The flames and fire, the rush and coil of embers, of ashes, of fury and wrath, had told him to look ahead – to peer into the open horizon, to stop glancing back at what once was and what never could be again. He’d never realized how difficult this simplistic task was until he turned corner after corner, avenue after avenue, corridor after corridor, without the Reaper’s shadow beside him, without the illustrious glow of valor beating through him. He’d become something else entirely between the haunting vignettes and the ghostly refrains, a shell of the gallant lad who only used to gallop after his friends, laugh, instigate and provoke mischief; more demonic, more ruthless, more disheveled and maligned by the way the earth sculpted and scratched at his unrelenting surface. The prince had always refused to give in – the temptations to merely fumble, fall, and never get back up again were minute compared to the enticements and yearnings rippling through his mutinous core. But as the beast stared out over the backdrop, the mirror images of reflecting pools and shadows, of dark, entrancing, unending waves, he thought about those dreams and ambitions – savage and soulless (a twist of the knife into enemies, a cutlass swung into chests and bones, soot of the fallen resting beneath his hooves) – and pondered over how to unfold and unravel them all so they’d meld neatly into place, glorious and abhorrent. He wanted his army to be strong, be meticulous, be all powerful, an omniscient body of endurance and fortitude, might trickling into their sinew, out their wounds, pulsing and pervading, a sensation of violent madness rooted deep into their cores, so when the world looked upon them, they knew their capabilities. He wanted his soldiers, his warriors, his brethren, to gaze and stare at opponents and understand what it was like to divide and conquer, to maraud and maroon, to harpoon until there was naught left but triumph and disaster. The determination, the resolution, sprung from his limbs and curled back into his veins, until he and his companions were just maneuvering, rapacious machines, emblazoning the Stygian canvas with their promise, with their prowess.
 
Erebos’ muscles were carved from blood and diligence, undulating as he, kitsune, and griffon feasted upon the midnight skies, oils, and desolation – fearing absolutely naught but the end of their reign, digging into the surf and swell, thriving across the Halycon daze. He saw no one and felt nothing, giving in to the rise and fall of his daggers, of his crown, of his molten, surging heart, stoked vigilance and violence in the creed of his movements and motions. He listened to the staccato beat of Enyo’s talons, he listened to Orsino’s outstretched claws sinking and clawing their way through the earth, and wondered how much malice, how much menace, how much absolute abhorrence they could strike into this great, grand earth when he was done with it, when they were through –
 
A hint of otherworldly stars glinted towards his right, and the northern prince ceased immediately, curiosity meddling into his Machiavellian methods, stopping only to stare the intertwined shadows, the memories, the wraiths of upheaval staring back at him. Orsino hissed something feral, a nocturnal heave of contradictions and sedition, while Enyo glinted with those feline eyes, and the youth was a brewing tempest, a cauldron, an inflection of poised ruin and calamity, sketched on the fringes of his inquiry, on his consternation. When he stepped closer, when she came more into light and recognition, his memory quirked, sputtered, mocked; because he’d replaced her as she’d vanished into the hillsides, as she disappeared into the midst and mist, and he’d presumed she’d be just one more of the beings who never returned. “Ki’irha?” He proffered, gesturing into the quiet with his hushed intonation, vigilant, boyish stare riveted on broken pieces, reaching out into the void, into the forlorn heavens, and wondering if he’d stepped back again – too soon, failing to venture into the foretold future when there was a piece of the past glittering and glimmering before him.

