Welcome to Gaia! ::

The whole situation was a complete and utter blur. There was blood on his hands that he didn’t remember where it came from. But he knew he had hurt someone.

Bad.

Zapathasura ran through the night. These times when he blanked out we’re often times bad things happened that he couldn’t control. His twin tails flicked in annoyance behind him. Images of his father’s ring stuck in his head. Making him increasingly agitated.

He crossed a courtyard when the scent of cloves caused him to stop in his tracks. Zapathasura turned slowly to a large gathering of shadows. The bright red cherry of a cigar illuminating a face that he knew but was not familiar with.

His father.

Dread sunk deep into his belly. The look on his father’s face let him know he had ******** up royally somehow.

“Father…” Zapathasura clenched his fists at his sides. “A pleasure to finally see you after all this time.” He smirked. A dark and menacing smirk that resembled nothing of the charming smirk his father often flashed.

Grendel had given Ravnos time. Plenty of time, in fact. His own son had needed some attending to, the God weaving a protecting spell over him that he now fully intended to give to Thorne as well, as Zapathasura's threat for all of his siblings, the threat he saw in his vision, replayed through his mind.

Easier to kill him, of course, and end the threat from its source. But that was a complicated matter. The God had exercised an extraordinary amount of restraint in this situation, and all because the cause of his ire was the son of the man he loved.

He had then left Cassius with his mate, with instructions to get him fed immediately, lest he fall into a frenzy. With that business taken care of, he had departed.

------

On a rooftop, he perched, overlooking a courtyard. Darkness and shadow hid him from view, though the embers of his red eyes glowed somewhere within those depths. He was there, watching the exchange between father and son with some satisfaction, though he would have preferred more brutal methods than that which Ravnos had chosen.

Such as evisceration. That was always a good time.

Still. There was something off about Zapathasura. The God stood and transported himself to the courtyard to stand next to Ravnos.

"His mind is broken." He said, looking down at the vampire, his head cocking to one side, eyes narrowed. "I could attempt to fix it, though it likely would not improve his personality. He despises you."

Grendel was not used to hearing Ravnos like this. For now, his usual teasing and what seemed like eternal optimism, and ridiculously chill attitude was gone. It didn't bother him, per se. He knew that something darker always lurked beneath the surface. He was a vampire, after all, and one of the oldest. You didn't get this far by being nice.

Grendel rolled his shoulders, his dark gaze held steady on the bloodied form of Zapathasura. "I would." He stated it plainly, his voice dark and dangerous, "But I am extending a courtesy and allowing you to decide what is done."

He kept himself from looking at Ravnos. This moment was between a God and his Disciple, not between two who loved each other dearly. If he looked at him, it might become too easy to forget that.

"As he is now, he is a detriment. This behavior can not be allowed to continue. He will, inevitably, do something unforgivable." And then Grendel would not have a choice. He would either need to be destroyed or locked away where he could do no further harm.

The answer was not quite what he had expected. He had offered the Disciple options, to attempt to heal what he could of Zapathasura's mind or to rid him of the child completely. While Ravnos's reply could have been interpreted however the God wished, including permission to end the clanless vampire's life right then and there, he also knew that if that was what Ravnos truly wanted, he would have asked for it outright.

So, he was undecided. Fine. Grendel would decide for him.

Stalking towards Zapathasura was an ominous figure, one of blood and death and shadows. The area around the God seemed to darken more and more as he approached, inky blackness that one felt they could drown in spreading from his feet. He stooped down to look more closely at the son of Ravnos, a sneer on his lips, his elongated fangs somehow appearing sharper and more deadly than that of any vampire. He grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and rose, lifting the vampire with ease. The God loomed large, much larger than he normally chose to appear, large enough to swallow Zapathasura whole and end his miserable existence on the spot.

But he did not do that. Instead, shadowy tendrils wrapped around Ravno's son, binding him from ankle to throat, tightening around him with unbreakable and constricting force. Before them, a portal opened, revealing the wastelands beyond, and the entrance of a cave.

"Know that I could have killed you, and know that one day, I still might." He growled at the vampire in his grasp. "I hope that what awaits you here is worse than anything you could have imagined."

He tossed the vampire through the opening and watched him land just outside of that cave. Lilith's cave. She could take him or leave him. It was now out of the God's hands to decide what happened next.

The portal closed, and as if nothing happened, Grendel stood where he had been before, only back to the form Ravnos was more accustomed to.

Eyes closed, Grendel was taking a moment, or perhaps several, to regain his composure. He was angry still, and at that moment, he wasn't sure who he was angriest with, just that he was, and he needed to calm down before potentially doing something that he would regret.

Ravnos's words filtered through. The God gritted his teeth and did not answer.

Just a few moments more, perhaps.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and expelled a long, long breath, the tension in his shoulders easing as he rolled his head from side to side.

He glanced toward the Disciple but did not know what to say.

It had been a long night. A very long night.

Finally he moved towards him, and held out his hand, silently. Whatever Ravnos was going through, Grendel wanted him to be able to work it out, but he would not leave him unless he was told to go.

It took him a moment to process what Ravnos was saying. Whether or not his son and his mate managed to find themselves a clan was the furthest thing from his mind. However, once he understood what the Disciple meant he frowned, and tugged on his hand to try and pull him closer.

"This is not just out of pity, I hope, or any kind of favor to me."

The God wrapped his free arm around Ravnos's waist, his hand resting on his hip, the two of them illuminated by moonlight in the courtyard. The frown that furrowed Grendel's brow, however, did not smooth away. Instead, he snorted and gave his head a small shake.

"I think I would have preferred it if he had fought back."

Still, he had seen what had happened through Cassius's own mind. He knew that his son could have approached things aggressively, but had chosen to try and talk things through instead. Even when he had been pinned by Zap, before the violence had begun in earnest, he had tried to stem the oncoming onslaught with words.

"So long as you are sure."

Grendel looked at Ravnos, then looked at the arm he had punched and then looked back at Ravnos with the biggest what the ********> squint that ever existed. But then, his lips curled up into a smile, and he chuckled lightly and ducked in for a soft but quick kiss against the Disciples lips. Somehow, after all that they had just been through in the past hour or so, things had gotten back to feeling so absurdly normal.

The God took that as a good sign that they could, and would, work just fine together, both as a couple in a relationship and in their more dutiful roles.

Some of his own worries, ones he had not even been aware he had been holding onto, were beginning to ease as well.

"Something else I would rather do...." He pretended to think it over for a moment, looking up at the sky and then back over at Ravnos. "You mean...like you?" He smirked, but then quickly shook his head.

"I should finish the temple." Or, rather, start on it.