The anger, the wrath, lay unsettled across his tongue, vicious and savage, twisting, intending to lance and pierce over the shade of the tomb, because he was so damn frustrated with the way life had turned out – knew it wasn’t her responsibility, understood the blame couldn’t rest with her, but it still sizzled and seethed within him. Then why did you? - he wanted to ask, he wanted to shout, anything to mask the hurt and grief and anguish; for the boy had always been taught about loyalty, had watched his father wear away and whittle apart when his mother disappeared, when his sister followed, when the world stared truly caving in on all around him, and he stayed, caught in between, blistered, scorched, decimated to this infernal rubble of the beast he used to be. It didn’t cross into the air though, too blunt, too harsh, too cruel, she didn’t deserve it, and all he wanted to do was hang his head and leave – he shouldn’t have come, he should have wandered further out into the plains and lost himself amidst the mountains, where no one would bother to find him until his next responsibility descended upon his shoulders. The prince was nearly devoured by his own void, the desolation and forlorn grasps coiling over him, dragging over his throat like a noose, listening but rebelling all at the same time, yearning to shake his head at her statements, at things that hurt and singed and bruised and flayed him apart. You resemble him so much, she added, and he almost loosened a bitter laugh from his throat, because he didn’t, he didn’t - had been touched by his mother’s graces and watery hues, hadn’t always been so stoic, so quiet, so reserved, hadn’t meant to become his shadow, hadn’t meant to be anything other than a little scion searching for glory and triumph. But the boy had fallen to his knees too many times in front of his father’s altar now, had wept and prayed and wished for things he could never possibly have again, and nothing seemed to matter. His hatred spiraled out of control most days. His vengeance, his promises, his oaths had seemed to flicker, fade, and die away – the only persistence he’d entangled himself within was duties and tasks to the herd, a vacant shell, a haunted entity, the phantom of what he used to be. “He was so much more than that,” he started, a scorching sensation of malice simmering across his mouth, irritated because the Reaper shouldn’t have been fashioned into mere reticence and silence – and she should’ve known, she should’ve understood, just what the beast had stood for. Was that all she could remember about Deimos?
 
“I’ll never be as great,” the prince whispered, muttered, murmured, ground against his wares, lowering his crown because all that seemed to flow from his mouth was spite and suffering – and that hadn’t been her intention, but it pulsed and pervaded through his soul. He’d never intended to be like his sire in all those potent, powerful ways – he’d admired him, he’d cherished him, he’d loved him, but his path was littered with stones and rubble and ruin now, couldn’t see past the trees, the forest, the doom, the devastation, forgetting what Weaver had told him (believe it), drowning himself in the wake of kings and fathers who’d allowed their children to thrive without encasing them in the walls of what could be and what ifs. Erebos knew better though, comprehended his limitations, had become too haunted, too deluded, too strangled by the set of his own suffering and agony to believe in potential, to puff out his chest and show everyone what he was made of. Her last sorry fell into silence, and he didn’t have anything else to say; he was sorry too, he was pathetic, he was empty, he was useless and vanquished, defeated by heartbreak. 

Erebos

clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in