Erebos

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

The silence was heavy, tight, overbearing, and he waited for something to break – chiseling that boyish smile eagerly across his lips at the sight of an old friend as she began to turn. Then the breath rushed out from both their lungs, out of sight, out of mind, and everything seemed so remarkably odd, out of sorts, misaligned, misshapen, torn out of canvas too abruptly, ripped, caught, snared; her initial voice was marked by furrowed brows and inquiry. His grin faltered then, fell apart instantly, mind unraveling with confusion, flinching slightly as if marked, wounded, and quartered himself – because she didn’t seem to know who he was. Perhaps she’d forgotten all about him in her time away from the north, from the realm, from the empire she once carefully guarded. Maybe it was a sign that he truly was nothing at all, a miniscule speck on the horizon of so many other outlines and events, dust, sand, tiny granules of earth meant to scatter and not shake the world. He’d just been a little soldier, a boy grasping at gallantry and fate, before he’d been cast into the darker, desolate, forlorn structures of death, of vengeance, of toils and spoils; the trials and tribulations of finally growing up – and she’d been the wiser elder, the strict advocate for endurance and potency, the starry aspirations of a child who wanted to pummel Goliath skulls into the ground. But he’d meant naught to her, because even his presence didn’t seem to muster one sentiment of recognition. The juncture played out like a shard of glass, like a knife, like a laceration, cutting against him so much that his careful, amiable pretenses flickered away, and he was just left with a tilted head and wounded pride (not worth remembering; even after fights and battles and scars, predatory alliances and chances to become something, a smoldering ember, a fastidious flame, tricks and strategies and coy pretenses left to simmer out in the cold). “You don’t remember me,” he stated, flatly at first, giving the truth, the veracity, its cold, hard value, allowing it to press over his soul, a beautifully carved inward blemish. He wanted to bellow and proclaim all his efforts, all his ideals, all his ambitions towards her then – so she would recall him, the little prince with valor and might forged into his blood but with foolishness and ineptitude in there as well – but then the rest of her inquiries made no sense, inanity sputtered into the void.
 
Shouldn’t she know of this world? Shouldn’t she understand this palisade of mirrors and pools wasn’t owned by anyone, much less him? His eyes narrowed, his head shook, and he attempted to piece the puzzles together, while Orsino sat eerily by, and Enyo clicked her beak, encouraging him to forge on. The sable kitsune was diligent, at the very least, in his stead for intellect and cunning, because his uncanny eyes focused on the broken horn chiseled upon her crown, and he urged the General to turn his head, to stare at the fragments whittled and blasted away – and perhaps there was something to that damaged beacon, a proud sword in dire need of mending. The corners of his lips gestured to a small smile again, less eager, less bright, but friendly and amiable still, desperate not to appear irked, irritated, and vexed by the ways the world seemed to plague against everyone – finally answering the queries she’d thrown into the reflective surface. It was a wonder the questions didn’t bound, leap, and smack him in the face. “This is an open land. It isn’t claimed by anyone,” he gestured at first, skull twisting to stare into the starry passageways, muddled, perplexed, before turning back to her, a once-soldier who’d been chastened and shifted by mirages. The Ki’irha he’d always known wouldn’t have been ensnared by the simplest of tricks; and now, she seemed lost, twisted back, folded on herself, and he didn’t truly understand her at all. “Where are you trying to go?” The question tied itself in his throat, gnarled and throbbing, a beating crescendo of knotted sentiments, trying to forget how badly it hurt. The answer should’ve been obvious, because she was meant to be in the mountains, in the valleys, beside the glaciers, resting alongside the summits – but maybe she didn’t remember them either, for fate was cruel, and he’d learned about the wickedness of the earth long, long ago.

Erebos

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

Don’t take it to heart.
 
The words cut against the grain, reverberated through his acrimonious entity, because that’s’ what he’d always done – painted everything across the shackles of his beating, thriving organ, watched it turn nefarious, blackened, charred, and it was still difficult to acknowledge the sagacity of such advice. He’d chiseled and sculpted and refined his calamity to lies and pretenses so no one else saw the blatant hurt spun along his soul; some days he was more convincing than others, presiding with that Cheshire grin that emulated mischief instead of anguish, that regarded deviancy instead of the misery, wrath, and abhorrence twisting and corroding him from the inside. He nodded, mute again, incapable of doing anything but standing there like a dunce, incompetent, floundering, wondering where she’d come and gone, why she’d reappeared like an empty slate, unburdened, freed from everything she’d ever been (a gift or a curse?). It was as if she had no memory of the world before her, all the leagues she’d crossed, all the pathways she’d intersected, the ruins, the upheavals, the glories touched by scabbards and cutlasses – and he pondered what life would be with just the future on the horizon and no past to mark and scar and ripple across one’s hide, one’s mind, one’s intervals. What would it be like to not be burdened with sadness and despondency, or simmering, glowering, avaricious hatred?
 
