Elm

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

Echoing, echoing.




The man would turn his cold eyes upon the youth with contemplation for the inquiry had pinned him into silence yet again. It was a question he had not asked, had not answered for himself and it was now that the clockwork of his mind would turn and weigh the forked road that lie before him. The man was not oblivious to the darkness that burned so steadily within Basilisk and should he act on it while in Tortuga the man would not be able to claim he did not know what it was he reckoned with. And should that darkness become too much to contain; the man understood it would become his responsibility to extinguish it with permanence. Yet his jowls would part and his cerulean eyes would glow like coals through the steam of his breath in that frigid air. Fire. The man would state in all honesty. It was the youth's ferocity that attracted him so; an eerie reflection of what he had been at that age.




Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

This is rain now, this big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.




Were you born here? He would pose his own query, his possessive stair straying from Basilisk to take in the red trunks that stood silently about them. My children were born here. And they will live here again. A blood right. I know the forest was once your home. So live here again as my children will. Contemplate what is yours and what you must take. Though hoarse the man's voice was unwavering. His crown had turned slowly from the horizon towards Basilisk again. Blood alone will not promise the red forest to my children; to you. The water of thy covenant is thicker than the blood of thy womb. It is a misconception that blood is thicker than water; for it is the relationships you form that give you power.