not even you can chew through my bones (I've got very strong bones)

There was a scattering of snowfall that didn't stick to the ground that surrounded the volcano, the familiar spire of ebon stone that loomed over the landscape. He missed the stink of brimstone that was an unavoidable undercurrent carried by the breeze. Morticia blinked up at him with those bright amber eyes, conveying her sympathy wordlessly. Ichor was.. somewhere. They'd link back up soon enough. He rarely worried about finding the shit disturber he'd shared a womb with. Turned up like a bad penny at every turn. Long limbs carried the dethroned prince closer to the territories where he'd been born, longing for the simplicity of his youth. The cloud cover was sparse tonight, enough to let the flakes keep falling in a meagre sprinkling, but not enough to fully block out the light of the full moon hanging over the darkened terrain. Barely enough light to see by, but enough. Just enough. The odd eyed wraith trailed his talons against the warm earth with each slow, sauntering stride.

A soft sigh escaped him as the old paths found their way beneath his paws without a thought spared to search for them. A hunger for the nostalgia of safety, perhaps a bittersweet desire to hunt for the spectre of his lost mother. Did she haunt the old kingdom? Waiting for someone to bring her a bloodied crown, stained with the gore of her enemies? He'd bring the head of her killer, at the very least. Forge a circlet of gleaming bone from splintered ribs. Chiseled features unreadable as the pale titan dipped his skull to peer into the vacant den where he'd been born. It didn't smell like home. Probably hadn't for months. It reeked of coyote urine and the musty aroma of old decay. Abandoned yet again, it seemed.

The champagne princeling heaved a breath through his nostrils, obscuring his slate marked face in a puff of mist. Brows furrowed as he cast his gaze about, examined the skeletal silhouettes of dormant cherry trees crowding the edge of the barren landscape that ringed the foot of the mountain. Somehow, this felt like the start of something else. Perhaps not moving on, but certainly moving.. forwards. He shook out his pelt to dislodge some clinging snowflakes, and cast his gaze up towards the fuzzy edges of the moon as it climbed ever higher in the sky.