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