DEAD I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY
DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE

Exhaustion, agony, misery. These are his three friends. There are the three things that define him, that embody him, that weaken him. He has never felt so powerless, nor so confused and - as much as he tries to hide it behind gritted-teeth bravado - so hurt. There's a whole new part of him now that feels exposed, raw and gaping against the cool autumn air; he laments his own lax tongue, his stupid, stupid words. You....know? Of course she knew. He's never said it and now he probably never will but it's obvious, it's implicit, it's tacit.

And yet....it meant nothing to her. He means nothing to her. If he had, then she wouldn't have needed that other mare there to hold her back and stop her attacking him again.

He has put her actions down to grief, has assumed that she functions like he does - channeling less-desired emotions into ones that can be controlled and wielded like a sword, such as anger. She lost her - their - child, so it is little wonder that she was destroyed by sorrow. He thinks he understands why she chose him to take her feelings out on, because he put the child into her womb and he, from what he can glean from the fragmented pieces of information he's put together, offended her by creating other children too. Therefore, he thinks he knows why she attacked him, but it is beyond him why she didn't stop. Even Volterra, with his rage and his unbridled wrath, thinks that he wouldn't have taken it so far had roles been reversed. Once the initial burst of temper fled him and he realised who it was he was attacking, he would have stayed his blade.

Isopia hadn't. She'd shown no sign of stopping, even as he stood naked in front of her - his ribs shattered, his dragons broken, his mind empty. She would have carried on. And that is a betrayal that even the leviathan's twisted logic cannot rationalise.

But Volterra does not comprehend quite how deeply Isopia's hatred towards him runs - he does not understand how much meeting his other offspring has affected her. He does not understand how finding out about Aithniel is the straw that broke the camel's back, because he'd been in too much pain to make sense of her final words during her attack. He only understands that her fury had been relentless, and that if it hadn't been for Vadir stealing the show with her fiery vengeance, and the calm benevolence of the mystery mare who had dissuaded the Mountain from attacking again, Volterra's wounds could have been far worse.

He hasn't been able to leave the Fields since the fight. His ribs don't allow him to move far without exploding into ravishing blades of agony, so he's forced to stay here until they get a little less painful. The beast lives off the plentiful grasses and water here, but he cannot enjoy them; this place is forever tainted. Here he was born, and here he bedded Isopia, but those two pleasant memories have been twisted and burnt by this most recent event. The Heavenly Fields are cursed to him now, its beauty burnt to embers. He roams as far as he can each day, trying to fight against the pain in his ribs, refusing to succumb to the excruciating torture that the Mountain's earth has subjected him to. He has defeated each and every other injury he's ever received, moving even when his bruised muscles and torn flesh tell him not to, but this is different. He cannot outrun broken bones, so is instead stuck in a haze of frustration at his own weakness.

Vadir is confined to his back, as her own shattered ribs prevent her moving at all. She relies on Vérzés to hunt for her, which the red does with admirable gusto. But in the wake of their argument, she refuses to speak to Volterra at all. She has narrowed their bond down to the tiniest of threads, and does not allow him any access to her mind - she is furious at him, and sits in stony silence on his back without so much as acknowledging his existence. The stallion does not need his mind-partner to be so damn stubborn now of all times, but he refuses to apologise when he thinks he's in the right. They are at an impasse, neither willing to make the first move to fix their torn bond.

The sun collapses on the distant horizon, bathing the Fields in a resplendent red glow. Each line on Volterra's powerful body is illuminated in crimson, and Vadir's scales glow like gemstones in the dying light. Then it is gone; darkness engulfs the world as clouds cover the moon, and the behemoth is left to muse on his suffering with his face tilted sadly towards the heavens.

DEAD I AM THE ONE, EXTERMINATING SON
SLIPPING THROUGH THE TREES, STRANGLING THE BREEZE

DEAD I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY
DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE

He is used to getting advanced warning of any approaching strangers from his dragons, but his red is hunting and his gold is sulking, so he is only made aware of Roskuld's presence when her voice bids his muscles to jolt as though pierced with electricity. In one fluid movement he's hobbling around to face her, as though simply looking fearsome will undo how badly damaged he is, how damn near helpless he has been rendered by the hellish blows to his ribs. He silently berates himself for letting his guard down; he has become far too reliant on his dragons to keep him informed. Then his eyes fall upon her, and he sees her.

