“Toulouse of T’det, citizen of Delumine. I request an audience with King Somnus.”

His voice was commanding, filling the entry hall he stood in with ease. There was no room for questioning or disagreement; he was no royal, but the serpent was not willing to take no for an answer. 

’The king will see me.’ 

A guard slipped away, disappearing through a door as quickly and quietly as a mouse. Toulouse watched him go, his eyes boring a hole into the space he had once occupied, before switching his attention to the other guard.

Unable to hold his stare, the opposing equine looked away. A smile curled at Toulouse’s lips.

He had yet to meet the king of the Dawn Court, the realm he had so easily chosen as his own. In fact, he had hardly spent any time in the northeastern boundaries—his attention had thus far been split across the continent. A blind girl from Terrastella, a peculiar series of events in Denocte, his shadow's reappearance. And the voice of a god beckoning everyone to a meadow framed by impossibly ancient trees, locking the way the Regimes while he met with a mare as serpentine as he was wolflike. Indeed, Toulouse’s life had been anything but dull since his haphazard arrival into Novus. 

And he wouldn’t have preferred it any other way.

Information flowed through his mind like water, curling and weaving like smoke into every waking thought. He couldn’t stop it from invading his dreams: over and over again he replayed the events, analyzing them and categorizing them away for future use. There was no morsel left forgotten or untouched, for he never knew when he might need it again.

And today… today might be that time. Toulouse turned away from the guards, wandering his way to a window that overlooked the valleys and meadow shining vibrantly with flowers. It all seemed so peaceful, so very unlike the rest of the world he had visited.

The palomino would give his own leg to change that. To bring chaos and confusion to such an idyllic landscape would be the icing on the cake, an early birthday present to himself. To see blood run and shine as brightly as the poppies, turning the Rapax river red while the Viride forest burned with fire… to see the fairytale turn into a nightmare, the land of milk and honey run dry. His mint green eyes shone with delight, imagining it in his mind.

But of course, Somnus didn’t need to know that. The King would know only what Toulouse allowed him to.

They were playing his game now.