They were a squall, they were a menace, they were a tyrannical piece of tempestuous souls gathered for the rise of dominance, of supremacy, of chicanery and bestial arts – and they ran. The prince led the entire way, down into the legions and leagues of forest, fading in and out of Stygian shadows until he was just another piece of the immoral backdrop, fighting off the blackened fiends encrusting his heart; another one of the wolves, another one of the foul, the decrepit, the specious, rampaging because he could, because his wanted to, because his mind was otherwise a tomb, a catacomb, a wasteland, and he was tired of its cobwebs. An infernal spread of mischief pulsed and pervaded against his heart, and he must’ve seemed spellbound by its efforts, for his head swung down to the drifting beasts at his feet, the wild and wicked Orsino (eternally galvanized by every unrelenting purpose known to condemnation), and the curious, inquisitive Enyo, who fanned out her feathers and clicked her beak. It’d been the griffon who regaled him with her predilection to devilry, just the same as the other two, already doomed and damned to a life of trials, tribulations, and sneaky, subversive measures of defiance and diversion. Had she been capable of drilling thoughts into their heads yet – for she was too young, too new, too fresh – she would’ve spun all the merriments of the rebellious across their skulls, and they would’ve laughed, would’ve grinned, would’ve smirked.
 
But he could feel it regardless, that deep, endless bounty of her interest – why they’d settled here, amongst the eternal, warped, knotted trees, where everything seemed to combine into a labyrinth, a warren, a maze, a puzzle with no end. So the prince’s gaze softened, and he looked down upon her raven-esque form, smiling. “I lost a battle here once,” he proffered, and he could see her brows furrow, the mind whirling, working its way through monsters and defeat, what it meant to be triumphed over, bludgeoned until there was nothing left. Orsino huffed, grunted, snarled, stared out over the horizon, pretending not to still feel the traces of anguish, of bitterness, of rancor. But Erebos, mighty, stalwart, and every bit still a cretin, bestowed a conviction, a promise, into the void. “But I’ll try to never do so again.” The child griffin nodded, accepted this vital information, the pact between companions and kin; the way her enchantments crawled and seethed inside her, the way they were all together - shades of predators and demolition. They’d be devastation and ruin some day too, locked and cloistered and tethered like lifelines, like fiends, like magnificent opuses of the demonic oeuvres, cast aside from the reaches of Hell – reigning supreme for their herd, for their empire, for the Reaper.
 
Then, they ventured, deeper and deeper still into the verdure, into the midst, lost, atrocious souls, an inspiration to infernal misdeeds and iniquitous sojourns, a crusade by heathens, by forged blades; blinking past the memories of storms, of bear jaws, of monsters crawling, rasping, and destroying – because eventually, he’d be the devastation everyone feared, deadly and poetic, justified and vengeful.

[Open to anyone. <3]

  He half-hoped to find another monster in the midst of the ruthless copses and overgrown hedges; a Sphinx turning her riddles, a Minotaur lunging at his sacrifices, a ferocious unwinding unlike his controlled, composed skirmishes amongst brethren – something real, something tangible, something maddening he could sink his teeth into and devour. It was a primordial, heathen hope sunken into his chest, into his marrow, into his flesh, where it pierced along his membrane and conjured Machiavellian qualities; narrowed, funneled, wicked, just as licentious as the rest of his hardening prowess. But there was nothing. No turbulence curved across the wind or slashed like a blade. No destruction tore through the clouds, roared, or howled its ancient aspirations. No scythes, no rapiers, no mauling, bestial, barbaric savagery burst through the seams and rows of tree trunks; all he left was the pure, haunting silence, and he hated it. It only fed into anguish, it only bled into torture, it only conjured memories that chilled him, that unraveled him, that uncoiled and wreaked havoc; and only when he glanced into the canopy did the carnivore motions clamor through his blood again – Orsino, murmuring something within their lifeline, like a shout, like a haze, like a thundering proclamation, and the boy, the prince, the General turned and twisted from his stare into the horizon (building something between ferocity and dreams; watching them unwind before his very eyes) towards the huffs and hisses of his kitsune. Another, the voice finally blistered and scorched through his membrane, and his stare finally caught the length of dragon exterior – gilded, silvern, scales, leathery wings – grasped with hooves and rasped with scars. He almost did naught at first, simply examined, caught in his own chiseled webs, uncertain of where to go or how to proceed, because there was a stranger curled amidst the fronds and ferns. She should’ve been familiar, for he would’ve remembered a face, notable features, characteristics of two halves making a whole, but he had no name for her face, no rhyme or reason to puzzle over distant memories. “Hello,” he finally sculpted, whittling his voice into charismatic whims, capricious to a fault, a small smile managing to find its way to his mouth. Curiosity dug him into a deeper hole, and Enyo nearly bounded over towards the other companion, “What are you-“
 
