[open] The Sweet Sting || Elio ||

[elio]

elio

some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

Anger.

It's righteous when Elio feels it. Righteous and raw, violent and vibrating. It consumes him. He watches the liger, eyes wide but serious (eyes almost - almost - containing a dare to try him). What is it about the creature's voice? Its eyes? Why does Lio feel an edge beyond the initial presence of a predator? He wants to feel its skull fall flat beneath his hooves, and that terrifies him.

But this liger wouldn't know that fear. Elio doesn't show it. Still, stoic, calmer than the boy he grew up as: he faces down the presumptuous stranger.

Gosh, Elio.

The ears atop the golden boy's head swivel in surprise. His head quickly follows suit, shifting enough to stare Celina fully in the face. Elio doesn't feel anything at first. There was surprise, but then a quiet sort of analyzation overtakes him. He stares quietly at his sister, knowing that a firework show worth of emotions are hissing in his chest, but says nothing. Does nothing. Just stares as she speaks, not really comprehending what she has to say.

It's when Wolfbane purrs that Lio leaves his tunnel vision. First, his head snaps to Lepis, wondering is by some miracle he could get her here; but reality seeps in, and so do Celina's words, leaving Elio with a vague, cold emptiness. Not apathy, not yet - but the gripping realization that his favorite sibling has outgrown their young likemindedness. He isn't sure who he is looking at anymore. It's Celina's iridescent white coat and floating fireflies but it's not Celina.

That's not Celina.

Elio won't believe it.

When Wolfbane dares to ask if he recognizes him, Lio wants to laugh. It would be a cold bark, utterly humorless - but his throat feels dry and the act of such useless defiance feels too exhausting. Instead, he rolls his eyes from Celina's and over to the liger's, and clearly states, "You've rarely spoken to me."

To Elio, Bane's compliments are blatantly empty. He can practically taste the manipulation on his tongue. Lio takes a few quiet steps backward, away from his father's perch, but still angled so that he is partially facing Celina. The look on his face is incredulous, wondering if she is really basking beneath their father's conjured sun. Disgust is bitter on the back of his tongue as it becomes very, very real that Celina has picked their cursed father over their mother. Over him.

Elio does nearly laugh when Bane expects them to "catch him up." He glances at Celina, naively half-expecting her to feel the same or at least show some sign of hesitance. The realization that this is regular - that Celina divulges information about their father's victims already - comes swift. It nearly eviscerates Elio. He stares, wounded but refusing to show it, wondering if the air knocked from his lungs will ever return.

"I'm not telling you anything," Elio snarls, drawing his wings tight to his sides and staring his father down. "And neither is Celina." He returns his gaze to her, now. The look in his eyes is fierce and determined. It says:

I will stop you myself.

@[Celina] @[Wolfbane] big cry