A whole bevy of emotions crash against him as he realises that the stranger is not an erstwhile attacker but the small mare who witnessed the fight. Confusion, concern, humiliation (she likely doesn't think him much of a warlord after seeing the beating he soundly took), and that horrible, sickly sweet blossom of hope. He is assaulted by the overwhelming knowledge that, save for himself, Isopia and their companions, this is the only other living creature who saw what transpired.

And he doesn't know who the hell she is.

From the small snippet of interaction he'd managed to glean between the two mares, though, they seemed to be....friends. And if they are friends - friends enough that this woman's words were enough to dissuade Isopia from attacking him further - then it stands to reason that they may have met up since the challenge, as the last thing the mammoth saw before passing out from pain was the two women leaving together. If that's the case, then this could be Volterra's one chance to gather as much information as possible about the Mountain's motives, her feelings, and - the hope flares again for a blessed moment - whether she has expressed any signs of guilt or regret in the days since.

"You," he manages to grunt. Given the persistent pain in his side, his voice somewhat lacks its usual commanding air, nor is it punctuated like it usually is by the growls and hisses from his dragons. Vadir lays flaccid and silent upon his back, not even raising her head to acknowledge the mare's presence. The stallion's ears launch forwards and he's hardpressed to mask his surprise as she asks if he's alright, his pain-addled mind unable to comprehend the concern of a stranger who he is quite sure will be firmly on Isopia's side. But his own welfare isn't his concern. "I am fine," he responds, his words spilling out with the impatient air of a man keen to move the conversation on; it is as close to a lie as the brutally honest behemoth will ever get, because he is anything but fine. "But how is she? How is -"

He's about to say it until alarm bells begin to thunder inside his mind. He knows her name now; it's easy to forget that she never told him herself, that it was the simple slip of the tongue from her father that finally imparted the stolen information onto him. The leviathan's deep-rooted arrogance, shaken as it is by Isopia's actions, likes to think that he has always been her closest friend and that if she didn't tell him her name, then she certainly wouldn't tell this mare. He does not want to risk alienating the Mountain further by giving out the name that she protects so highly, for reasons unfathomable to a creature like Volterra who hides very few aspects of himself from others.

"- kis hollo?" He limps a step forwards, a living embodiment of agony; each muscle is tight with the shuddering emotions that he suppresses, each sinew thrumming with the effort it takes to not bombard the mare with every question that enters his head. Some slip free, his vice grip unable to hold them as his frantic thirst for knowledge overwhelms him. "Have you seen her since? Is she...hurt?" He is like a starving man begging at the stranger's feet for any scraps she can throw him; he needs to know how Isopia is more than he needs air. He needs to absorb every single aspect of her behaviour since the fight, to see whether their impromptu grief counselling has helped any or whether she is still as shattered as him. He mourns a child he didn't know existed; she mourns a child she held inside her, so he cannot even begin to contemplate how she must be feeling.

And if she feels better by a single iota, if her grief is lessened one notch by the punishing blows she inflicted upon him, if their relationship can begin to repair itself from the crushed embers that it currently lies in, then every broken rib will be worth it.

DEAD I AM THE ONE, EXTERMINATING SON
SLIPPING THROUGH THE TREES, STRANGLING THE BREEZE

DEAD I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY
DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE

He embodies false bravado, trying to insert carelessness into his voice in an attempt to hide the true depth of his hunger for the information he can provide. He tries to sound casual, but Volterra is not an actor. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions in each thunderous word that slips from his pain-clenched teeth. There is no hiding the way he feels, his frantic need for what this little woman can provide. The primitive, masculine I-Volterra-you-mare part of him shudders and quells at the notion of baring his feelings so openly, to display anything other than rage, lust, wrath and avarice towards anybody but his dragons. He doesn't even know this mare, but she has found him more physically and emotionally vulnerable than at any prior point in his life.

