Upon the mountain, within the arms of the gods, all else fell away. 

Hooves clacked and echoed noisily against the stone walls and floor of the cathedral, and Camdis Lohir wished briefly that his steps were lighter, for it seemed a wretched thing to disturb the holy silence of such a place. Despite the fact that he had been lead here along treacherous, frigid trails and passes by the yank of the relic's magic, Camdis felt the mantle of Caligo's love press onto his shoulders. While he had skimmed through the history of Novus in a dusty old tome that he had discovered in Denocte's keep, he had yet to commune with his beloved demi-goddess. Despite this, though, his heart ached and yearned for her attentions, for the affection and validation from a deity that he had only accepted as a part of his heart and soul a handful of days ago. 

Silvery eyes misted over, tears threatening to spill over his black and scarlet painted cheeks as he thought upon the strife that had waylaid his Caligo. Camdis knew all too well what it was to be unwanted and what it was to attempt to push past the resentment of others and appeal to one's own better nature. 

He also knew what it was to fail, and to ruin things in the process.

"Caligo," He whispered to the torch-adorned halls, their fire flickering to life as the sun dipped below the horizon, "I am one of your children, I am one of your own." There was a pause as his throat grew thick with emotion, brow creasing in frustration as he struggled to bring the words forth, "Please, if there is anything I can do to serve you or our people better, please, tell me."

In the shadow of the Most Holy, the relic's magic had been cast aside. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                      

It was not the voice of his goddess that answered him, nor was it a voice of any god. 

No, it were a mortal that had deigned to pull him from his worshipful stupor and approach through the flickering darkness, a wraith in the night. The stallion inhaled, not recognizing her scent as that of the Night Court's and feeling his lip curl of it's own accord. She was the same height as he, and silver as his eyes, though her own gaze was borne of storm clouds and wrathful seas. Where he was bleak, she was fruitful. Where he was empty, she was overflowing. Where he walked with the heaviness of a thousand souls upon his back, her steps were feather light. 

He tried to convince himself that it was her intrusion that enraged him so, not the security and the surety with which she held her faintly dished skull. It was the way she shoved herself into his life without his consent, a stake driven into stone and a knife plunged between ribs. 

But he knew this wasn't true. 

He was envious of this woman, viridian-eyed and seething at the saccharine smile that splayed over her overtly feminine features. The comfort with which she wore her skin was a white-hot brand of humiliation to him. He was a king, yet he had never carried himself like one. She was a plain citizen, no crown adorned her head, no jewels pressed to her throat, yet she was a queen in her own right, regal and elegant with enough humility that Camdis knew that if she were to sit the throne beside him, the people would accept him only because of their love for her. 

"What do you know of my deity? Has she spoken to you, a child of Day?" He spat the words at her, full of venom and disdain, "Why do you approach me here, in this holy house. You know well enough what your lord did to my Lady of Night."

His eyes flashed with his misplaced fury, teeth clenched against the maelstrom he struggled to hold at bay. Some small part of him knew that it was not the stranger's fault, the quarrel of the gods. It was also not her fault that he was what he was, it was no one's fault but his own. 

But fault be damned, he was angry and she presented herself a target.
                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Oh, how he grinned at the whiplash of her words, the insult she flung back at him with the bite of a blade and the burning of those storm cloud eyes. Yes, this confrontation is what he had been craving, what could sate the appetite for chaos beneath his thickened skin. Camdis had never been one for proper battles, for sword and smoke and the screams of the dying as they fought to defend or progress; no, there was too much honor in that. There was too much glory to be found in the victory or the downfall of war, too much respect and reverence amongst brothers in arms, too much fanfare from those he would inevitably save from invasion. 

He was not to be entitled to goodly thoughts from strangers, not to be placed upon a pedestal because they believed he had done well for them, that he had killed for anything but his own selfish reasons. 

No, the Exile King, the Emperor of Nothing, the Sovereign of Burned-out stars and Empty Skies found release in a different sort of fighting. He found his sanctuary in drunken brawls, in bruised skin and fists clenched in hair and cloth, in blood and gritted teeth, in throats scratchy and hoarse from the screaming of profanity. He wanted someone to insult his mother (As if they cared about each other in the first place), to insult his honor (what honor?), for someone to rile him and for someone to be riled in return, to find the religion that was needless, heedless violence among strangers and their ilk. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                    And while the mare before him, with hair of wildfires and scorched skin, may not raise a fist toward him, she could offer a close second - the deep stabbing pain of words flung with an arrow's accuracy; and fling them, she did, all the while maintaining her poise and her elegance, her very demeanor insulting to his own. 

It made her all the more beautiful. Truly, she was a sight to behold.
Gods, how he wanted to watch her topple, only to rise up again in all of her burning splendor. 

She was magnificent. 

"I was born beneath the gaze of gods silent and forgotten, but with Caligo's fist about my heart," His words were not cruel, though neither were they kind. "Perhaps your tenacious deity, as you put it, could have cultured some semblance of honor amongst his own. Perhaps then, he wouldn't have nearly burned himself out like a yearling still learning to stand," There, he paused, a cruel smile curving his lips as he took a single step toward her, not caring whether it read as threatening or casual, "But then, I'm a hypocrite for saying that, aren't I? There is no honor among fools and exiles."

