I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin
(and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
She comes and his attention is drawn to her, to the hardness she wears like armor, to the sharpness of her eyes. She is beautiful, he thinks, but only in the ways that he imagines breaking her apart; only in the ways that he imagines her splintering out, the fear clawing at her throat. What would she look like when the Fear gripped her? Would she cower? Would she rage? He felt a tightening in his belly at the thought of it, but he keeps it from his features, his handsome face neutral—friendly even.
“Astute,” he muses, although he does not suppose that she is. Anyone who has seen his goat father would understand that like response in like; he is a shade darker than his father, the coal claiming the pieces of him where the ivory touches his father, but there is no mistaking Bruise for anything but the young Krampus that he is. The thought pleases him. “Queen Nayl, is it then?” For as blind as he was to most of Beqanna’s political bores, he at least knew the names of the rulers. “My name is Bruise.”
It is then that things get interesting—
Very interesting.
His head tilts to the side as he considers the approaching beast, hulking and menacing, and if he could raise an eyebrow, he would. Instead, he purses his lips, musing upon the strange guardian he can only assume that Nayl has conjured. Fear, he does not feel. It is a tamed prison inside his chest and instead he only studies the animal, wondering if she always greets envoys with such overblown fashion.
But then the voice hisses through the air, and his face splits into a grin.
“Ah, little dove,” his flat eyes spark with interest, with intrigue. They could have had fun, couldn’t they? It was a shame that she had eventually run away; it was a shame they had cut their time short. “I have missed you,” he says with a wide smile, as crocodile as his father. For a moment, he sends out the tendrils of his Fear, lets the terror of it race up her spine—a memory he is all too willing to stoke, even as he stands there staring at the open jaws of the predator. His attention turns back to Nayl, his face amused.
“I currently serve as Prince of Pangea. I am simply coming on a,” his eyes flick back to the mare whose name he does not know, grin widening, “friendly visit.”
