Cera
_{How long will you play this game? Will you fight or will you walk away?}

Like a moonflower, he has grown in the darkness permeated only by the silver light of the sole Goddess above, while all other wilted with the absence of their light, their Gods. The invasion had torn them at the core, but they were resilient, they would carry on. So long as they had each other, they would lift their weapons and wings, shove shoulder beneath each other and rise higher, fight on until every leg and limb was broken. Even then, their spirit would never be crushed, for it was a brilliant flame that burned everything. If you did not turn to ash beneath the weight of them, they would still leave you with burns. They were tied irrevocably to each other. Brothers and sisters for life. All blood had touched that sand, painting it a deeper shade of crimson. Unicorn blood, believed to be royal...it was all the same when it sprayed the ground in battle.

So Cera had returned to the forest of shadow and silver light. The Basin invading had reminded him of sensitive matters. Horned, all of them. Precise steps drew him closer, until those endless boughs tangled like a jigsaw puzzle overhead. The scare upon his slim chest was bright beneath the netherlight, as if sensing that this was the place where it had been created. Shadows haunted him here, both within his mind and in the realm he had walked into. A scream, a spray of blood, his blood. And pain. So much pain. Cera shook his head frantically, heart constricted. He had forbidden Ilaria from going with him, not wanting her to suffer through his emotions and memories. She'd been so young then, hardly but a cub, and she'd witnessed her bonded being torn to ribbons so close to vital organs practically moments after their union. Cera would not subject her to that. She had been furious, left behind with Midas and Fina, but he had been firm with her. She barely remembered...what if he triggered her?

Despite the subtle warming of Birdsong, there was a chill upon his spine. The ghosts of his past, was that the phrase?

And then his jade eyes alighted upon that form.

The imposter. The fake. The devil

Cera was not afraid. Not this time. Not here, where his heart had pumped out his life blood helplessly upon those pale leaves.

"You!" he snarled, leaping forth, uncaring of the foliage that pricked at him as he shoved forward towards the doppel of his father in a sudden lunge. "Leave, you imposter! This is not your home, leave us at peace, return to wherever you were spawned!" In his near-adult age his voice bellowed far lower than normal, emerald fire within his eyes, uncaring of the condition the fake Midas displayed.

This is not your father. Do not pity him. Do not pity him!

Cera
_{How long will you play this game? Will you fight or will you walk away?}

You can't love him, he is not your father. He may look the same, those golden eyes might seem familiar, but can't you see the cold lay of them? Don't love him, you can't. He hates you. He was never meant to come here, and nobody will ever believe you anyways.

Even so it's still so hard. Cera's athletic frame quaked gently, hardly noticeable. It went against every portion of his being to want to hurt and harm this individual, the one who bore the visage of the stag whom had taken him in lovingly and raised him up into a worthy son, only ever exuding patience and care all the while. No matter how many times he tried to right himself, remember that this was just a duplicate, and one of the opposite moral breed, Cera still found himself slipping up. It made him ache.

Turning the duplicate smiles a grin more befitting a wolf, and how right he is when crimson stains those ivories presented to him. Blood...but there are no victims in sight, no animals that could tempt an herbivore of their breed. It is recent, the stench of iron hanging thick enough to be choked upon. This Midas...is he deteriorating? Is Helovia rejecting his life force, the slow return of the Gods recognizing his presence, and demanding it be removed in the most painfully fitting way possible?

Somehow, Cera pitied him for that. Unwarranted pain was something no being deserved.

Aureate gazers flickered, something tender appearing, only to become a wasteland once again. Cera pinned his aurals, his own teeth hidden beneath tight lips, emeralds sparking like a live wire within his features. A jade fire, full of life and passion. "That is by no means my problem, and though I would help you, I have a hunch you would sooner slit your own throat." Cera never spoke so harshly, with such vindictive bitterness, but so much hatred lay between them from merely one meeting. How could he not? He had the eloquence, had listened attentively through every experience that had led him onto the path of another, and in turn had been gifted with the blessing of speech- something he had been late in acquiring due to his young abandonment.

Grunting his tail slapped his hocks, a mighty sting flushing up them, but only to be ignored. Tension still vibrated throughout his frame, distrusting of the bloody-mawed monster, but he made no move to initiate a physical confrontation.