The way this ‘woman’ had spoken to this ‘man’ just then, the bold insults and the insolence that dripped from her luscious lips, was no less delicious. There was a time when Veron Blacktear would have taken the tongue of the one who spoke to him so, and though this beast would probably prove to be not so easy on the approach as those, his anger might have blazed just then regardless and gotten the better of him. 

However, that time was gone, and it had been a long time since the rat, the man, could converse so candidly, so freely, never mind whether he was ever a king, is or was. [i]Is she…[/i] Even his thoughts trailed off but, like the critters he had observed, his mind was never vacant. While one eye watched, the other ‘eye’ listened, so that his mind was always active, never distant. [i]My mirror image..? [/i]Fragmented, perhaps, but in a way she reminded him of his forsaken past.

Despite the spider’s odd and awkward hostility toward him, there was honesty that even an arrogant king could not deny. Especially when said king was no longer bound by the chains of his own sovereignty. She was right, to an extent. He had lost his kingdom the very same day his world died. [i]All is lost. All is gone… No, you’re wrong, Veron. You are not. You remain. [/i]

Valucre may have died. Veron was still alive.

And why should he hide whatever image he remembered of his very own self from her? As amusing as this creature before him was, an enigma in her own right, she had all the importance as the fox, squirrel, the bird…the spider. The trees around her and him might still be standing whatever happened to either. 

His contemporary might see him as a means to an end, a tool to take her on a tour in this forest that may be as forsaken as their realms of old, but he did not need her even on that level. To impress her required purpose from her; yet, if in the end Veron Blacktear was really still asleep, and this was all a dream, of what purpose was his own existence within it, never mind the spider’s?

She smirked. He smiled. Whether because of her words or his thoughts. Whatever her tone, a merger of sarcasm or sincerity, one or the other, she was funny. She quivered, mocking him in a way he did not already expect of her character. [i]A sense of humor.[/i] In the end, she was no mere voyager. A strange quaint little creature, certainly, but another survivor from time and space dark. Though he would take her claims of his being great to his heart.

[color=8493ca]“A king of Valucre can eat, sleep, piss and shit just like anybody.”[/color] He didn’t know or care how she would take it. Emphasis on circumstance seemed appropriate. [color=8493ca]“If there are only trees around us then you won’t see anything else from me.”[/color] No point in hiding it. No point in foraging for forging a kingdom of leaves and twigs, a crown of lettuce and sticks, with foxes and squirrels for his subjects.

[color=8493ca]“Stuck together, is it?”[/color] Apparently they were matching grins. [color=8493ca]“That sentence remains to be interpreted. I can only hope you don’t mean being stuck in a web to drink me in ways…unfitting.”[/color]

His naked eye shifted again, but not to gawk at insects. There was movement in the distance; the rustle of leaves, like a violent wind had thrashed at branches, pushed past bush, closer, closer. [color=8493ca]“Table this conversation for later, maybe?”[/color]

He had no armor. No weapons. Except for hard skin, his fists and his barbed tail. [color=8493ca]“Something is coming.”[/color]