[private] sparkle sparkle

[stave]

— I'm not here looking for absolution —

Stave feels the life flood back into them. Feels it take root in them and expand through their veins. It would be easy to strip them clean of it, he thinks. Easy for him to drain them dry and let their mother find the two corpses on the outskirts of the land that she now rules. When the son snaps at him, he considers it. Wonders if perhaps he has grown too soft as he has grown older. Has parenthood changed him?

His black eyes skim over the boy, taking in the viperous features of him.

It’s only when he feels something snip at the edges of his own life force that his eyes roam away from her. His eyes sharpen with cruelty, with recognition, and somewhere in his belly, cold pride flares. Perhaps they are not so useless, he thinks, intrigued enough that it overrides the annoyance at the thievery.

As if to soothe himself, he manipulates his own life force, feeling the reassuring pulse of it. He has nothing to worry about, he thinks, but she does. Viper she may be, and powerful she could grow, but he has no desire to let her think she has bested him. No desire at all for them to feel anything.

“Oh, my poor heart. You don’t care for your father?” The words are cold and biting, his eyes hard and flat.  He rolls his eyes at the taunt, as though he could be shamed for the way he treats foals. They are old enough to take it and were they younger, weaker, he would treat them the same.

Having had enough, he whispers across the divide.

He waits until he hears the rumble of the ground underneath him and feels the bones claw their way out. This time, it is not small creatures but rather full skeletons of soldiers long past. They stand shoulder to shoulder with him, although he doesn’t bother to look. He jerks his head toward the children and the five minions he had called forth begin to lumber forward with increasing purpose.

“Take care of them,” he says without further instruction. He doesn’t bother to stay and manipulate them to ensure they cause damage, but he also doesn’t soften it by cautioning them to take it easy on his offspring. Instead he sends the small battalion forward and then turns to take his leave.

If they were truly worthy of being his children, they would make short work of the few undead.

If not, well, their mother would learn to not keep him waiting.

STAVE

[gravitas]

He is oblivious to their exchange, life for death, and has no choice but to fixate on their words instead.
He feels emboldened by his sister’s insistence that he is nothing.

They are accustomed to cruelty, certainly. Their mother is cold and proud, aloof and dismissive. Without any affection to spare them, she has raised them unswayed by weakness. Any sign of vulnerability has been chased out of them with teeth. Still, Gravitas is not certain if their display is born from courage or simply from habit. There is some tremor of fear at the very center of him, roused by the plain fact that he knows precious little of magic. Their mother is a viper, but her magic begins and ends there. She has taught them naught of the things they might encounter.

Still, it shocks him into distraction to hear the stranger say it in no uncertain terms. Your father. He doesn’t fully understand the sharp spark of anger that leaps up his throat, that flares his nostrils. He moves closer by a fraction, a reflex. But the ground rumbles before he can act further, before he can speak and he retreats to his sister’s side. It is not fear that spurs him back to her but something else. The knowledge that they are stronger together, perhaps.

He watches, careful not to recoil, as the bones erupt out of the ground. Force themselves into the shapes of horses. Line themselves up to flank their father, awaiting his command. Adrenaline spirals through his baby veins and he leans briefly into Tirza’s side, as if to draw strength from her.

Their father commands his army and then leaves them there. Gravitas understands the command for what it is, an instruction to kill them, and he sets his jaw. He has no experience with battle, but he had watched his sister easily snatch the rib bone from an elk, and he understands that there is no other option but to fight. He will not die a coward.

So he surges forward, kicking and biting. Chest heaving as he fights. Bones explode all around him. Later, he will have no choice but to interrogate why he so enjoyed the chaos.

G R A V I T A S