And it aches, but nowhere near as much as his pulsing craving for news about Isopia.

She's the one who walked away from this mess. You ain’t so lucky. A strangled laugh forces itself free, but the crippling agony of the movement makes him see stars. His stout legs wobble with the effort of keeping himself from crashing to the ground, and the pulsing of his muscles to steady himself causes Vadir to hiss her irritation upon his back. There is no sympathy for his plight from her, simply a selfish blast of disgust at his disturbing of her that stabs like a javelin through the wall she has erected between them. It is momentary, but serves as yet another reminder that Isopia is not the only woman in his life that he will need a miracle to repair things with.

As the mare begins to speak again, Volterra's frantic gaze delves into hers. His expression is the half-maddened craving of an addict around his favourite buzz; his eyes wide, his jaws slightly open, his nostrils wide and his ears launched forwards as though opening every single sense to its full capacity will allow him to absorb more information from her.

But the answer is not what he'd hoped for. It is a half-answer - she'll be... Messed up, is the eventual term that the blue-spark uses, and Volterra's quivering muscles deflate a fraction. He isn't surprised - in her position, he would be fifty shades of fucked up - but he'd hoped for...more. "I'd hoped it would help," he manages to force out, his words aching with bitterness. "Her attacking me. I know it won't remove the grief, nothing will, but I thought it might...disguise it. For a while, at least." Anger is the best cloak for grief, Volterra knows. It shrouds it like armour, hides it from the world, protects it from the poor bastard that it has chosen to inflict itself upon. But it is only a temporary measure; sooner or later the armour rusts, and the grief is free to wreak havoc again.

Still, he'd hoped...

She says his name, and his head gives a startled jerk. He is about to question her on how she knows it, before realising the answer is obvious - Isopia. And his attention is swiftly devoured by her question, her question about their baby. His heart constricts, his chest tightened as though caught in a vice; when he unleases the breath he's been holding, it comes out as a decidedly un-manly gargle of sorrow. "I didn't even know there was a baby," he says, and his voice is the embodiment of abject misery - he's usually so authoritative, so powerful in the way he speaks, but now he's just....broken. "If I'd have sought her out again sooner...perhaps I could have done something to save the child. Save her." Save us. It is a stupid, futile thought; if Nature intends for a child to be miscarried, then it shall be miscarried, and the anguished ragings of the blackened monolith would have been useless against it.

At least he'd know that he'd tried, though. Instead, he is left drowning in a pool of what-ifs, smothered by a sense of his own failure.

"We met up once, after we....you know." It is tremendously awkward talking about something so private, so personal, but Volterra has never been the sort to shy away from such matters. It is important that this woman know what happened, even if he doesn't know why it is important. If she understands...perhaps she will be able to help Isopia out more, be a better friend to her in her time of need. "But she was...different. Cold. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong, and she just...left. From what I've pieced together since then, I think she discovered that I already had children, but that I'd proven myself a useless father to them." He does not mention the gift he made for her, for them. That, moreso than discussing the sex side of things, is far too personal for Volterra to go into. That gift, more than anything, risks displaying the warm beat beneath his blackened husk of a heart.

"I should have tried to mend things, instead of leaving them and hoping they would repair themselves. What if her anger at me made her miscarry? What if the child could have been saved if I'd only tried to clear the air between us?" He stamps an anguished hoof, and revels in the ripple of pain that cascades across his side. "Do you...know how it happened?" Knowing the truth won't help him, but he has to know. How far along was she, he wonders? Did she simply bleed out the evidence of their failure, or did a full-fledged foal slip from her thighs, perfect bar its absent breath? All these things he needs, so he can begin to process the magnitude of their existence.

DEAD I AM THE ONE, EXTERMINATING SON
SLIPPING THROUGH THE TREES, STRANGLING THE BREEZE

DEAD I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY
DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE

Self-pity does not look good on a man normally as stoic as Volterra, and the moment his words have left his mouth, he begins to feel disgusted in himself. He's making it about him, trying to martyr himself by pondering over what he could have done better - but when has dwelling on the past ever helped him? He should be dwelling on the future, and how he's going to repair the shit-storm he's caused.

