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