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A living gamble stood across from him, brindled with lies and adornments, lacquered with deceptions and fiction, and carrying all the siren wails of what if? He’d waltzed far into the devil’s web, watched the spider’s weave their blistering, enticing tapestry, and stayed there a little too long. The boy wouldn’t widen his eyes or stare in disbelief at the muck and mire he found himself stranded within – only swallowed a little harder when allurement pressed too close to his spine, to his mind, threatened to unravel all the things he wanted close to his bold, audacious, cretin heart. Are you willing to risk everything… thrummed and echoed past his ear drums, and he could admit it was a wonderfully executed trap – had he not looked down, had he not been perceptive, had he not been a piece of Lucifer himself, the boy might have fallen down into the hole and never emerged again. He was not so virtuous, not so pure – the temptation was there, standing in front of him, offering services and descriptions. Thranduil proffered a glorious, beguiling gift: a name, a face, a figure he could chase down – but the chance was too great, the deal too grand. The prince knew better; understood he’d have to lay down a price, a covenant, and he had nothing the Laurelin could possibly want. He couldn’t afford to bend down on one knee, to serve the gilded artist, to be rendered and spliced back together again after a multitude of lies and ambitions. Erebos had his own roads to wander down, and he’d never pictured subjection down one of those many pathways and corridors. He’d rather hunt and unfurl the rest of his days, searching in those predacious halls, than owe a debt to a known serpent. He could, however, play another part to the story, could throw out his own chaos, could tempt the demon into one more round of a fiendish game – he was losing time, losing patience, losing hours where he could slash an enemy’s throat, where he could rip apart those who’d wronged his friend. No more delays, no more hindrances – and with any luck, the prince would manage to swindle the swindler, and kill two birds with one stone.
Orsino, go get a rock was all he commanded through their connection; cold and fierce, unrelenting and persistent, so much so that the little kitsune wielded the movement and motion without hesitation. While the fox consented, Erebos enacted more pretenses, more lies of his own, coveting roles and reversals, fastening a mask to his features and sedition on his tongue. He sighed, rolled his eyes, made the impression of a bestial, feral child no longer getting his way, dropping his skull to stare at the ground. “Fine, if you must know,” he paused, flicked his eyes to where his shadowed companion brought back a pebble nestled in his mouth from the cavern aperture (make it valuable he demanded again, and he could’ve sworn the vicious little disciple laughed through their connection, abrupt and jarring, as if he’d truly been dragged from the underworld), before resuming his prior stance, a kind, compassionate veneer pasted on his lips. “We found this in the cave,” and here Orsino dropped the chosen rubble at the Laurelin’s feet, but harbored his furtive, specious enchantments upon it, so instead of a plain, sullen little piece of ruin and soil, it appeared as a golden dagger, shiny, newly bronzed, capable of dastardly things and whispers of upheaval. He wondered, briefly, if Thranduil would even be able to contain his glee at the sight of gilded arms and munitions, if he’d want it for himself, if he’d crave it for future carvings. Erebos continued, ever the compassionate patriot, gallant and swift, valorous and kind, delving into deeper whims and embellishments. “I was hoping to find its owner. You’d think they’d want it back.” Thereafter, he shrugged, looking back at the fabricated object like it was some precious artifact, best wielded in the garb of secrets and the toils of mankind. “Have you seen anyone leave recently?” He twisted his head back towards the heart caves, where a friend had been beaten and where he should’ve been near, protecting, guarding, but he’d been too late (again), where someone must have fled, under the cover of derision and disarray.
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[O] make them think they ever stood a chance