All the same, however, he can't help but defend himself when Roskuld talks. Dude, it’s a little too late be worrying about that now, you dun’ already knocked her up and left the bitch. "I didn't leave her," he says hotly. He is content to take some of the blame, but not all of it. Saying he knocked her up then left her...it makes it sound like he did it on purpose. Like he got what he want and left, abandoning a pregnant woman to her fate. That's not what happened. That's never what happened.

That's the thing about Volterra, though. He's got all the good intentions in the world - he will be a fantastic father to each child, he'll be present at every birth, he'll look after the mothers and nurture them as though they are family - but sometimes fortune and nature have other ideas. It is fast becoming apparent that he cannot micro-manage every infinitessimal segment of his life, that he just has to do his best.

But when happens when his best isn't good enough?

Despite his annoyance at the little mare's assumption, he listens intently when she begins to speak again. At the mention of her name, Volterra frowns - had he said Isopia at all during their conversation? - before he realises that she must mean kis hollo. "Kis hollo? That's not her actual name. It's just what I call her, and always have since we first met as children." He doesn't elaborate further. What it means in Hungarian, and what it means to him, are, again, far more personal than he could possibly say. The name is theirs, and theirs alone. He meets her eye and holds it, even as shame and guilt glimmer in the crimson depths. Despite her mistake about Isopia's name, the Sparklight's point stands, however, Isopia has given him more than he could ever have expected - they are more than he could ever have expected.

Roskuld continues. Volterra's heart has sped up, despite itself - finally, after all the guessing and half-truths, he might be about to get it explained to him in layman's terms. Intellectually, the leviathan will never be able to match Isopia's sheer wit and mental ability. Nor, it seems, can he pick up on the nuances that she's been showing him since they met, the little clues and pieces of the puzzle that he should have put together to make the whole. Instead, it's taken this - hearing it from somebody he doesn't even know, yet somebody who can read the Mountain so much better than he can.

Despite the relief at finally knowing, it makes him sick that he needs it explaining so bluntly. He should already know, if he is as good a friend to Isopia as he likes to think he is.

Didn't even know she had a baby. You've been with the Sun bitch. When you give something up and see it's not special.

See it's not special.

The first hint of a lightbulb begins to simmer in the beast's brain. She thinks she isn't special? How could she think that? "Shit," is all he can muster. It's so...obvious now. How can he not have realised sooner?

Suddenly, he feels sick. A deep nausea that has nothing to do with his ribs has settled into the depths of his gut, and if his bile could rise, it certainly would.

It makes you feel cheap. Had Isopia truly thought she was cheap? Just another number, just another name? "Shit," he repeats. Profanities are the only way for him to rationalise what he's feeling, for him to smother the overwhelming tidal wave of everything that's spreading across his body. "That's what this is about? The others? Shit, shit, shit." He stomps a ferocious hoof against the ground, and embraces the agony in his ribs as sweet, bitter punishment. "There was never the right time for me to tell her...I didn't understand that she'd think that. How could she think that? She's more special than she realises, she's....she's always been....I...." He drifts off, the words trapped behind clenched teeth and years of pent-up emotion. The lightbulb in his mind is fully aflame now, but the darkness in his heart is absolute.

Circumstance. Circumstance and misunderstanding. They've robbed him of her, of them. If only he'd told her sooner! She should have known, though, known that she meant everything to him. That he could never be monogamous, but he could be polygamous with favourites, so he'd thought.

He hadn't realised that second best is not where Isopia belongs. She deserves to be someone's one and only. She is the light in Volterra's heart, but nature commands that his loins, at least, do not remain tied to just her. "I'm a fucking idiot," he growls, as the true realisation hits him like a wrecking ball.

You love her? The question snaps him back to the present, the here and now. He doesn't want to admit it, as it's something for Isopia and Isopia alone to hear, but Volterra cannot lie and he cannot hide his emotions. The mare's answer is broadcast across every line of his face, every haunted shift of agony in the depth of his ruby eyes. "Always," he says, and he meets her gaze full-on as he says it.

