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Thranduil’s words echoed from behind, and the boy barely reacted. Only snippets of phrases entered his mind at all, employing movement, motion, and swift, curt maneuvers to steer and steel himself away from falling back into the trap of mourning. Several were noteworthy in their irritated fixation: Go away and leave me alone were at the top of his skull, above the rise and fall of sadness, despondency, and despair, only discernible by the determined wealth of his stare – completely stagnant, impassive, and inscrutable. There aren’t any fringes of amusement, no edges crinkled in ebullience, just a tired, saddened dose of cold indifference, a reflection of his father’s abilities, before ignoring the beast completely, and returning to his work.
There were a few scarce moments of silence and stillness, where he snagged another branch with his teeth and pulled it ashore, battle-honed muscles straining, flexing, glad to be of use instead of lethargic and listless, before an explosion occurred, rendering his eyes wide, his body thrust backwards on waves of instinct and defense. His gaze immediately returned to Thranduil, who was not the Laurelin at all, but curved in feminine physique, buckskin, eerily familiar to other days not lost in tragedy, but glory-seeking (which would explain the voluminous explosion – if he can recall, the girl had been blowing things up at an alarming rate). His brow arched, his chest heaved out another sullen sigh, and ignored the digs, the assaults altogether. He didn’t have the fortitude to play games or orchestrate diversions for the other cretin; he’d already played too many in the season prior.
But as he knelt down to pick up a smaller log, broken apart by the most recent detonation, a loud chorus of shrieking (and it sounded like rage, blistering and horrid), caused him to turn back around once more, stare focusing on the most recent arrival.
Except…now there were two buckskin mares, one set in pretenses, and the other grounded firmly in reality.
Orsino settled himself away from bone picking to simply stop, watch, and marvel at the scene, tails twitching, dastardly stare fixated at the unfolding drama. He cackled through their connection, snickering, smirking, and the prince wouldn’t have been surprised to see him rolling along on the ground, taken in by the ridiculous spectacle. Erebos simply stared – completely, utterly fascinated by the transpiring events (because maybe now, Thranduil would get what he deserved and he didn’t know how he felt about it – relieved? Entertained? Was it right to feel such a way when moments ago he’d just been drowned in grief?).
Rikyn’s appearance, suddenly beside him (seemingly just as gruff, just as sullen, and the boy had to wonder why, but couldn’t press the query across his teeth, couldn’t tell him the reason for his own misery, it wasn’t the right time, it wasn’t the right place), entrenched, ensnared him to the here and now. He breathed a little easier, eyes shown a little brighter, and he swallowed away the choking vexation tearing down the length of his throat, turning to his best friend and allowing the smallest of smiles to trace over his mouth (not the best, not a master’s stroke, but still there, raw and real and minute). He was thankful for him, for telling the gilded fiend to shut up, for unknowingly taking him out of the abyss, for not allowing him to drown in his desolation – mulling over his tones until it settled in a firm whisper, meant entirely for Rikyn. “What do you think she’ll do?” The flicker of amusement tore through his flesh too, until one haughty wrinkle of laughter burst from him, ill-concealed, and he poised a sling of words again, out into the air, before another rush of rash delight surged through him. “I prefer the real one.”
The next set of appearances didn’t bother him in the least – which should’ve been unsettling since one descended as a bird and transformed into a massive filly, and the other had a peculiar accent, but his mind was warped, his heart was heavy, and he could do nothing else but laugh or break down in front of a growing crowd. A portion of Erebos simply wanted to watch whatever was going to happen next (would the girl blow her doppelganger to pieces?), but then duty called, and he grasped hold of another stick, eyes shifting briefly to the newcomers. “By all means,” mustered through his clenched ivories, before colliding to the poised stage of disaster and triumph again.
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[O] we're stripped down to our skeletons again [bone collecting/cleaning]
