Reality dealt him another laceration as he listened to her, as she swatted at him, as she added a chiming echo to the hissing, bestial sibilance of his declarations: he rarely relied on others. His castle walls and his mighty fortifications had all been a singular, independent construction; he was the son of the Reaper, an intangible force made by nefarious smiles and meticulous violence, prospering from determination and perseverance, but not asking anyone to do the same. He always noted what they desired, he always pondered how to help them, how to promise revenge, how to cut apart their enemies, how to slash, rip, and tear. He carried their burdens over his shoulders along with the cloak and mantle and marrow of a boy turned warrior, of a fool turned General, of a prince turned utterly incompetent. His honor, his valor, his gallantry carried him forward, his yearnings trapped and ensnared his deceitful, capricious, mercurial exploits, but any adventure was made solely by the skin of his own teeth, by the raw conviction of his own blade, by the salt and surf and bone, the mettle, the destruction carved from his ribs, from his heart, from his soul. It had cycled from the day of his birth until this finite moment, with friends disappearing, with family perishing, with roles reversed and fickle minds altering their courses – he’d traveled down his primrose path with Orsino, stark, desolate, and defiant, nestled, curled, and coiled in the wake of his potential, in the restless outline of all the things he wanted to accomplish, but couldn’t grasp, couldn’t reach, couldn’t tear away. Perhaps one of the few times he’d ever asked anyone for assistance was when his father had perished, for the scion had tried to carry the weight of the great Reaper himself, but had proved incapable – everything had been too much, too daunting, too overwhelming, and maybe that was happening now, deluded into dreams and ambitions, but incapable of seeing past the trees, the forests, the clouds. He’d have to depend on others, on his fellow soldiers, on those warriors he was raising, on the skills, on the might, on the potency and strength of his fellow compatriots, and perhaps that was the most daunting. Erebos could not be the entire army. One man could not take down a thousand opponents. One essence could not destroy a thousand enemies. He could try until he took his last breath – and then where would they be?  
 
The notion itself was daunting too – because each and every time he’d allowed himself to hope, something had been caught, snagged, knotted, and gnarled, and eventually he’d just walked amongst the shadows and the Stygian outcrops, fierce and proud, solitary and mutinous. He joked with friends. He became the faithful beast, the vengeful archetype, calling for the heavens to sizzle him on the spot – drowned by sorrow and neglect, pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. The fiend was apprehensive of allowing them all to see past the barriers and pretenses, because then they’d see more than just the weaknesses and the upheavals – they’d witness what he was made of, the inner sculpture, the Machiavellian schemes, the dreams he’d had since he was nothing more than a tiny boy racing across the void. “Really?” He asked, turned to her, trying not to doubt, trying not to see the visions of so many others who’d faltered by his side, who’d drifted and disappeared, who’d been consumed or succumbed. “And everyone else too? They’d want that?” His eyes were no longer narrowed, but wide, imagining a world where they were monsters and other empires shuddered, Kaos shivered, where they didn’t fall apart as the old legends did, where they didn’t crumble and falter, where they rose and reigned, where they dominated, supreme again. His voice, while questioning, was also a resonating slide of triumph and resolution, willpower seething upon his edges, a prince reborn from the frozen ashes; wondering what it would take for him to inspire them to that glory, that height, that dominance, and if they’d even be willing to follow him at all. 

Erebos

i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want