All my life I’ve been searching for something

The attempt to diffuse and slide away from the situation failed and faltered, like so many of his other antics. The poor miscue, humor, had derailed and only allowed Rikyn to prod further – he’d always had an uncanny ability to slide his way into places where he wasn’t wanted, to comment, to erupt circumstances until they seemed so out of shape and misconstrued that Erebos never quite knew where to tread. Words dared to slip out of his mouth (you don’t understand and you have no idea swarmed through his skull, suddenly in ruckus, in a maelstrom), and the General fought along a slender cord of control, clenching his jaw, looking away, back into the pine forest covered in snow. Not less of a friend, ever yearned to flare past his tongue too, but even he had never truly measured the ways in which Enna had triumphed over the annals in his life, filling in voids, granting warmth and kindness and devilish notes of mayhem and silliness; something he’d yet to fathom, yet to name. He cherished and promised her, likely too many oaths, too many assurances, some she didn’t want him to keep (and he didn’t care then either, bending and breaking under the roles of vengeance and justice), but Rikyn wasn’t going to crash into those walls and glance in. “Don’t,” the boy growled behind clamped teeth, stare riveted into cold fixtures and stern steel, asking, pleading for the other lad to go no further, because the prince wasn’t sure where he’d fall apart and if Rikyn would even bother to pick up the pieces.
 
He’d cried down in that dungeon, when he thought she was collapsed, fallen, and dead, when she’d been torn apart and ravaged by some unknown monster, by some disgusting heathen he'd yet to find. He’d sobbed and then he’d burned, and he didn’t want to do it now.
 
But then the bay boy laughed too and Erebos no longer understood what game they were playing – or one of the same – too many pretenses and ruses and deceptions lying at his feet. He didn’t want persecution from the monsters, from the infidels, from the cretins who’d dared to harm him? Did he presume he’d get to them at some point in his own time, along his own ventures? The next set of words and phrases confirmed they’d likely be scorned by their ridiculous lifestyles (and he had a guess about the elder, but kept it to himself), maimed and flamed against by another or by the bitter, treacherous taste of isolation, a desolation without end. “If you ever need my assistance, though…” he added in with a nod, with a confirming wink (softening somewhere in the middle of their conversation, trying hard not to taste ichor across his tongue) in case Rikyn ever changed his mind, in case the laws of the land had yet to unfold upon those he’d previously faced, in case he wanted the promise of blood, guts, and glory again. But his brethren had fought the Wildfire (the scion didn’t ask about the result; but at least Rikyn had fought someone known to be nearly unconquerable, hadn’t faltered in a storm against a monster in a mask), had painted a livelihood of trials, of tribulations, had waltzed down thorned roads, and Erebos was certain this wouldn’t stop him either. “You’ll be successful,” the boy returned with a smile, the smallest of grins settled on his lips again, one more oath leaving his mouth. I believe in you was all that was left unsaid, but likely flickering over his brow, along the coils of his figure.

(something never comes)

erebos

never leads to nothing—nothing satisfies

but I’m getting close