Quicksilver was gone. Under normal circumstances the Roux-Abrhen's absence would not have concerned Sinaaq except for the fact that he had been gone for some time. At first, the darkling had assumed what he had came to expect from his companion: that he had ran off to chase some tail, as he usually did; or perhaps had gone off to see if he could add the Queen to his list of conquests. Sinaaq had never asked, never desired to pry and, truly, didn't care what the other male did. They were companions, sure, but that did not mean they had to be privvy to every detail of one another's life. Sinaaq was not Quicksilver's sitter and did not see reason to keep tabs on him twenty four seven. Days had dwindled into weeks and still no sign, no word from or of Quicksilver. Too much time had passed for it to be a “conquest” trip and there was no way that Quicksilver had been after Cara — he'd have sought Sinaaq out a long time ago. Despite himself, Sinaaq hadn't realized that he'd begun to count on Quicksilver's return to him like clockwork, and counting on anything, for the darkling was dangerous.

Despite himself, Sinaaq had begun to see Quicksilver as something as a friend — albeit an annoying one but a friend nevertheless, and as usual Sinaaq was left alone. Eventually, the darkling had learned over the span of his short life thus far: everyone left. The Dark Priestess had died, Adlartok had left, Solia had left, and now Quicksilver, too, had left. Left Sinaaq all alone in this pack, with these wolves he did not and did not care to know, and the childish queen and her elder, angry, domineering mate.; and not for the first time Sinaaq found himself at a crossroads.

Initially, he did not know what to do. There was nothing to truly keep him in the Spine, with Quicksilver gone, but no real reason to leave besides his own persnickety judgments. With a dervisive snort the darkling set his fierce, fiery gaze of liquid gold to the sunset in the distance, settling like a pretty, tormented and seething statue, staring so ferociously and darkly at the horizon as if he were attempting to actually set fire to it as he contemplated what to do.

The low chuff caught his attention mere moments after it had left the Queen's lips to break through the chilling silence made more harsh by the cold dusk that had settled in around them. He had heard her approach, of course, her scent had drifted his way but it was not until Cara had given him a verbal acknowledgment that he returned the favor, glimpsing leisurely over his shoulder to allow his eyes of fierce, fiery liquid gold to rake upon her form with distant interest and mild but disengaged curiosity that he did not intend to act upon. Mostly, he was remember the way their eyes had met during the acceptance meeting, though odd Sinaaq chose not to capitalize upon it. There was little to no use in pondering, and no gain in caring enough to bring it up.

For a moment he looked away from her, returning his gaze back upon the horizon, studying the marrying of colors, fierce and burning as they were, reminiscent of the night he had slaughtered Glimmer for trying to take Adlartok from him. Looking back upon it now, the darkling considered that he should have let the bitch take his nephew and spare him the heartbreak of the ignorant child's betrayal that he now suffered from. If Sinaaq knew then what he knew now there was much that he would change, so many choices and courses he would alter in attempts to save whatever was left of cracked and fissured heart, so much more damaged than it had first been.

The first step to ensuring that it never happened again was simple and complicated. He would have to kill what was making him ill and he believed it to span from matters regarding the heart. Not so much the physical as the emotional, the mental metaphor of it; and despite what he put off Sinaaq was not incapable of emotions. "Sunsets like this make the skyline look like it has been set aflame," Sinaaq broke his silence before he glimpsed over his shoulder once more to stare at her, unabashed. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Sinaaq held no regard for caring what anyone appreciated, having never been a selfless creature, and it was not because of the intensity in her eyes that made him break the contact. It had been because he had grown bored of it. Her eyes were boring to him, having seen nothing within their irises that even remotely fascinated him. Srinaaq was hardly lack witted and understood that she could have easily seen the contact of their eyes to be a challenge — perhaps if she had she wouldn't have been wrong. Sinaaq didn't care much for authority, having only listened to Frigga because he had loved her. The leaders of Wintersun had only been obeyed because the wretched darkling hadn't wanted to leave Solia because...he had loved her, too. Love was a foolish thing, he scoffed now, it did not exist. It was child's play and he no longer believed in such things. It was only another easily bought lie to destroy your heart. Sinaaq had learned this the hard way, many, many times over.

Sinaaq's ears swiveled back to catch her words, the soft barking that the sunset was the death of the sun. Perhaps, for the stretch of night, it was but it was not ever truly death. Death was everlasting and each morn the sun rose to a fiery glory again and again, as it had from the beginning of time to the end of time. "It is not truly death," Sinaaq murmured, scowling into the horizon. "Death is everlasting and those that it steals do not come back. Not even the sun would be beyond that." He knew Death well. Perhaps a little bit more well than he would have liked.

Her question caused a soft snort to come from Sinaaq, barely audible. Whether Cara caught it or not the darkling didn't truly care, either way. Her sudden interest in his welfare felt faked to him, like she was trying too hard to appear that she cared about her pack members but didn't. At the very least, if she did care about her subordinates, she couldn't care about him. You didn't usually care about someone you didn't even know, after all. "Do you really care?" The darkling inquired, giving her a look over his shoulder, brow rising into a wicked arch over his eye. "You do not have to feign such things in my presence, I won't be upset."

