( Possibilities, probabilities. The unmistakable reality of threats looming large before them. Death traps, cocoons, whispers, dark wet decaying his bones.

He shivers, and the quiet of his horror laves long licks on his spine. Under the auspices of faint torchlight, he steels himself in increments, walking the room in trickled steps. He is watched, Wrath's interest a familiar weight. )

It is my birthright. ( The strength of a bloodline, passed down. ) The man who holds half of my soul does not share it.

( What use, then, is immortality? Already, his face does not betray its decades, flesh stilled and slowed from ageing. He has betrayed himself, rushing towards a gilded purpose his husband, unknown in his revival, cannot reach. )

They say life is for the living. ( Not grief. )