He wakes before the toll of the bells – before their chime cascades in echoing over the rolling knolls, the lanternlit walks of the merchants' markets. before they rattle the walls of his den, a resonant quake in the earth that hums and whispers of trepidation. His eyes turn to the southernmost wall as their timbre rolls through – desperate, but ever so true, quivering the collection of rattling bones that cackle and jeer in the breeze. It wasn't a dream or sound that brought him to in particular, though often he struggles to sleep as it is; it was the course of his own blood, pulsing in his ears and his eyes and his chest. How it thrummed, how it drummed, how it seared like hot iron poured against his bones and beckoned, softly then but louder now, this is it, this is it. But what was it for him came with it a many meaning, many roaring risks and chiding chances that bore with it no certain end; as he is endless, a river of crooked paths that gnarl like thistle brush. Youth is cursed with naivety. With time he learned what the grating of his bones meant, the way his teeth ached and craved for flesh and the spark of his eyes held a tombstone wonderment that dredged the gasps from those dead hallows. He learned the depths of the dark, the scraping claws that raked along his breastbone and tore barbs deep into his fleshy heart – the way his core writhed like a pit of vipers, hissing and seething with all the rage of a thousand hells. It was a hound that resided in him. It was its fangs that were his, its eyes that peered from his own, ravenous and ever wanting for all that which it could and couldn't have.


But for now, he is no more than a boy – not quite lost, but not quite found. Much more than the tattered edges of a hopeful child at the gates of Denocte, he has found few temptations to fill him with the fullness of vigor. With what ale and gluttony fed him, he had filled those once hollow pits between his ribs with rustling sinew, bulked his delineation with its former brawn. Yet he is still all those sharp angles, roughened curves, a wolfish and vampiric charm that ripples across his expressions with a darkness too far out to touch. Intangible handsomness, ghosting and morbid as the years press on – it is those eyes, they deceive the pretense of a juvenile cherub entangled with the bliss of childish mien, deepset with a hunger far more feral than any child should ever suffer.


It is this, then. That is it, this hunger, this desperate craving instilled in him from the moment he first drew breath – this machine, this harbinger, this monster created of heavy etchings and arrogant halves. But he still does not know, but to want. To want endlessly, to need the need to feel and thrive, and that is the thunder that starts in him so deep. So deep that it cannot be bothered by the ringing of the alarms, no matter how sharp they toned. His pulse was sharper. Louder. It grew in his ears, a culmination of storm clouds and thunderous growls that bid him rise. It drowned out all else that dared interrupt it, were it voice or bell or scream or animal yowl that cried out in the night. He is deafened to all but the force that drives him on, that runs heat wild through his legs, tearing the ground below in blurs of shade and flora. Shrugged past the whispering commoners and their agonized voices hushed as if they could not help but suffer their pities aloud, despite themselves. Something is wrong, something is wrong, a low chant hums over the crowd like waves of trauma, but none of them seem to quite settle on one subject. They drift between them all like scared lemmings, yammering about the murders in Delumine and the ghost of Denocte, no more than parroting one after the other.


Erasmus is not a man of many words. He is not the first one to break the wall of citizens that have formed around Moira, nor is the first with questions to pose. While he is without doubt a proud creature, one who thrived in heat-seeking temptation and the thrill of seduction, contemplation ruled all in his strategies mounting. For a while he stays back from the wetted eyes of those at the forefront, sheltered in the shadows of curtain and corner. There he listens intently, then and between the pulsings of war that roar incoherently, thrummed between one thought and the next. Moira speaks and he listens, but his pledge is not to her words and so his his mind (and penetrative gaze) wanders freely among those who surround her. Some are weary, some are tearstricken, most are suspended in a state of awe that leaves them gaping or stern. None seem to truly catch his eye, even as a few step forward to lead their allegiance to a cause. A cause. He rides back in his memory, allowing Moira's words to ride echoes in his mind, pouring forth the manner of all melancholy. Isra is stolen. Raum. Tempus. Who will fight? It was purpose he desired at first, but now he wondered what purpose it was.


He is not a knight. And inside of him, somewhere deep and dark and etched so heavy it touches his marrow, a repulsion grows even at the suggestion of their bold call to arms, their glory and cheers that call out into the night. He is stirred to howl with them but withdraws instead against himself, his brow furrowed as he watched the engagement. He remembered the vow the spoke to Isra, the first night he lied his way through their gates. I will fight for Denocte. now he hears this over and over again, until it just becomes so limp and lifeless in the air that he holds his breath. The phrase is stale, its promise poisonous. He is a warrior, a hunter – but he is far from mindless, far from a pawn called upon for bourgeois entertainment. Though there are few things he knows about himself as he steps through the crowd, shouldering their busy bodies from his path, he knows this: he swore to fight for Denocte, not for Isra. Not for Moira. And even deeper, he knows: he swore to fight for pleasure, utmost.


He steps to the rank of those who have stepped forward in pledge, though says nothing. He makes no promises, no more vows. Instead, his eyes hone on Moira, and they speak louder than any word he has ever ushered from between velveteen lips. They are harsh and dark despite their regal brightness, swarming with bloodlust and an uncultured violence that bleeds through his pores. He emanates it, he thrives in it, this ambiance of cruelty. He waits there, partial curiosity lingering on the expectation of plans, explanation of who they are, presuming the they she speaks of is an unsullied army by the way they all rally bold as lions to a blind cause.