Duck Lake just back to die

Being this far away from the ocean made him physically sick, but this is where her trail had led. He was no longer of use to the Nereides, so they had sent him away. He was old now, unable to produce children like he had the past several years before. He had been a good consort, they told him, but it was his time to go. He had served his purpose, so he went to the only thing he could remember outside of The Nereides. @Caiaphas. She had been one of them once, but not really one of them. She had been his queen once. His siren queen.

She was close now, he could sense it. All those years apart, but he remembered her scent so well. With his nose to the ground, he followed. There was something off about it, but he brushed it away. He chose to ignore it. He had to find her.

round the lake the apparition went, the siren queen's body following. what was left of caiaphas' mind was an inferno belching inane chatter; fiery offshoots of fractured hellish thoughts. here one minute, gone the next.

temporal and fleeting -- like a streaking comet, a setting sun, a life.

caiaphas had no ability to think about the meridian of her life, nor the swiftly approaching evening of her death. her thoughts came in crippled tangents, underrun with one universal and undeniable instinct: fear.

she had never been in terror of her life, not once; yet now, the husk that was caiaphas was driven by fear unremitting. it consumed her the way flames would consume a fire-licked tree, burning rapidly in hot orange from the inside out.

she kept on; kevlyn was close. kevlyn was near.

yet something stood in her way - something tangible, a threat -- furiously, caiaphas' maddening stare fell on spyridon. she did not see him for the acolyte he had once been, nor the friend of her pack -- she saw him only as a shimmering, deadly threat.. and that threat put the fear of her life into her.

she drove forward, a guttural noise in her throat more close to drowning than a growl. drool frothed in obscene rivulets from her parted mouth as she staggered, her feverish eyes focused only on the ghoul before her that must be vanquished.

Just like that, there she was. If he sensed any danger, he ignored it. His queen! She was just as he remembered her. Hadn't he remembered her like this? She came toward him with sounds he chose to ignore. Not natural sounds. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew something was wrong, but he decided it was less important than seeing her again.

Not even now did he realize that he was, and always had been, madly in love with her. The siren queen, unlike any other that he had served. She had been so different, so opinionated, so blasphemous. So wonderful. As she approached him with hostility, he welcomed her openly. He would not resist whatever she chose to with him.

;-; <3

had caiaphas been aware, she might have noticed how he had aged -- how both of them had been warped and bent by time. he turned to her with joy rather than fear -- something not even the husk-caiaphas registered as she lumbered forth.

no, all she saw was blurring black and red. a looming beast, come to take her from kevlyn.

no! no NO NO NO NO! her mouth worked furiously, a new wave of nauseating drool replacing the stuttering horror of her non-compliant throat. he would not take her from him! not her son!

caiaphas lurched once, as if a hidden hand drove her muscle memory to activate. if spyridon had yet to move, he would find no siren at his doorstep, but a belligerent, maddened harpy -- with no goal save to desolate all that came upon her.

She came at him with a speed he wouldn't have expected for her age, but he should have known. She was a siren queen. Of course she would live longer than he; thrive longer than he. He had not expected their reunion to be so prompt, so loving. He did not move, for that was not his way. He was a servant to the sirens, not one to cower away at their punishments that he surely deserved.

He embraced her for a split second before her teeth sank into his flesh. Instead of pain, he felt relief. Without a purpose, without being a consort, he had nothing. She, his queen, his love, had shown him mercy. Instead of living with nothing, Spyridon would die with everything.

Passage of time morphed. He remembered Kelvin, Nakai, Aella, and all the wolves he had spent so many years with on Themiscrya Coast. As he bled out, he thought of them, but Caiaphas was at the forefront of his mind until his dying breath, which did not come long after she first sliced his flesh.

there was no mercy -- not for caiaphas, not for spyridon. she never recognized him as she cut him down. no remaining memory came to the surface of him once standing besides her in the ceremonial pool -- no long lost nostalgia washed over her, for the time he had served as her best and brightest in the aftermath of kevlyn's death.

poor spyridon, who deserved a far better end than at the hands of a rabid beast!

a garbled, blooded noise wet and obfuscating sounded -- both from caiaphas and spyridon, as blood gushed forth from his throat, from her mouth and bloodied tongue. she did not taste its sweetness, she did not know as the last of his life's blood pumped out in darkened red across the snow. she moved past his slumped form, crimson ebbing down her slender throat in cerise bloom. she knew not that she had just slain a friend, perhaps her only friend remaining.

all she knew was the way was clear -- kevlyn was waiting on the other side.