#♛

[belacedia-a]

. * ♛ •       UNPROMPTED ‚   always accepting. @zorkaya beseeched:  "No, I don't look at you as if you're a fool," Zarina shakes her head as she twirls his knife in her hand, skillfully showing that she also had a knack for playing around with such weapons, but she doesn't do it for no purpose. "You're smart, but you've got a lot to learn akin to a child who has yet to reach his full potential," she explains as she throws the knife into the wall, it lands exactly in the middle of a photograph of a person who was hanging on the wall - one of the future targets. "You can be the smartest person in this whole city, but even geniuses slip and fall. Pride becomes one's downfall and if you cannot fit, you'll fall no matter what." She doesn't smile or laugh while explaining it to him, walking around the room looking around. From what she concluded, Belphegor has yet to reach something more but he had no one to guide him. Wouldn't be fun to offer him a path towards better (bitter) glory that may make him into someone even more dangerous. "You can try to scare me away with violence, but it gets boring when you're always surrounded by it. Men especially are known for their raging outbursts, didn't you notice?" The woman ponders for a second, turning to the Prince with a chilling and calm smile, her eyes show no concern and no fear, there's calmness. Is she an illusion right now or is she real? With her, it's always been a question. "Have you ever thought of how much more can you reach if you had someone guide you? You clearly have no true guidance, Varia is not a place where you'll be given the right .. hm, support, I'd say. You're predictable to me, just like many in this place, but it's not about their battle skillset, it's about their reactions to what is around. Don't you ever wish you could control your emotions and turn them into another weapon?" Was she offering to give him a way to study? A way to become even stronger? Who knows. She might just speak like this to draw a reaction out of him once more. It was more fun to never know if she really means it or not. "I believe you have potential that can blossom even more with the right path. Right now? I doubt you're at your forty percent of what you can truly become."

                    𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳  𝑳𝑨𝑼𝑮𝑯𝑻𝑬𝑹  𝑹𝑰𝑷𝑷𝑬𝑫  𝑭𝑹𝑶𝑴  𝑯𝑰𝑺  𝑻𝑯𝑹𝑶𝑨𝑻,  pristine teeth bared in a subhuman cheshire grin as he cackled. Belphegor didn’t entirely understand Zarina’s intentions, but he didn’t really care either. Predicatable?  Perhaps. There was no complexity nor depth to his motives, hopes,  &.  dreams  ——  that simple-minded nature of his painfully easy to grasp ...  yet so many people failed to truly understand who Prince the Ripper was, inside  &.  out. Pride? Control? Potential?  Nay, Belphegor was not that intricate of a person. They look too far into who he was  &.  they miss the simplest truth that was always there, unconcealed, shamelessly put out on display for all the world to see.

          “ The Prince will play your game, Sokolova ...  but only if it’s fun ~ ”  Some might say that a person lacking ambition is tragic, yet Belphegor only felt unhinged freedom. There was no pride in his languid strides, no control over his uninhibited emotions,  &.  no desire to achieve whatever boundless potential he may have. If everything in his world was bleached colorless grey, he’d stain it in lurid crimson, then set it all ablaze in scarlet fire.

          “ I have never thought of how far I could reach under the guidance of another person,  &.  neither have I ever wished for anything that wasn’t somehow satisfying to myself, ”  he purrs, acknowledging her questions with sadistic amusement,  “ I don’t go out of my way to do things for other people. Pride is the weakness of peasants who rely on the validation of others to feel satisfaction, ”  he continues, lips relaxed into a lazy smile,  “ &.  I have nothing to hide, least of all my emotions. ”

          A prince has more fun that a king does. “ Why should I want to become stronger ?  To defeat an enemy ?  Ushishishi ~  I have no intention of challenging other people, because I am a Prince. ”  As long as he could fight  &.  he could kill, Prince the Ripper needed nothing else. Some people may play chess inside their minds, with the world as their chessboard  &.  other people as their pieces, but Belphegor would not use his genius to achieve the bitter glory he may be capable of. He was a child, indeed  ——  with naked desire for joy in it’s purest form.

          Zarina’s intentions were a puzzling enigma to Belphegor, a complicated woman with too many facets  &.  layers, like an unsolvable multistep puzzle box  ——  but somehow, it seemed purposeless. When he solved every riddle, cracked each code,  &.  found his way inside, what would he find?  What could possibly be worth locking behind so many facades,  &.  for what reason?  These questions that even a genius prince did not have the answer to swirled around his head in dizzying circles, yet were ultimately meaningless.

          He’d play the game, but only until it was no longer fun  ——  because Belphegor was a Prince,  &.  he didn’t like being bored.