Exhaustion pulled at all his edges, all his corners, all his etched, sketched lines of muscle and discord, layer by layer, lacquer by lacquer, until his mind was naught but an eternal emptiness, overwrought, overwhelmed, spared by nothing. There’d been too many revelations for him to cower away from, so he just stood there, a crumbling tower on the windswept sands, trying not to lower his head from fatigue, struggling to remain upright, mobile, more than a piece of the fracturing palisade, each breath a phantom, molten flame, each motion a flicker of pain. His eyes were scattered shields and swords, crossed but not lifted, voice muted by the arches of anguish swimming behind his lids, down into the marrow of his soul, and a part of him wondered if she’d mind him faltering right then and there, laying upon the brooding dunes and becoming a part of the sea air and foam. But he was the General, supposed master and commander of the northern army, so the multitudes, the barrages, the assaults mauled and molded to his frame chiseled a stark courtship of blemishes and wounds, ones he could label as Wessex with pride and forbearance, with a grin, with a sensation of malice and menace torn across his exterior – worn there as a sign of his triumph and misery all sewn together, tightly laced with arrows, with daggers, with knives and camaraderie. He wondered what she saw now, when she looked at his pathetic features and his desolate outlook, when she’d been administered the weight of his nefarious soul, when his enchantments had ghosted and paraded and mutilated (but barely; hardly a scratch it seemed, just a simmer below the surface, a strike against the canvas of her hardened walls). The beast had attempted to strike a cool blow, a malicious scheme, and while it hadn’t bellowed, hadn’t seethed, hadn’t wrenched apart her insides or left her begging for absolution, the fact that he’d done it at all was another cruel juncture he’d have to swallow (he’d only yearned, in those quiet, hushed moments between cuts and brutality, to show someone that he was mighty, that he was strong, that he was more than smiles and pleasantries; that lurking beneath his charismatic calamity was a sharpened cutlass, begging to be unleashed).
 
So her words pierced through his ears, and he turned, shifted his stare from the surf and shoal, until his gaze settled entirely on her – the assaults he’d managed to land, the damage he’d wrought, the fortitude and strength pervading from both of their shackled forms. The prince nearly laughed - was that you? - almost pretending like he wasn’t capable of such mischief and soullessness, when truthfully it was so tightly coiled and wrapped around his heart, his lungs, his ribs, his entity, that the shadows, that the darkness, would have to come pry it out of his soul when death came knocking. “Yes,” he answered, the granules of truth not sticking to his tongue or snaring his throat, almost dangerous, clinging to a sensation of viciousness that pulsed through him even now, when he should’ve been folded against the rocks and shells, overcome. The General tilted his head thereafter, intrigued, invested, in what was to come next – if she was more than just brutality and strength, might and potency, if she was too honorable and intended to bellow, holler, scream at him for the savagery and sinister nature tethered to him, if she was going to ask about all the other wounds festering within him, or if she’d leave everything alone, not care, indifferent, nonchalant, always expecting him to be less than the greater good. “You pack quite a punch,” the youth administered with the slyest of smiles, tired and forged with iron, tucked along his lips with a hearty, exhausted laugh, pondering which was the biggest fool.

He waited in the murk of weariness and the haze of fatigue, quiet and still, desolate and forbearing, looking for all the empires like a knight who carried the weight of the world across his shoulders. He expected some form of grievance from her – (how dare you) a growl, a snap, an unfurling of jaws and teeth, a screech, and then he’d bear that too, throw it along his spine and let it carve its way down into his marrow, into his flesh, into his lungs. Instead, however, she surprised him, and the prince should’ve known better, shouldn’t truly understood just who he was conversing with – a mare born for warfare, who didn’t shy away from blades or knives, from renegade potency and the savagery conspired, scorched through his ribs. So he allowed her to study him, to stand there amidst the decadence of battle, in his strife, in his glory, a portrait of discord and refined parallels; an artifact sculpted by acrimonious plunges into the heart of furtive wares and perilous aspirations. The scion’s brow quirked at her question, molding the depths of his tired smile to an indulgent smirk, rekindling a boyhood look as he glanced from the rolling tides and back to his fellow soldier. His murmurs were controlled by mischief but resolute in veracity, touched and sizzled by the embers of his days spent admiring the plains of enchantments and invocations curled, coiled, nestled in the specious depths of his figure, obliged, bestowed, without hesitation. “Magic,” he uttered, then swept his eyes to the sands, to the earth, to the sky, shrugging as if it wasn’t important, when sometimes it was all the world had ever wanted. “I was born with it.” He’d feared it once too, when the shifting shadows had been unleashed from the spires of his anger, or when the flames had burst from his touch, becoming infernal, bewitching, beguiling torrents of destruction – but then it embraced it soon after, diving straight into its merciless echoes without a second thought, surrounded, pervaded, consumed by the notions of darkness and Stygian wiles. “A lot within Helovia hold some sort of enchantment. My father could kill with a touch. My mother could summon rain.” Then he tried, desperately, not to flinch at the sentiments of them being gone, struggling to fight over the agonizing pain clawing at his insides, staring straight out into the sea as if they’d appear there, out of the mist, out of the waves.
 
Erebos clenched his jaw, then turned back to Wessex, pretenses in shambles but still there, still slightly veiled, still partly hidden, even as he revealed the juncture of so many sojourns and adventures (because she wanted power, and he couldn’t fault her for that – he was one and the same, an avaricious devil clinging, grasping, reaching for anything and everything). “However, there are some occasions where Gods or other creatures will grant you a quest, and you may be able to receive magic for completing their tasks.” His smile returned, a little wicked, a little rough around the edges, a laugh poised along the tip of his tongue, where memories seared and simmered, where nobility faded away and lethality haunted the outline of his physique. In his sinister depths, in his clouded, exhausted whims, he wondered what she would want, what she would crave, and if she thought her strength simply wasn’t enough without that blessing from a deity or scrap from a magician’s oeuvre (and was tempted to tell her that she’d probably always be mighty and determined and potent, with or without the temptation of invocations). It harpooned him then, in between Enyo’s knowing gaze and Orsino’s blatant disregard, shoving past any furtive regards, mercurial and inquisitive still, a little beast who could never rid himself of corruptive curiosity. He queried her, grinning and Cheshire, a General, a fiend, laced with ambitions, longing to know which path they all tread (and if some were one and the same). “What power would you ask for?”