Then you wouldn’t be you, Orsino summed up in one brief scowl, in one harsh hiss; and the boy was sickened by the notion in the first place (because then he would have never known his father, his mother, his sister, his friends, his brethren, his comrades in arms – and he longed to stare her in the eye and ask how she could have just tossed them all aside).
 
But the words didn’t come. They stuck to his tongue, glowered behind his teeth, because somehow, someway, this likely wasn’t her fault. Had Ki’irha ever been one to simply abandon them – her kin, even her children? Could she recall her own flesh and blood, the speck of stars and galaxies, or the hushed reverence of the aurora? Do you remember anything?, the phrase whispered, haunted, rasped along his skull, and she delivered the answer without requiring his inquiry; because she didn’t belong anywhere. The prince’s mouth parted for a moment, bent on screaming out how she did - how she should’ve always been intertwined with the mountainsides, with the glaciers, with the wide, beautiful, open valley interlaced with rime, with power, with majesty, might, and perseverance. The General yearned to mention how she’d once been in his very post, aligned to greatness and supremacy, eager and keen, fervent and ardent, ready to supply them with wisdom and dominance, how she’d tried to overcome the smoldering, dying tempest of a floundering empire. His voice still didn’t glimmer, didn’t glow, didn’t resound amidst the mirrors and abyss, clicking his teeth back together in a tightened jaw, in frustration, unsure of how to appeal to someone who couldn’t known what she’d lost or what she’d gained.
 
Then she prospered it all on her own – and his guard dropped, just a little, past the hues of storms and misery, back into the roots of a boy who’d looked up to a warrioress, who’d stood below her meetings and contemplated how to become something. “Erebos,” he responded in kind, simple, the tiniest of smiles curling across his lips, an old habit from childhood dreams and mercurial ambitions, “from the Aurora Basin.” Thereafter, he allowed it to slide, the slightest of punctures, of slashes, to see if she altered, if she changed, or if she was truly gone from the ice and the snow, with no memory, with no recollection, of what her life used to be. “You used to be too.”

Erebos

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

He waited. He hoped - that perhaps as she uttered his name there’d be something there, a spark, a catalyst, a fleeting thought of a boy dressed in warrior garb who’d pressed his sword into the mighty sway and tried to snag at her stars. But all she seemed to do was smile, cloaked in mystery and enigmas, snatching and clawing at naught, a memory lost to time and space because he just wasn’t worth the agony of remembering.
 
Then she cried.
 
The prince, the General, the monster waiting in the shadows merely stared, confused, muddled, unsure and uncertain of what to do or what to think, if he’d caused the split, the war, of emotions, or if all the vexations of the void assaulted her all at once and she bore it through scars and the hollowed hell whispering through her ears. Her words spilled and joined, offered answers in their rhapsodies, in their saga, in a sojourn of confusion and ignorance, the baffling adornments suddenly pieced together, his mind capable of comprehending the missing gaps. But he let her say everything, not pausing to interrupt, to preface the way she may have fallen from the sky one day, where the blood had come from, where to look or how she’d maneuvered, back into refrain after refrain, biting his tongue, forging his response, staring out into the void just as she might have done – everything foreign, fresh, new because she’d forgotten. The beast allowed her to claw her way to the surface because it was all he could truly do – he didn’t know how to reach down into the rivers and ramparts to free her of this strange, uncanny predicament, where everything faltered, sputtered, ground to a halt. She had to save herself, she had to rise against the bestial tide, the overwhelming toxins, the paralyzing weight of the earth, determined and strong, just the way he’d once known her to be. I know you’re a stranger, she spoke, and it hurt again, for he wasn’t, nor was the rest of the world, and his jaw hurt from clenching it so tightly, for gnawing against the rubble and bedlam, for rummaging amidst the chaos and expecting to come out clean. Finally, when she spoke his name and his convictions melded their way to his features, resolved, defiant, brazen, and bold, every bit a piece of his father and his mother, a true stag from the icy haven and the audacious summits, he uttered what she wished, what she desired. “Ki’irha.” It was simple, but not enough, and he started again, voice ensued and building from the mighty crescendo of his strength, begging it to somehow fold into hers, give her more power, more steel, more perseverance through the unending, stark, desolate haze. “You are Ki’irha, once a warrior, then a Corporal, and finally a General.” He wanted her to hear the embodiment of her valor, to harpoon and press and sear her with the impression of her galactic figure storming across the rimed horizon, blistering and conniving, waiting to strike, waiting to protect, waiting to condemn.
 