But there was an interruption, a throng, a shout, and he riveted his attention on the turning of his ears, on the voice coiling amidst the warren, recognition binding him to the once-filly’s flames. “Kiada!” He beckoned, grin turning much more genuine, easy-going, real, not a fabrication, not a pretense. A sense of ease, of calm, pervaded his torn soul, because she was known (and evidently not one of the many he’d come across in their childhoods to fall victim, to succumb, to a vicious act, to a vile ruin), had grown, had prospered, in the wake of wherever she’d been. She wasn’t a ghost on the edge of his sight. She wasn’t a phantom sent to haunt him. She wasn’t a beast to slay. She was simply Kiada, the little girl who’d sprouted from the flames. “How are you?” He questioned with a slight arch to his brow, Orsino’s eyes resting on the gold and argent femme (still and silent, attempting to process the hows and whys and whats), Enyo wildly exuberant and overwhelmed, wings spread out, feathers fanned, eager, delighted.

  A shuffle of coils and knots, tethered and gnarled, led his eyes to narrow, for his mind to wander, room for speculation and defiance, plagued by the unknown (gold, draconic in more ways than one; wanting to question the nature of the lizards and if she shared their blood – and how) and the familiar (flames and fire and smoke, princesses from another world, disappeared then found again) all at once. He didn’t know whether to be on edge or merely take reign in a lazy viciousness, a sort of taut recoil that promised savagery but only prospered valor and honor along his blue exterior; a shifting shadow of barbarity and defiance. So he took an inquiring stance, but didn’t relinquish the undulating of his muscles, the core strength riveted over his hide, a silent gesture that he was the General, a warrior first and foremost, than whatever stately, gallant figure in the next – smile widening, curiosity enhanced amidst his potent eyes. To the dragon mare first, he prospered that vigilant smile, a Cheshire definition outlined across his mouth, settled there since birth, when he’d been more than just vengeance and heartache. “Pleasure, Amaris and Dramyrth.” He meant it – because inquiry had taken hold and shape of him, wondering over their existence, gaze held by the leathery wings and the gilded scales, Orsino’s brow lifting, Enyo’s beak and talons clicking in excitement, if she reigned in potency or just slumbered atop a mass of treasures, meant to guard a host of trinkets and jewels like in all the old stories and fables. “Not at all. My apologies for ruining your nap.” Therein he continued with his honor and valor, pretending to be the peacemaker when disaster and mayhem pooled along his blood, when sometimes only chaos wanted to seethe and simmer behind the ocean current of his stare, nodding politely, vaguely, motioning to his companions in brief introductions. “Erebos, General of the Basin. This is Orsino,” his maw pointed towards the sable kitsune, implored him to do more than just sneer, “and Enyo,” his muzzle drifted along the soft feathers of the griffin, who, delighted, screeched and squawked with utter joy and jubilance. Helovia had yet to inspire her to anything but whimsy.
 
Then, to Kiada, who he could only recall as a child, born from their former Thief and the King of the Edge – silly little royals puttering about as if they owned the world when the world truly owned them – he lied. “Fine,” nodding again, brief and curt, having no intention of describing his father’s death to nearby strangers, digging down into his bones and marrow and cutting himself apart, or falling to pieces in front of anyone. He was a wall, a barrier, a fortification, annihilating and unattainable, controlling his features, his breathing, his remorse and anguish with the slight of his rapier and the sheer resolution of his soul. The warrior turned the subject back to her in an instant, recalling their last meeting about command, about supremacy, about the role others had in their lives. “Did you ever get a chance to meet your father?” He ensured his voice did not break on the final word, but lord how it had wanted to, and how he yearned to tell her to cherish every moment spent with her sire, to know his power, his mind, his wisdom, before it was too late and he was gone, buried in a tomb, lost.

   Stranger and stranger still, he watched the way they circled one another – not by movement, but by voice and hushed intonations, the things left unsaid. He skated and slithered away from the brooding temptations of unfurling the death of his father, how it ruined him, how it bled and fueled and corroded him from the inside out because all he wanted was the Reaper back, and he wasn’t allowed to have those things. The dragonmare seemed to be spun into nothing but a few fine bits of air and promise, and his eyes almost narrowed, trying to piece and puzzle together the unspoken regards, the name without a herd, without a place, without an empire ensconced (perhaps none at all). So when she prompted Kiada, he followed suit, completely unaware of the unseen ties and the implied notations of a history lined and harpooned, incapable of formulating the pieces and shards together without an exact line smoldered into the ground. “And yourself? Where are you from?” He asked, not unkindly, the amiable gesture of his mouth still rounded and content, Orsino a molten, seething wall behind him, pondering, wondering, an exultant siege of ruin and might. How did a dragon wander without something to call home – gold and gilded treasure, castles to burn, or maidens to scorch?
 
