CONSTELLATIONS ,

[Kezz]

To stay in the desert a moment longer would have been to condemn himself to madness, and that was a weight he was not yet ready to bear. Six years he had lived in his arid kingdom, and never had he felt so utterly compelled to escape as he did so now. He'd always found sanctuary in it's simplicity; the heat, the unadorned beauty, the severity that he could not help but liken to his wife. But this morning, as he had gazed over across his desolately golden estate, Iscariot had felt two hands around his jugular, finding asphyxiation in every grain of warm sand, horror in the sky which stretched so dauntlessly — everywhere he looked there was a reminder of his mistakes, of his inability to be the man everyone expected him to be. And so he had fled. 

He had, of course, always felt burdened, and, of course, there had been times when he thought he might shatter beneath his brittle mask. But he'd always been able to suppress the pressure; forcing it with trembling hands into a capsule that, he hoped, he might forget about. And for a long time he had. The distractions of Severina, Rhaegar, Rühm were enough to send his angst into a subconscious sort of exile; he'd felt happiness in it's rawest form. He should have known that it would not last! How could he have allowed himself to slip into complacency? Paradisum, his father's greatest ally and his best friend's love, was dead - he had seen one of his murders, and yet he'd done nothing but run away, as he was doing now. What'd happened to that strong stoic wall he'd built? Where had it gone? Iscariot felt as though he had reverted back to his days as a child, and more than anything this frustrated him. 

He hadn't even been able to tell Severina about it — her own father had been slaughtered and yet he'd said nothing, in hope that normality might reign for a short while longer. Maybe it was that he couldn't face her reaction. He wasn't quite sure.

Iscariot had let his uneven gait carry him swiftly over lands, auto-pilot setting in. It was almost nightfall by the time he reached his destination, the white-glitter of starlight dancing upon his skin, but also over the lake that sat quietly among the reeds and surrounding woodland. There was no coincidence that his older brother had claimed this land. The desert king gazed down at his reflection, and instead saw a young boy: eyes of grey filled with an anxiety that lurked still, oh, would he ever shake his troubled disposition? He had never felt so exposed as he did in that moment, standing beneath the galaxy; staring skyward as though seeking an answer from the heavens. Foolish, he thought to himself: the only afterlife Fate existed in was the one miles beneath their feet, haunting the red shadows of Hell. 

kota he's allllllllll over the place @.@

[kota]

The shadow king vividly remembered that Cattail Lake had made him claustrophobic during his teenage years, once upon a time. Yet since his return to the lakeside castle he felt a comforting sense of familiarity make a home within his spine, and in turn within the land's reeds and surrounding woodlands. Maybe Nexus had never been destined to inherit his childhood home. Unlike his younger brother Iscariot, the keeper of the dunes. And maybe he'd never actually inherited the land, but that didn't mean that the fates would not lead him back to it in the end, and with their guidance he'd stake claim to this land, a land once owned by his father before him.

When he was a colt this expanse had been the complete and utter bane of his princely existence. He had loathed coming home every single night, and as a form of rebelling, he had frequently missed an enforced curfew, returning in the early hours of the morning. This place had been his own personal hell, he'd been studied under the loving (yet scrutinizing) gaze of his parents (though mostly his queen mother), and torn down by the disapproving stares of the rest of his father's herd. This had been around the time when he'd started to become less and less like the cookie cutter heir he'd been intended to be.

Mirrors of the cosmos resembled black holes hovered over the horizon, the fiery halo of his brother's blood red crown, stark against the blue and green palette of Nexus's domain. He of all people should have expected this, still, no one could really, truly say that he hadn't. A flash of a lion's prideful smile crossed the man's chiseled façade as he stepped from between the shadows of a towering pine. He shook his crown, freeing his audits of the manse of waves that gathered on his crest, he saunters forward to meet his brother at the edge of the water's lapping tongue.

Iscariot had always been the more flighty of character between the two brothers (though he had nothing on his sister Faye). He had never been the solid wall of muscle Nexus had eventually grown into. He was the trim and lithe child, more of the desert flame his father had needed. Nexus had been jealous, envious to say the least, but it had been expected with his frequent absences from the realm of MUSTANG. "What has brought you here brother?" He traces the lines of Isc's face with his seemingly blank eyes, noticing now how much more he looked like the boy Nexus had once known, and not the man he was now. "You look distressed."





Kezz sorry for the wait <3

[Kezz]

He knew he had to find it: his sense of self and gravity, find it again. Properly this time. Before perhaps he had been fooled, by himself, that there had been power in the words he said and meaning in the actions he had come to enact, maybe it had all been a complex lie, fabricated by his own fragile mind. There had been a desperate need to prove to the world that he, Iscariot — First of His Name, was a worthy successor to the hallowed crown his father had left behind. That the line of Fate and Nissa was not simply a worthless triad, they were not just a list of names who had repeatedly failed to deliver on their promises, on their destinies.

Where then had it all gone wrong? Had it ever been right?

"What has brought you here brother? You look distressed."

Iscariot turned, storm-grey eyes clouding with an indeterminable meaning, and found himself replete with disappointment; had he expected a face from his childhood past to suppress the troubles darting about his mind? Had he built a relationship between he and Nexus that simply did not exist? Most likely. They'd never been close. The desert king had never been close to anyone, aside from Severina, but even that tenuous bond was limited as they had discovered in recent days. The chestnut stallion heaved a sigh that impregnated the air between them ever so gently.

Brushing aside his brother's words — "So this is where you grew up? Father's first kingdom." His voice was but a whisper brushing against the reeds around their steadfast bodies. And of course: "how are your sons?" Polite words as though he were talking to a stranger and not his older blood brother, but hadn't it always been that way? Products of a cold and objective regime. But the distance calmed him, here he was a visitor with regal titles and a shared lineage of ancient power; he had no responsibility, he was detached, hollow in the face of Fate's eldest.

Untouched.

kota x