Luke 8:39

The willowy godling remained mute, listening keenly as his mother offered a solution to his sister. To slaughter her husband and his lover, branding their stilled hearts with Modesty's sigil to claim them in death. To take any children and raise them in His light, or snuff them out alongside the adulterers. As an outsider to the sociopolitics of leading a pack and tending a family, it seemed reasonable enough to Pontifex. When his mother turned her eye on him, the intensity of it burned in his chest. She asked if he had produced any heirs of his own, accumulated any followers. He swallowed sharply, fighting down the bile that rose in his throat. The reality of his failure to uphold their most basic tenets.

He shook his head mutely, two-toned eyes downcast and empty. Though he had welcomed Emile into the shrine, a tenuous relationship whose label he wasn't quite certain of, they couldn't have children together. The blond man was far too shaky and nervous still, Pontifex would never dream of broaching the topic of children at this juncture. He has considered simply acquiring a suitable she-wolf and doing away with her after his brood was delivered. That way there would be no threat of someone else encroaching on his partnership with Emile. The thoughts were quickly dismissed as his mother asked after the pack that had inhabited the lands, who had cast them out all those years ago. Of his missing siblings. He dared to lift his gaze from his mismatched paws to Toxicity's, revealing the sigil carved into the earth beneath her.

As Modesty spoke to the moving of the pack, Pontifex felt the urge to mention that he had rejoined them from a time. Invited by Hattori, prior to the koi king's own abdication of the throne and Venom's subsequent disavowing of her Abraxas heritage. But no. It felt like a betrayal now that he lingered just out of reach of the Abraxas matriarch. Perhaps some other time, he could find the courage to speak to it. Not now. Instead.. "Faith left the lands for a time, doing His bidding. I caught some traces of her scent a few seasons ago, but nothing recent. Patience never resurfaced after the Long Night began, I believe her to have rejoined Him in the next realm." the wraith spoke up, raising his eyes to his mother's to see her reaction. Would she mourn the loss of one of their siblings?

He tracked the way his mother stepped away from Modesty, drawing closer to him on phantom-quiet paws. For a moment, he worried she was ashamed, assessing him for weakness. But he saw the flicker of familiar affection in her eyes, and was all at once a child again. A nervous boy who wanted nothing more than her love and approval. And he took a slow stride forward, and then another. Until he was able to feel the warmth of living flesh radiating from her, and gently slid the side of his muzzle against her strong neck. Felt the pulse of blood beneath his cheek as he drew close enough to feel her embrace. Pontifex sought to loosely wrap his white-dipped forepaw around Toxicity's foreleg, create another point of contact. He would soak up as much of his mother's touch as possible, starved for it for so long. Etch this tenuous contact into his brain, in case it was the last.

"Pontifex" || "Hallux" || "Pollux"