Perhaps if Sinaaq would have been observing this interaction from a third person point of view, disconnected, he would have found it to be nothing short of quizzical. The dark fallen speaking of setting fire to the horizon and his contrasting Queen speaking of the death of the sun, only for the topic to move to a stranger place yet. Caring. The subordinate deciding that the Queen's caring was false in his well being without even bothering to give her the benefit of the doubt. ...But Sinaaq did not need to see things from a disconnected, non participant point of view to understand that many would see his words as challenging. And they were challenging. Sinaaq had always held his own agenda, moved to his own flow as opposed to following another's. Caring. How he completely and utterly hated the notion, and slowly that hatred manifested into a hate of even the word itself and any associated synonyms for it. Caring was useless, and he would be hard pressed to believe that she cared, despite that her lips had parted to tell him that she did, indeed care, even going so far as to put enunciation upon it. A way to drive home her point, would he have not already dismissed it with a soft scoff to the burning horizon.

And if she truly did care about him in any semblance than she was a fool. He was poison, after all. A nightmare. The jeer lingered upon his muzzle, wordless. Perhaps caring for others was not such a damaging thing but every-time he dared to care about anything other than himself everything went horrendously wrong and he ended up with another crack in his spider-webbed heart. Each new crack begged the question of how much more he could take before it shattered all together. The darkling was in no hurry to find out, and thus determined to focus on the only thing that truly mattered: himself. Even Quicksilver had served to be more proof to his already fairly concrete theory. He had known the other male to be flighty, especially with his women if his boasts held any truth to them but to be so flighty as to leave, especially after he'd showed such brazen interest in the woman whom Sinaaq assessed once more as he glimpsed back over his shoulder at her, had not been expected. Regardless, Quicksilver was gone and Sinaaq was left to this place, alone. As he always was.

Her question brought with it a wicked quirk of his brow, and he tilted his head slightly so fiery light of the ardent horizon, the last fight of the sun before it sunk entirely beneath the rise of the earth in the vast distance played with the shadows that moved across his face. I am long beyond caring for anything besides myself, He informed her in a contemplative murmur. That door had slammed closed and was welded shut tightly with the intention of the contents of the room never seeing the light of day again for so long as Sinaaq could help it. Perhaps this would be the moment in which Cara would tell him to get lost and he would go without an argument. He had no ties here, nothing truly binding him with Quicksilver lost to the wind. If she chose to make the move, Sinaaq was not sure where he would go or what he would do but he had been living as a vagabond long enough by now to not feel bothered by the solitary life. Instinct would show him the way.

Disappointment was left to fester like a sickness within him as Cara did not even attempt to try to salvage it, did not attempt to change his mind. Predictably, she had failed him in that instant, too. In some small semblance, the darkling could not help but admire her for it: for her resolute readiness to cut from the Spine what could not care for anything beyond himself. He had tried, and every time he had gotten hurt. Even Quicksilver had cut his own mark on Sinaaq despite that they had not known each other for long. Leaving him without so much as a word had hurt, though Sinaaq acted as if it did not matter. His indifference was a coping mechanism he had developed a long, long time ago and at this point he failed to see a way to even turn it off. It was so resolutely a part of him that without it he feared he would not know who he was. Losing himself was a large unknown and typical to most cognitive beings, he subconsciously feared what he did not know. Thus, it remained his safety line and he clung to it like a parasite.

Even Cara had left a small slice of pain upon him, her own wound despite that Sinaaq had tried to avoid feeling anything towards her besides contempt. He still questioned her ability to rule as he first had upon their initial meeting but warred with the slight swell of pride that she didn't bother to grovel to him. He hadn't been looking for her to grovel, but to see if she truly did care as she had spoken. Someone who cared would have fought a little harder as opposed to accepting a truth and taking the only plausible course of action. She had failed. Still, Sinaaq was not sure how to handle or deal with the disappointment he felt, irrational to him as it was.

“That's it?” Sinaaq inquired ardently, raising to all fours, turning to face her in full, ignoring the wrinkle of her muzzle in warning. “You're not even going to try to convince me?” He was even more skeptical of her so called words of “caring”, disbelieving her now more so than he had before. “Would you have tried to convince Quicksilver would he be here in my place instead?” Sinaaq demanded to know, his once companion's name leaving his lips acidic, tasting like ashes in his mouth. He missed Quicksilver; and hated every second of it — fearing that he would, too, miss her and her wretched Spine.

He hated it and feared it. He did not know how to communicate such a thing to her and even if he could find the right way to put it, he did not want her to know, at the same time. He had to protect himself, keep others out so they could not do what Adlartok, his precious and most hated had done to him. So they could no longer destroy him. It had become the basis of his survival instincts but it made him what he was: Wretched. Dark. Poison. One could even go as far as to say that he was feeling, perhaps, a spark of jealousy assuming that: yes, she would have put more effort into convincing Quicksilver because it was the other male that had been more approachable. Not tormented as his darker counterpart. They had balanced one another out in a unorthodox way, like a yin and yang effect. “I chased her out, you know. The wench with the ugly scar down her face,” Sinaaq was more than vain enough to let such a thing become a massive turn off for him. “I chased her out for you,” The darkling hissed at his (ex?) Queen unsure why he was even bothering informing her of it. It had happened some time ago now and hardly mattered anymore.