that heart is so cold (group from the b2g thread)

[Kratos]

The young titan recognizes Nihlus as the boy who approached him at Kora’s side, with a voice laden with such a heavy coquettishness that it should have been meant for the mare. He flicks a single black ear in Nihlus’ direction as he offers his aid and although he tells him, “if I mean to take a king’s head, I’ll do it alone,” Kratos will not forget that the boy rallied to his side, no, he will tuck that away for future consideration. But moreover, Kratos would not be known as a coward that needed someone sticking a knife in the back of the man whose throat he was slitting.  Another old stallion comes to join them now and Kratos regards him with a quiet, calculating contemplation. Crito greeted the changeling stallion with great familiarity and when he spoke Errant’s name, the syllables echoed through his memories and rang in his ears not in Crito’s voice, but in his mother’s. His eyes catch the former king’s when he offers his name himself, Kratos knows who he is – he had been raised upon the  lauded tales of his grandfather, another shadow (like his father’s) for him to fill. So when Errant lays his intentions to ascend the throne again before the brothers, the painted viper is neither surprise nor moved to yet comment. Kratos knows the depth and breadth of Errant’s power and so he also knows that he had long ago recognized their relation and chose not to address it. So unlike his dunskin cousin, Niklaus, who comes with prompt and eager endorsement for their grandsire, Kratos says nothing and instead he offers his own name which had yet to leave his black lips, “Kratos is my name, for those who care to know it.” The pale stallion is next to join them and he is the only one of the Tundra dwellers that Kratos moves to acknowledge upon his arrival and even that is a small gesture, only a tilt of his heavy white head. The skull-faced stallion had decided that he liked Hurricane, the pallid, winged stallion whose inquiries came pragmatically and without a single grain of sugary pomp. But Errant continues and Kratos lays silent still, a wordless leviathan with smoldering, wandering eyes that move to land on Brennan as he comes from the sky. It was obvious that that the bay was a seasoned warrior; he came wearing the years of his service to the Brotherhood on his skin and wielding experience of their past on his tongue. He listens and he eats up the subtle exchange between the newcomer and the would-be king, it was clear that there was some reservation on the old warrior’s part and at least a bit of partial contrition on Errant’s.  Again, Hurricane’s voice rises to bridge the silence, still questioning, still entertainingly brusque – a tongue after Kratos’ own. Of course the elder stallions would think him too young to know better, that his blood was still too fresh and eager for the spilling. But the truth was that the Tundra had lain dormant for too long in their icy kingdom, what better way to show their quietness had thawed than with a display of their strength within their own ranks? Were they not amongst warriors here? But despite this, Kratos still finds logic in Brennan and Errant’s words and so when his grandsire speaks again he asks, “And when we find him back at our borders,” because Mountain’s narcissism alone would definitively bring him back and of this, Kratos is certain, “will it be you that carries out the sentence?” Kratos wonders if he will be so loathe to taking the mad king’s head when he came back beating at their walls, frenzied and enraged at what he would surely think was a crown unrightfully taken from him.  K R A T OS vanquish x lyric