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