DEAD I AM THE ONE, EXTERMINATING SON
SLIPPING THROUGH THE TREES, STRANGLING THE BREEZE

DEAD I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY
DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE

Volterra has never been a scholar. The subtleties of life are lost on him; he cannot interpret how the tiniest twitch of an ear or the gentlest altering of a voice can possibly hold layers of hidden meaning, a thousand unsaid things. He doesn't work like that. He is a man, and as a general rule men are rather simple creatures - or, at least, Volterra likes to think so. He doesn't like to believe that he's the only idiot male in the world, because that cannot possibly be true. There can't just be him who is dumb enough to make such a colossal mistake with Isopia.

"There's me," comes Vérzés' distant voice. Volterra has rarely been so happy to hear it. His loyal red dragon is like him; he acts off his emotions rather than his mind too, he is reckless and impulsive and sometimes oblivious to the subtler, finer things. He is a man in every sense of the world, a stark contrast to Vadir's sly intelligence, her cold ferocity, her twisting, plotting brain and wicked machinations. Vérzés is a stereotypical idiot male, too - Volterra's not alone, it isn't just him....

But the crimson dragon shares his mind. Of course he's going to share some of his personality traits too. Perhaps if Vérzés had bonded to somebody else, he would be crafty, clever and witty, instead of brutish, ill-tempered and vicious. Perhaps it's Volterra's innate man-ness that has rubbed off on the dragon that he's had since his childhood, turning him into a clawed, toothed and scaled version of himself.

His is the opposite of the Midas touch; he taints everything he comes into contact with. Vérzés' poor mind, Isopia's poor womb, her poor emotions, her poor life. He's a black smear on the heart of society, a tumour on the lungs of those who are good and clever and not selfish.

These dark, wicked thoughts seem like they linger for hours, but in reality it's only a few seconds. It's enough time for the stallion's head to slowly dip in misery, for his heartbeat to slow with the force of his sorrow and for his eyes to glaze over as if in death. How could he have been so stupid? And he's laid his emotions to bare, too; he'd admitted his greatest secret in front of a mare he hardly knows, declared the depth of his feelings and now he stands naked before her eyes. She's stripped him down; maybe she can see all his other thoughts, too, his dark, dark thoughts brought on by a heady mixture of pain and misery...

He's hardly listening to her, even though he knows she's right. She is a woman - they speak a different language. She knows how Isopia's head works. Volterra has had her body, has even planted his seed in her womb, but he's never had her mind. He's never been her equal, and he never will be.

Then she asks a question, the question he's pondered himself a hundred times. He knows the answer the second the words leave her lips. There's only one answer - there's only ever been one answer. But it isn't the right answer. "I can't," he says, his voice dull and deflated. It's a simple acknowledgement of yet another one of his many flaws and limitations - he's wired to be a stallion. That's the one thing he can never change. "That's not how I work. I'm not a swan - our species isn't built to be monogamous, kék-szikra." Blue-spark. He doesn't know her real name, so he automatically comes up with one for her, a nickname in his alternative tongue. It's a pity he can't say everything else in Hungarian too, because then he wouldn't have to suffer the disappointment that he's sure she's going to respond with.

"A stallion's drive is to nurture a harem and ensure he leaves his mark by siring as many children as he can. He will protect his women and offspring with his life, because they're the most important thing in the world to him. It goes against nature for a stallion to be monogamous. I can't put into words what I feel for her, kék-szikra, except that it's the strongest thing I've ever felt....but I cannot go against nature. I cannot be what I'm not." Would she want him to be? Monogamous Volterra would not be Volterra, it would be some faux plastic imitation of him. Lesser.

The realisation hits him between the eyes, and a cold chill settles across his body. "That's why she deserves better. She deserves someone who can be hers and hers alone, because I know there are some men out there who can stifle their instincts." It's ironic that this is the strongest his voice has been all day, when he's giving an impassioned defense of his lifestyle.

The leviathan looks back to the spark-mare, and there's a hard, humourless smile twitching upon his face. "You think I'm scum, don't you?" He's not the best reader of people, but he thinks he's ascertained that much.

DEAD I AM THE ONE, EXTERMINATING SON
SLIPPING THROUGH THE TREES, STRANGLING THE BREEZE