He considered her with a predatory gaze, injecting as much heat into his inspection as he could - he knew the consequences of a mare being eyed in such a way, how it could make even the strongest female's skin itch and crawl to be eyed as meat, to be looked at as a prize to be won, to be toppled, to be conquered. For while he did not desire her in such a way, while he was not a man of lust or misogyny, he wanted to make her uncomfortable, he wanted to make her squirm, if only to watch the inferno of her vengeance against his sins. 

Maybe then he could be absolved, after this vicious sparrow with talons of gold and a will of iron burned him to ash. 

"Camdis Lohir," He proffered a mocking bow, "I would offer my services, but I have none other than being generally unlikable, and I've already made that clear." 

It seemed that the flames that had burst from the woman's lips to lick at his heart and scald his skin had been tamed. If his tail weren't so heavy, if the length wasn't so cumbersome, he may have flicked it against his hocks as he considered the phoenix and her artfully composed replies. Prose spilled from her mannerisms, songs fell from her tongue; poetry in motion and melodies within sight. Silvery eyes tracked her own simmering gaze, though the false heat that had filled his expression mere moments before had faded away into an almost companionable familiarity.

Of course, he had no right to presume any sort of companionship between them - especially when the pair had began their knowledge of one another by trading insults. A huff shoved itself from his nostrils, pressure building in his chest as he felt a sudden and confusing wave of self hatred mixed with what could be perceived as satisfaction. Could a creature hate oneself while also finding himself satisfied with the monster that he had grown into? A small smirk curved at blackened lips as Camdis decided to tuck the unsavory question away to ponder at a later date.

Blinking slowly, ears rising from their place amongst the tangled mess of his blackened mane, the scarlet stained stallion listened intently to the singsong voice of Rhoswen the Golden Priestess. As his name slipped from her serpentine tongue, the males teeth clenched and the muscles about his spine tensed with painful suddenness, yet he could not quite surmise why. Was is rage, black and oozing? Lust, unfamiliar and strange? Sorrow, chilled and stifling? Camdis did not know - he did not wish to know.

With a thick swallow and a few moments of discomfort, the brute's jaw loosened enough for him to offer a reply, "I'd consider your father to be wise, but also dead, from the way you speak of him." A brow quirked as he leaned his weight to a side, cocking his back left hoof beneath him - effectively settling into the conversation, "But what do I know, as knowing things is far from my many uses. Indeed, Rhoswen, I'm a man of many paltry and petty uses, not one of them any good for a girl like you." There, he tilted his head, pale eyes sparkling with something akin to mirth, "Unless you have a penchant for things dark and lonesome?"

She was something altogether different and wholesome, moonlight and smoke and cobwebs and mirrors. Silently, he compared her to a bauble that one may find at an exotic bazaar; gilded and wrought with care, but with levers and pulleys that lead to dead ends and compartments that only produced more questions. A fascinating girl, it seemed he had piqued her interest and Caligo knew that she had ensnared his. Yet, within his fascination simmered something sinister and twisting - a series of confusing emotions that tangled themselves about his tongue and his thoughts before he could make sense of anything.

The stallion inhaled primly, noting no unusual scents that could be used to fog his mind, nothing that could explain the stupor that Rhoswen's presence had summoned. It was possible that she was a sorceress, a demon, a witch; he did not doubt that the phoenix before him had capabilities beyond his knowledge (Don't we all?). Indeed, the scholar within him yearned to crack her pretty skull like an egg and watch the secrets spill out while the monster that perched inside his bones thought of things rather less pleasant. 

Despite the storm of confusion and sin that roiled within his crowned skull, Camdis was easily whisked away from his musings as Rhoswens's reply echoed down the dim hall. A grin found it's place upon the stallion's lips and he discovered that he rather enjoyed the sound of the mare's voice. Quirking a brow at her question, the Regent merely nodded his answer- of course his parents were dead, it seemed obvious enough by his wretched behavior that he hadn't had the privilege of having his poor manners beaten out of him. Then, at the mention of Reichenbach - her brother. Her brother. - his eyes widened almost imperceptibly as understanding clicked together within his mind. 

The essence of the ethereal that clung to her frame, the cobwebs and moonlight that peppered her aura, that infuriating, intoxicating confidence that laced her every breath... of course she was related to his Night King, his beloved savior and friend, his curse and his blessing and the fire that raced through his veins. Running a suddenly dry tongue over his teeth before responding, Camdis was surprised to find that his voice still fit within the parameters of a casual conversation despite the excitement and curiosity racing down his spine, "I'm his Regent, actually. Your brother is a fine King and we love him dearly. I'm lucky to serve alongside him - luckier to name him friend." Cocking his head to the side at the notion of him being a black sheep, Camdis narrowed those silvery eyes in an almost playful manner, "Why not stay with him in the Night Court, then? If you are his sister, how could the two of you part ways?" 

It was still a new concept to the stallion, that siblings could choose to leave one another when he hailed from a realm where the two were inextricably bound - indeed, that notion wasn't truer anywhere but with Camdis Lohir.