forget all the names we used to know
The feast never serves to quiet the famine. Not in Gryffen’s case, anyways.
An absent tug is more than that; meant to distract Crevan from his nonattending stare, it makes him shift. There has always been something lacking in his life, some part of himself that longed for direction and guidance but found emptiness and abandonment instead. He’d searched for it - oh, the countless hours spent looking for friendship come to mind now - but the hunt had only led him farther from the source of it and deeper into the arms of waiting danger.
His family, he feels, has cut him free. Circinae hasn’t thought to return and he’s sure there’s nothing left to say between himself and his twin. Canaan? Fah. He’d lived his whole life without him, anyways.
Here is someone ready and willing, hot to the touch with more experience beneath his belt than Crevan could ever hope to fathom. It’s hardly a struggle to tilt his head aside when the mention of his dam slips past Gryffen’s pale lips. “Not what he had expected?” Crevan thinks, brow furrowing with equal measures of curiosity, “If only the rest of them knew.” Circinae was not so much the saint everyone painted her as, especially when the spotlight drifted away.
“I wonder what you desire Crevan.” His leader murmurs, a question the muddy stallion has asked himself time and time again. His eyes curve slowly to meet the red glare; he knows what waits behind it, welcomes it even. Around them, the blazed colors of their home begin to fade away.
He blinks; Canaan stands before him while the dark lake of the Underneath rests beneath him. Fear seizes his heart and Crevan looks around to see the darkness stretch out on every side. “No, please no …” He starts, making as if to back away. The golden horse before him hisses, stretches its body to transform into the creature he’d slain but this time the image is different - Circinae’s wolf head sits atop its shoulders and snarls between bloodied teeth.
She twists, curls into herself and re-shapes until the world is tilting and Crevan feels the sensation of falling. When the spinning slows he can see Sylva around him again, but the throng of horses who’d come for Bacchanalia are pushed aside for him, making a path carved from flesh to lead him ahead. Gryffen stands at the ready, Thana as an eager wolf at his side. Together they beckon to the new Shade, both whispering invitations for pleasure and acceptance.
He takes a step forward -
The grip of Gryffen’s ivory teeth yanking harshly on his mane brings him back to reality and with the rapid blink of his dry eyes, Crevan glances around himself to make sense of their world. “I …” He starts, still feeling the foggy residue of Gryffen’s power leaking from his mind, “Is it over?” He breathes, confused and still a bit bewildered.
revan
@[Gryffen]