He is the night. He is the dark and eternal absence of light, he is every shadow and every pair of predator eyes glinting against the deepest black. He is the sound of crickets, the cacophony of every night, and he is the silence that consumes. He is here and he is everywhere, and there is no place off limits to him except that which he cannot yet imagine.
It is all of this that makes him prone to wandering, it is his very nature that prevents him from being cowed by the unknown lingering out in the dark, that keeps him everywhere except at his mothers side where it is safe and warm, where children should want to be. But he has no need to fear that which he is, and what he is is in everything now.
So when his father steps out of the nearest dark, the only sign of him the smoldering yellow of his twin moon eyes, Erebos can feel frustration well up in him like a raging tide. He is not ready to return home, not ready to acknowledge the ache that had been growing all day of missing his gentle mother with her stern worries and disguised affections. He will be happy to return to her later and find sleep against the crook of her chest, but not now, not yet.
Except the girl they had cornered bolts from them the moment he is distracted, and by the time Erebos turns back to face her, there is nothing for his yellow eyes to find. His frustration doubles and fury spills from him in silent waves, drowning him beneath a surface that never stops roiling, beneath depths too vast to swim.
“Why do they hate us?” He asks as each of them bleed out of Ether’s portal. He touches his sister’s neck when she comes to stand beside him, exhaling his frustration so that the floating wisps of her silken shadow mane dance and spin with a weightlessness only he is close enough to see. But then he turns to their mother, gentling as he reaches out to push his nose against her cheek in wordless apology. It is so hard not to drift, but he never means to leave her worrying.
Unlike Charisma, he chooses to drain his frustration on his father, resentful that he had come to gather them up from their explorations. He knew it had likely been at mother’s request, but it was much harder to be mad at her. “I only want to know why they always run from us. Are we bad?” He says it with the shallowness of a child, frustrated but not yet wounded by the rejection. But then he sighs and his dark mouth is a frown that turns invisible by the time it reaches his glowing eyes.
“Mother, you know we always come back when we’re done.” The frown wavers, an odd kind of impish amusement making his eyes shine brighter and his dark teeth flash as he smiles. “We are always back before morning.” Because morning, though he doesn’t truly understand what that is, what day is, has never returned in his lifetime.
It is all of this that makes him prone to wandering, it is his very nature that prevents him from being cowed by the unknown lingering out in the dark, that keeps him everywhere except at his mothers side where it is safe and warm, where children should want to be. But he has no need to fear that which he is, and what he is is in everything now.
So when his father steps out of the nearest dark, the only sign of him the smoldering yellow of his twin moon eyes, Erebos can feel frustration well up in him like a raging tide. He is not ready to return home, not ready to acknowledge the ache that had been growing all day of missing his gentle mother with her stern worries and disguised affections. He will be happy to return to her later and find sleep against the crook of her chest, but not now, not yet.
Except the girl they had cornered bolts from them the moment he is distracted, and by the time Erebos turns back to face her, there is nothing for his yellow eyes to find. His frustration doubles and fury spills from him in silent waves, drowning him beneath a surface that never stops roiling, beneath depths too vast to swim.
“Why do they hate us?” He asks as each of them bleed out of Ether’s portal. He touches his sister’s neck when she comes to stand beside him, exhaling his frustration so that the floating wisps of her silken shadow mane dance and spin with a weightlessness only he is close enough to see. But then he turns to their mother, gentling as he reaches out to push his nose against her cheek in wordless apology. It is so hard not to drift, but he never means to leave her worrying.
Unlike Charisma, he chooses to drain his frustration on his father, resentful that he had come to gather them up from their explorations. He knew it had likely been at mother’s request, but it was much harder to be mad at her. “I only want to know why they always run from us. Are we bad?” He says it with the shallowness of a child, frustrated but not yet wounded by the rejection. But then he sighs and his dark mouth is a frown that turns invisible by the time it reaches his glowing eyes.
“Mother, you know we always come back when we’re done.” The frown wavers, an odd kind of impish amusement making his eyes shine brighter and his dark teeth flash as he smiles. “We are always back before morning.” Because morning, though he doesn’t truly understand what that is, what day is, has never returned in his lifetime.
EREBOS
like fists unraveling, like glass unshattering,
i want to be astonished
@[Ether]
@[Briseis]