Meme: Stolen from a brother's blog Verse: Guileless Son || Main Verse Url: @brooklynislandgirl
The long game.
He's played it since conception. Taught it before he could understand words. Breathed it since before a god prince's foot ever was allowed to touch mortal ground. He gets it honest. Perhaps the only thing honest about him. And he would laugh at the joke if the seriousness of the moment wasn't so very...serious.
Red on the ground that is not his enemies. He hadn't seen her coming. Fuck the literal stars he should have though. But sometimes the problem with taking on the very one that taught you nearly all that you know is, that they know you too well. Better in ways than you do because they had a hand in making you after all.
And the shadows jerk back to protect their master. Shield him from the silvery brilliance she is. The silvery brilliance that was supposed to be his birthright--it would piss him off if he knew. Because silver was always second best.
He wanted the gold.
A God Prince made God King.
He would have that crown.
But she's thrown a wrench in it all. His long game. His plans painstakingly laid down and followed. No matter at all if it looked like nothing but insanity to anyone else. That was the point. If it was insane then it couldn't be understood. And if it couldn't be understood it couldn't be subverted. And there is a growling roar from the depths of the swirling protective dark that bleeds the rage. Bleeds the anger at being outstepped. Bleeds the endless flame of vengeance.
And yet inside the thickest bits of void there is a spark. Warm like the ocean at midday and as soft as the earth of rolling hills. It distracts him from the wound that lets red down his side. Pulls focus to another possible attack but it isn't that is it? No. No it is something that as strange as it is to feel--there it is for how small it is--relief. And hand that could wrought vein from muscle and have knit close the gaping wound.
Words not spoekn between yet the plan and resolve is born in an instant. From enemies to partners in shorter time than it takes a human to blink. Because survival was the greatest victory of all, and to gain what he wants--
"Distract her, Bet'."
Beth. Not the name he so often spits at her in anger, or groans in the wake of release. No he uses her name. And he hopes it sets fire to the fuses he knows resides inside her tiny frame. Because as much as he will never admit it to anyone let alone himself? He needs her. He isn't ready yet. He can't take on this one alone. Not yet. And as much as it enrages him--
A tactical retreat is what is needed. A thing he can't create for either of them so long as the God Queen of the Other Realm holds him so directly within her focus. And maybe that's why just this once he both repeats himself as much as explains himself.
"Distract 'er. Oi' need toi'me."
