've lost a grandchild as much as I've lost a child." That realisation hits him swiftly and painfully; for some reason he hadn't made the connection, hadn't thought to consider the fact that the God could have had a grandchild had things not gone so horribly wrong. He sometimes thinks that Gods are too powerful to concern themselves with feeling mortal emotions like love and grief, but he knows that is quite the assumption to make. Who is to say that Gods don't grieve? Perhaps they do it more, because they are so much more than just regular creatures. "He or she would have been magnificent." And he allows his mighty head to hang, feeling a hot sting behind his eyes that he cannot place.