[open] You know I'm the one who put you up there

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

Every power had its limits. He had forgotten that most important lesson of magic only to rediscover it when it had been far too late. He looks out at the churning sea and remembers when he had been mortal, how cautious he had been. He had turned cruel as a defensive measure and tended to avoid any sign of magic, partly out of fear for his mortality and partly out of green envy. Since he had become immortal, how that vigilance had flown out the window. The Fae in him had a natural affinity for trouble and mischief and with Aela the possibilities for that had seemed endless. He had pushed the memories of what it was like to be afraid into a heavy box and while he held on to suspicion, he threw caution to the wind.

It had taken him to heights he had never thought he could reach but the slope was slippery and had not been without its casualties. That was the cost of ambition, why he had never wanted it. Still, he can’t deny that he is rather good at all this. The political power plays and even the tedious tasks that come with running a kingdom. It was in his blood after all.

The sky finally breaks apart and a freezing rain lashes across his gold smeared frame, seeping into his skin and sliding off his scales, turning his dark coat into something oily and slick. His dark gaze finds hers and he is surprised by the range of emotion he finds there. There is still the lingering concern, the nauseating compassion he knew was coming… and other things he hadn’t expected. Is that… anger he sees flickering behind her eyes? He means to ask why, what she could possibly be upset for, but then she speaks and chases the question from his mind.

There had been three questions he had asked Steve. There had been one riddle he had gotten in return for all of them that made more sense then what the creature usually said but had pissed him off all the same. He hadn’t been in the mood for a puzzle today but when she speaks he merely nods, finally understanding the answer the mammoth had given him. What belongs to us, what does not?
There was no repairing what was never his, there is no fixing things he had no control over.

He can feel the cold of the rain stealing the little warmth the nectar had provided but he doesn’t flinch from the onslaught of weather. He never has when it came to a storm, especially hers. The sharp pieces lodged into the fiber of his being remain but there is a clarity in the glittering red eyes that had been missing before. When she speaks again of dark paths and her insistence of traveling down them by his side, he merely stares at her. Why? After all he had done to her, why did she still stand beside him? Perhaps he had been asking the wrong questions to all the wrong people. “We are already on a dark path.” He finally says through the icy droplets that falls on them from dark gray clouds above and closes some of that distance they had mutually made, angling himself to take the brunt of the wind for her so that she can hear him. “We have Gale and Mazikeen’s daughter.” 

He holds her gaze, waiting for the fire of her anger that he’s sure is to come but he speaks before she can spew it at him. He tells her of what Gale had done to Aela. Of the broken mare in the North. Of the deal he had struck with the indigo stallion in Hyaline. How Gale had been uninterested in sparing the whole of the South in his plans but agreed to sparing the Pampas. And how he had not returned the child because he was certain it was all bullshit to begin with. Aela had wanted to hold out for a better deal but deep down Ob had a different reason for wanting to hold on to the girl, knowing that whatever deals were made could easily be broken. “If they come then their focus will be on the Pampas.” Not on you or Loess. Not on anyone else but me. He searches her face and smiles in his devilish way at her, momentarily pushing back that sharpness in his chest as he glances past her to the home he had made here. The once quiet wildflower meadows that now sung with life and death and everything in between. He doesn’t ask her if she will provide refuge for his people should they need it. That compassion he had seen earlier speaks for her. His court is a slippery one, filled with ghosts and tricksters and those that think themselves gods. He doesn’t doubt that they would all land on their feet and find their escape, that Aela could find somewhere new to hide Sickle, that they would not scramble to save themselves. In fact he counts on it.

If given the opportunity, he will give them all the distraction they need.

That slithering thing inside him has grown stronger in the weeks of emotional turmoil he had been under. If he could take the magical abomination (familiar hatred flaring a fire around his blackened heart) down with him while sparing his court when he lost himself to scales and fangs for the final time then he would accept his fate with open arms.

obscene

@Cheri