Then Kiada’s tale caused his focus to rivet back to her – and he almost wished he hadn’t turned his ears or swiveled his sights back along her embers, brutally reminded of time he’d lost and events that could never occur again. The prince didn’t flinch, but he wanted to – yearned to crumble and fall away right then and there, as she described a sire that wasn’t around much, an Elephant King who had other children, the nothing more and that’s it making him bite his tongue. She didn’t cherish the beast who’d given her life, but perhaps that was because she hadn’t known him enough, or he’d been pre-occupied by the role of monarch – the sentiments sizzled on his lips, almost begged her to give the other beast a chance, because one moment they were there and the next moment they were gone, and she should’ve pressed every memory together like a fire-laden book to look at later, when the rest of the pages were blank, empty, and embittered canvas. Maybe he hadn’t been everything she’d wished or granted, but at least she had him, and that was more than Erebos would ever be able to grasp again. “Were you disappointed?,” was what came along his mouth instead, tilting his head, missing the way she flinched at attacking griffins (the way Enyo’s beak opened for just a moment, then snapped shut again), and then his gaze slowly turned back to the trees, to the labyrinth, puzzling just how far he’d have to go to evade everything once more. He didn’t know what to say thereafter, because his mind was a mess and she’d asked how the Basin fared; if he said anything of leadership altering she’d question why the Reaper no longer stood on his throne, and anything else pulsing and pervading through his lips would settle on one more lie. So when his steely gaze segmented on her fire and ash again, recalling simpler days when he’d told her about queens and rulers and how to make the world bow (it felt like he knew even less since then), he only conjured a simplistic venue, hiding, coaxing more suppressed versions of the truth. “The Basin is strong and mighty,” and then he winked, hoping to steer her off-course, away from the hows and whys.

They’d lost all something – some too proud to say it, some too furtive to voice it, and some were obstinate, defiant, to the things they’d let slip from their grasp. He tried not to dwell on it any further, the runes spilling over the pages, the infernal, intangible strikes against his Machiavellian mind that attempted to stoke him into action (he couldn’t see the legends of lineages right in front of him; draconic and gold, ghosts of mirages, of fate spun by rancor and might, felled legions, snatched beasts). The youth ignored it because he was sullied and seditious too, waiting for the moment to flee these labyrinth walls and place himself amidst more speculation, more disaster, more oblivion, feeling nothing, seeing nothing – numbed and brilliant, scorching and seething. Amaris of the World’s Edge, for everyone seemed to live there, proffered only the miniscule details, allowing nothing to fall apart and splinter into the ground – much like the Reaper would’ve done, nonchalant and composed, right until the end. He indulged her smirk with a snicker of his own, a mischief maker’s poor humor, before imparting his voice again, back into the unknown threads, weaving too many webs for his own taste. “Another from the Edge. What a popular place.” Here he winked, laughed, loosened a raw chuckle from his throat as if it hadn’t seen the light of day for eons, boyish and silly, narrowing his eyes and forming his stare back along the void, poignantly reaching for the distant haze of memories. “Father and I went there once. Seems like a nice land.” The General shrugged thereafter, because he hadn’t been in the mists, in the fog, in the murk, and had only known the ice, the chill, the blunt, glacial fringes of mountains and caverns; hadn’t understood the appeal – but knew the stories of how it had been soaked in blood.
 
Then, it seemed, their conversation had come to its abrupt end – Kiada’s patience fizzling, seeking out other things (though the healing barb caught him off guard – and he almost asked her how she intended to lead the world from a menders’ position, but then it seemed foolish, almost irreverent, to mock a dutiful life – and if anyone could, it’d be her) amidst the enigmatic world. “Take care,” he hastened back to her, calling out as she reached towards the shadows and beyond, uncertain if she’d heed the advice. His gaze flickered back to Amaris, one more smirk coiled along his features, then bowing his head at his cue to leave, to explore, to take another winding road. “I’ll leave you to finish your nap. Good day, Amaris.” With that, he slid away too, he and his companions maneuvering fluidly into the shadows, Stygian presences roaming deeper into the darkness they’d always intended to savor.