Surely she was more than that now, but he didn’t know what else to say. Maybe she’d been foiled into something else altogether, no longer striving for the flickering hues of the aurora, no longer seeking out arms and munitions, no longer gathering forces – and even if she was different, fragmented, splintered, he still believed in her strength, in her endurance, in her persevering shades.

Erebos

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

Everything seemed so final, so brisk, her heart settled on places beyond where she’d once settled, and he couldn’t fault her for it. So many others had done the same, wandering off into the abyss, time and time again, enticed by other shadows or glimmers of gold; and there he’d stayed, amidst the rocks, the pillars, the snow, the ice, fractured when they didn’t seem to be at all. She apologized for weaknesses, for abandonments, and perhaps that was more than anyone else had ever offered – some never apologizing for their absence, for the way they tossed their cloaks, their mantles, their armor aside, barely glancing back to see the world shift and change without them. He begrudged her with a nod, incapable of saying anything else, not understanding just what to add into the fragments, holes, and slivers left behind – because he was the boy, the youth, the warrior they forgot as soon as they crossed over the apertures and thresholds (like the friend with his sutures, like the girl with fire in her name, like the daughter of a God, like his rain-soaked mother), easily misplaced, consigned, and neglected. Maybe they thought he could endure one more loss because he seemed strong, he seemed capable, he seemed stalwart and valorous and wouldn’t mind if they meandered away, if they threw apart their responsibilities – he’d pick them up, dust them off, and render them for himself. He swallowed down the wall of bitterness threatening to clog his throat, that almost dared to tell her to stay (why wouldn’t anyone – what made them all leave?), but it didn’t pry itself away from his tongue, and he couldn’t muster the selfishness to pervade it into the surroundings. Instead, he moved to oblige her request, nodding again when his vocals seemed barren and stupefied, trying to press his head, high, high, high, like the noble, regal prince he was supposed to be (but god it felt heavy, dragged low, overwhelming, a poorly forged crown with too many things attached). He maneuvered along the landscape back towards the entrance, expecting her to follow, tracing the cobwebs and Machiavellian patterns with his daggers, with his knives, with his otherworldly, ethereal sadness that lanced itself all the way into his bones and stayed there, refusing to bend, to move, to curl and coil away. Separate ways, again.
 
He didn’t tell her what she’d missed. He didn’t relinquish any information about Kaos and the bedlam thereafter. He didn’t speak about his father, because she wouldn’t remember the bold, deadly Reaper, and he couldn’t endure someone else asking about him again, not now, not when the earth seemed intent on splitting him apart. But her final inquiry shuffled his kind features back into place, stripped away the sorrow, clenching tightly, firmly, to the small smile nestled in the crook of his lips. He turned back, eyeing her starlit figure and remembering, recalling, the strength and fortitude, the wily schemes, the quick, crafty endeavors, still chiseled and refined in there, waiting to be rediscovered. “I’m sure,” he bestowed, sculpted just like a thousand of his other promises. “If you ever get to the border, just tell them I sent you.” Then, ever the gentleman, he inclined his cranium towards the outer world, and stepped aside so she could slip out into it once more, gone - and he’d stray, stay, and stand there, for it was all he’d ever done.

Erebos

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