have heart, my dear

The warrior searched, hunted, and followed remnants of long ago trails because he had nothing else to do. His mind was pinpointed squarely on finding, on stalking, on traversing through each and every hellhole until he’d found her - it circled through his brain and curled along his core. Every facet, every notion, every sentiment was consumed with the flick of a bird’s wing, the scratch of talons, the click of the wilderness, for, if not, he knew he’d miss his chance (and go truly insane; the lunatic’s light barring down on him now, holding him in its grasp, allowing him to see the same nightmares evening after evening, twilight after twilight, and he’d wake up choking on the irreverent air). More than once he thought he saw her, a pathway of ghosts and stars, sable markings and long, Serval legs, the hook of a raven’s nail pressing into loam, the flight of birds crossing over the horizon, swooping, and falling. He’d screamed her name, yelled, hollered, screeched, beckoned like a savage siren, but if it’d been her in the streamlined sanction of avian flight, she never glanced his way, never saw him, never bothered to turn her head. At first he believed it was punishment for his nefarious acts before they all fell here – but they’d be righteous, they’d been just, they’d been vengeance too, and he couldn’t find fault in the way Calstron had fallen, perished, dead, disgusting, corroded by the eldritch contempt of his magic. It’d been a line to cross and he’d done it with so much ease and hardly any trepidation, hardy retribution and revenge for a life wronged, altered, changed, and morphed. However, Erebos hadn’t anticipated his being, his figure, his soul twisted again, back into the cycle of doldrums and melancholy, circumventing the globe with naught but chiseled determination and inspiring, invoked madness.
 
There was hardly anything left else for him now – no home, no family, no companion – Orsino had been eerily silent, even more so than before, and Enyo’s vanishing had left such a chasm in his essence that he thought he might plunge into oblivion (had they not already been there). Even former Basin members (and the word, just the word former made him sick, made his stomach churn, like the mountains weren’t right outside the distant fog, like they didn’t rise from the skyline and soar into power and damnation) were amidst the few and far between, but he’d been too disheveled, too decrepit, too ashamed to seek them out. Rikyn was here and there, with other matters to attend to – his own family, most very much alive – and Erebos was somewhere, muddled in between, neither a prince nor a pauper, but a ravaged ruin of his former self. His heart had been slammed, jilted, and punctured one too many times, and he could feel its minimal efforts, its fading tides, pulsing through his veins. The only reason they hadn’t given in was the pursuit of Enyo, and sheer force of will (his father’s vicious endurance, his mother’s constancy, the summits where he’d been born, never bowing, never yielding).
 
So they persisted amidst the sultry canopies, where the breeze was lacking and the humidity stuck to his skin. He resisted the temptation to gasp and wheeze, for he was a soldier, a warrior, a blade, but this was a fresh, summer hell, and it wore down his sentiments until he was a finite specimen, muscles undulating, and movements slowing, clinging to desperation and hope when there was none to be found. A distant rustling caught his attention, made Orsino shuffle towards the noise, and he stopped to glance (to perchance dream it was little Enyo, chirping, ready, fervent to go to their next destination or annihilation), eyes fixating on a familiar form of gold and flames. “Kiada!” There was a tender burst of relief through his lungs, warmth denied to him for what felt like eons, glad to find she’d made it into their specious, Tartarean threshold too. He inclined forward, walking towards her, brushing against ferns and leaves, making him appear as an earthen prince when all he craved were glaciers and ice, eyes narrowing as he came closer. Where fire should’ve been, dancing, a caricature of animals and motion, there appeared to be armor, then a fresh coating of blood, her knees dropping, pain (torment – why was there always torment? Couldn’t anyone ever find any god damn happiness here?) flickering, bounding, coiling off the eaves of the rainforest grove. He leaned in, just short of her shoulder, a steady beam of support (valor, gallantry, something he thought gone, but habitually there, resting below the surface) should she require it. “Do you want this off?” His maw rested just above the slate of piercing blades, ready to remove if she deemed it necessary; hazardous, dangerous, questions barking through his haze, but not allowing them to slip across his tongue (for now).

Erebos

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

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@Kiada