Inariel’s gaze remained firm on his predecessor watching the way his eyes struggled and wrestled to hide his desires. It must have been maddening to have gone so long with out food. How many meals he must of scrapped by just to feed the children alone. It inflamed the crimson heir to no end tk even think about how apex’s could become to meek to hunt. To see his family so…domesticated, immolated his soul more than he care to openly admit. He was fully prepared storm this place demanding the compliance and subjugation of ever warrior here. To claim the throne leading with an iron fist and violence. However as he looked into Aurelius hungry eyes he remembered the words his mother spoke the day his birthrune awakened, a power he has been unable to use since.
"You fight for the family you were denied? What use is a throne to one so unconcerned with the lives of others? What would earning an empty seat mean when all you've ever known is solitude? My little fox, what does this victory mean to you?"
Victory for him was not to be a dictator. To not be a ruler that relies on fear of his people to be considered strong. Not one who would weaponize their guilt nor berate them even lower than they already were. Victory to him…was seeing them in their primes to see the legacy in full bloom the paragons of his bloodline blossom emerging from this mire of penitence becoming veritable forrest of potential. He remembered times where he was at his lowest. Where his vulnerability could’ve been abused by those around him…and yet never was. Instead they chose to uplift him. What his people needed was not a strike of dominance nor the sting of a vehement tongue.
What they needed was a Pilar to lean on.
A hand to guide
A voice to inspire
A heart that would heal
A claw that would protect
A Crown that would lead
He was unsure that he would be able to fill many of these roles and whether he would lead them to propensity…or their deaths. But as he watched the war within Aurelius who’s sense of self was so deeply impacted by the pains of hunger roared with a primal wale, while his meekness fumbled over his regrets fighting to keep him stagnant.
He knew as one beast knows another of its kind that within the gold fur lies a voracious appetite for more than blood…but release from this pitiful mediocrity. Inariel knew come whatever trial and storm that may he knew he could not look his blood in the eye and do nothing. So if he needed to be taught what he did not know fine. But he would no longer stand on the sidelines while fate had its way with him…nor his kin.
Their senses, dulled by centuries of deprivation, suddenly awaken with a ravenous hunger that claws at their very being, a relentless beast gnawing at their soul as the droplet floating on its long finger nail. Thoughts of regret rear its ugly head and prowl the shadowed corridors of their mind. The air thickens with the scent of ancient decay and forgotten despair and Memories of long-forgotten feasts taunt them, whispering promises of ecstasy long denied.
“Yes! YES!”
He could not help but to exclaim in excitement watching the very literal life reignite the burning flames of desire in Aurelius’s heart. Like an engine it pumped Inariel’s essence through the golden furs body revitalizing his dormant muscles inspiring Rythm in his “Ava” once more. Inariel was a sorcerer of incredulous potential whose mana endowed blood could inspire life in the most inhabitable of domains. He never, though, offered it willing to another being.
“There is but one use for the past”
Inari’s sin lies in overindulgence, greed and envy. He has only ever used his blood to take never to give. Robbing people of their livesMerely viewing all things as little more than tools for a greater purpose. His purpose. However, through his travels he has seen the power of unity and has even had his own life saved several times by it. Through the crucible of the crown Inariel learned a powerful lesson facing off against a Hellgate noble… the current crown of the Tyre.
Hellgates were a family for a reason. Their very blood is built upon eons of tradition and cultivation centered around bringing out the absolute best. He had fooled himself into believing he could just stampede his way through literately claiming his magic around to do so.
But it brought him nothing but a humbling.
While there was power in being alone… no flowers grows withought help from something. That was how he saw them flowers that had been neglected a garden of possibilities long forgotten by their Gardner.
“Nrgh!”
Their eyes locked as Aurelius voraciously fed from Inari his throat like a living void draining him of a large amount of blood. Fortunately for them all. Inariel had more than enough to spare. As Aurelius felt his mind and flesh renewed his mind now would be the one of set by a staggering barrage of visions and emotions. For the blood of the one he fed keeps within it a vicious cycle of loss and sorrow. Hundreds of lifetimes flood the former crown’s mind unleashing within it a furious storm of experience that even Inari with all his control could not mitigate becuae of how fast Aurelius was consuming it.
His mind would be beset by 1,000 years of hope crushed . A millennia of nothing but failed attempts to break the curse that had created a web where the grief of the past becomes its anchor in the present destroying any hope of a future. The rush of visions come to sudden halt with Aurelius standing alone before a vile cardinal glare looming in the sky as the sanguine ire of the moon palpates. A thin line etches from the left side of the sphere to the other a moment later and the divide comes to life the surface of the Scartlet Moon opens revealing an insidious
crimson eye and an almost maddening scream before it all fell silent.
As he drank deeply, they were transported to a psychic realm accessible only to their kind—a plane of existence where past, present, and future converged in a timeless dance. In this ethereal realm, the ancient vampiric-elv felt a profound connection to the tapestry of history, his consciousness intertwining with the memories of those who had walked the earth before him.
As the visions of Inari’s life came and went the darkness befell them before erupting into a site that was almost to beautiful to be hold. A realm who every echo felt like a ripple through his sense down into his very soul. Here his mind and heart found nothing more than calm…and from the looks of Aurelia it was similar for him. He exuded a mytscal radiance that defied the persona he wore when they first laid eyes on each other. Who…or what he was now was far greater than that she’ll. Who he was now felt like Kirin itself stood before him.
“The only use we have for the past is to use it to embellish the now. For the future is not designed but what we did in the past.”
As he felt the congealing of their consciousness Inari own regrets around Bora death flickered into the realm. Then to his fight in the Crown Jewel where Kirin light embraced him filling his body with lunar magic.
“But by what and who we choose to be today.”
His eyes opened resting solely onto Aurelius as the realm flickered and ebbed about.