The great winged black was shading himself beneath the boughs of the colossal oak that rose a thriving thirty feet from the sand, branches heavy with health like it had always belonged. Vanquish spent most of his time darkening the Deserts sky with his wide shadow or patrolling its borders like some eager young soldier and not the king who already wore the crown.  But when he wasn’t prowling his country-land or buried beneath his golden queen’s touch - he was beneath his tree, where his skeleton’s shadows didn’t follow and his heart ached a little less.

Yael had called his children and grandchildren to come to the Deserts – to him, in the very first days of his resurrection. Yes, some had come, but they come with less smiles and more scowls of strangers than he had imagined. And still, the ones he had craved the sight of the faces of the most, besides Kreios, had not even come at all. There was no question that those of his direct descent had received the summons, as clear and close as a lover’s breath in your ear, but they had just chosen to ignore it. Kratos, Tarnished, Caius, Dorne…they had not come to him. Even though The Nightwalker had only allowed his heart to keep open a small sliver of a hopefulness for Dorne or Tarnished, he was more surprised to see that both Kratos and Caius were purposefully absent. But that small sliver was crumbled away more and more as each day’s sunset slipped down and they still had not come until there was nothing left but numbness where that sliver had been.

And even though there had not been much more but well-bred politeness from his second eldest son, Kreios had still come. Had even said he would be back soon and that was reason enough for Vanquish to give thought to smile to himself as the sands swirled at his feet and carried Noori’s scent churning into his nostrils. He is stepping from beneath the twisted and gnarled oak branches within breaths and unfurling his wings to slip into the sky before he finds her in His Gardens, little red blooms flowering around her.

He steps from the sky, ink-skin sleek and unblemished except for his trademark scars, his dragonwings pliant and young. The Percheron laughs as the cactus patches sprout from her hooves, “My Noori,” he blusters unceremoniously, striding to her side within two long-legged steps and shoving his muzzle beneath her armored neck, “the gods are too good to me,” he says, more allowed than just to her.



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