I was born with a broken heart

Even in the depths of his grief, instinct overrides everything else. The sound of someone approaching bids the mammoth stallion to rise, groaning, to his feet and stand shuddering whilst pain bursts its way through him. He's burning all over and the effort of standing up threatens to exhaust what little strength he has left, but he will not be caught unawares by some rancid hell-beast from the pits of this corrupted land. The Isopia-golem is protected next to his leg, like a mare would protect her nursing foal. Vadir rises up from her tree branch in readiness to fight, emitting a plume of smoke from her nostrils that she can no longer transform into fire. But the stranger is not a stranger. It is....familiar. It is the man that he once prevented from stealing Iskra, only to find that the two were brothers and that he was caught between the most elaborate practical joke; it is a man that he now knows to be Ampere's son, having deduced as much from the knowledge that he is Iskra's brother. Aside from this rudimentary knowledge, though....Volterra knows nothing about this iron-winged young stallion. He does not know that Zèklè, like him, loves (yes, loves - as Volterra knows, that's not an emotion that stops simply because the object of it is now dead) Isopia dearly. He does not know that Zèklè, like him, was friends with the Mountain from a very young age. He does not know that Zèklè, like him, has a child with the giantess, or that such a child was the last one Isopia ever bore - meaning that Zèklè was the last one to touch her like that, the last one to caress the sacred skin and bless it with the burden of new life. Through the cloud of grief that surrounds the events of Isopia's death, he gets a vague memory of this man unleashing a howl of anguish rivalled only by Volterra's own. He'd been too devastated to feel any jealousy at the time, but now it rises unbidden like a green snake in his chest. Who is Zekle, really? What was he to Isopia to have mourned her in such a way? The smaller stallion offers a friendly greeting, cut off when he notices the Isopia-golem. Despite his abject burning agony and the first hints of jealousy, Volterra feels suddenly self-conscious. He'd never meant for anybody else to see what he'd made, because that would show them how much he cares. It would show them that, contrary to the image he portrays, he's not an unthinking hulk of primitive instinct and natural drive. He's just a man who loved a woman, who loved her dearly to the point where it consumed him - he's just a man who would do anything to get that woman back, and who in her absence is forced to create a crude effigy of her just so he can pretend. It is too late now - the other male has seen his creation. Rather than mock him, Zèklè instead seems...taken aback by the sight. It's a really good likeness. The beast manages a gruff nod, still trying to remember where his voice is after so long of not using it. "You think so?" he manages to rumble out. He can feel a telltale burning in his throat; he can feel his feels rising up, a mix of self-conscious anxiety at the notion of a relative stranger seeing how much Isopia means to him, and a painful hint of the grief that he's been holding inside. He's in dangerous waters here; he swiftly moves to steer the ship away from them by clearing his throat and focusing instead on the other person that this young male lost - Ampere. "Ampere was a fine woman. Strong, driven....a perfect Sultana." Given his tendency to blunder headlong into things, Volterra doesn't stop to consider that he might upset the metal-winged pegasus by mentioning Ampere, or that it might seem crude and distant of him to offer such compliments to a woman that he only knew properly for a handful of months. Still, although her death is eclipsed in his mind by Isopia's, he mourns her deeply. "She will be missed." What else can he say? Offer sympathy that the pegasus probably doesn't want? Volterra doesn't know how to handle his own grief - he certainly doesn't know how to handle anyone elses'. V O L T E R R A WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE YOUNG MAN'S HEART? SWALLOWED BY PAIN AS HE SLOWLY FELL APART

image: naia-art

No worries! OHman I love this thread already ;_;

@"Zekle"