ONLY SCARS REMAIN OF WHO I WAS!

He stumbled across the flowering meadow, the lion's paws dragging and pulling up anything and everything in his path as he walked. Moonlight was scarce, his new markings lighting up most of his path. It was a painful journey to make, this trek across sacred grounds. Something he had once found so beautiful.

He nearly fell when he finally stepped up to it. The grave that was given to Saturn when they first died. It was a painful memory in and of itself, the whole event, the raid. The damned Typhoon Raid. The memories were so clear, so painfully real, and he felt his body warm. His legs trembled with the grief and rage and, eventually, he fell upon the earth. A horrid noise left him, some mix between a wail and a scream, and he scored his claws along his own shoulders and forelegs.

He sobbed, tears flowing from closed eyes, face contorted as he gasped for air between each wrenched, grief-stricken noise. His purple blood seeped from open wounds and soaked the earth, and he couldn't stop crying. There was nothing to bury. No body, no bones. Everything from them had been taken. Dignity, a body. Everything.

Soon, wails and sobs turned into silence, his shaking body rising to stand. Flames licked at his mane, vibrant purple against maroon, and he raised his head. Where Saturn had gone, he didn't know. Their soul could have gone anywhere, really. But he was sure they were gone for good. His jaws, with bone-colored teeth and purple gums and tongue, opened to scream. It was a terrible noise, but very brief as his voice became lost.

Panting, he looked down. He wanted, so badly, to tear up the earth. Find their original bones. Have something. But he did. He had his children. Theseus, Nesraa. Odysseus, even if she, too, vanished. They were what remained of Saturn. Their kindness and hope. His mane fell over his eyes, and he wiped the tears from them.

"I will avenge you, my love. My love, who loved me for what I chose to become. I will avenge you; I will protect our remaining children." He spoke softly, though there was a passion in his voice. Something he hardly felt. A certain kind of rage.

"Even if I must return to the path I left. The monster I strayed from."

BYRIATH-COALITION-FALLEN GOD OF VIOLENCE, CRUELTY, AND MALICE