Crease caked thick cracked earth brown features. Coffee dark rugged rivers rolled through the canyon lines of his brow. His eyes shone startlingly leather black from iris curve to winking corner, gazing with sparkling brightness.
His riveted lips parted and shifted in silence before uttering any sound, “You think age makes me weak?” His voice creaked like the ancient oak, russet leaves rustling. “You think the long years bring me closer to death?”
The firelit cavern shuddered in time to his low, soft, breathy chuckling. “You pine for your day of ... insurrection and succession.” He was racked by further chilling soundless huffing. His crumpled face and sunken eyes leered forwards as he rasped, “then you will be waiting- for eternity.”

The milk skinned youngster retreated in disgust, his arrogant nose lifting and proud brow extending. He marred his finely carved features with a look of superior loathing.
“You claim to be a master over time, yet wear his compliments all over your shrunken body.” He laughed imperiously. The cavern clamoured with the youth, both however, subsided as the old man joined them.

“I know what you want. Go, if you want to go. You're a strong child.”
The youngster bristled all over and stiffened at this statement. “I do not care for the inevitable consequences of your actions. I care about destruction, wherever you go, little one, you will bring destruction, so all is well.”
The other was forestalled by this, to the point where he even forgot to flinch at the condescending address.
“What do you mean?” His grey blue eyes flicked to attention, dark hair hanging with pendulous anxiety.
“Aha” The old man's face creased with glee, “someone has forgotten to adhere and respect the past!”
Silence reigned but for the assault of the crackling fire.
The dark haired youth suddenly cawed again with cruel laughter. He wound a strand of long dark hair behind wide sweeping graceful ears, “Old fool! I'm not stupid- you talk simply of the whinings of old centaurs! You attempt to berate and frighten me with the age old scrawlings of mad horses!” he scoffed, leaning against the rugged wall for support.

The old man smiled with such sneering intensity, that the young elf was quite taken aback. He reclined in a groaning rough carved throne and folded paper thin hands over one another. He commandeered the hush in the room to his own power, before finally permitting its breach;
“I would have thought you of all people, Espan, would realise that it is in the past that true power was created and that only as it permits, is such knowledge passed down to the next generation.” The quiet tone and unnerving shadow in his eye caused the elf to breathe in sharply.
“Yes” he murmured and swept another strand behind his ear, averting his eyes, “but there is much in the world that is old fashioned and needs re-evaluating... and trusting the half crazed ramblings of centaurs-”
“I didn't say trusting. I merely wish to implement the importance of caution and not to dismiss their prophecies so freely”
“Caution!?” the youth sniggered.
“Caution is the sustenance of survival. Even the wild dog knows that.”
“Well I am no dog!” the dark haired elf drew himself up, beautiful azure eyes flashing, “ I am a Prince of the Realms, and will return to take my rightful throne. I will rule in fear, beauty, splendour and absolute power- the name of Espan will be spoken by-”
“Yes, yes. Fear and dread, blah blah. Gelrhoan was just the same; arrogant bastards come and go, they rise and they fall; their existence is a momentary blemish in history- seen it all before. The key to success is to become more! To be loved and hated, feared and cherished above all blind and passionate obedience! Irresistibly cunning and masterfully subtle...but what would you care, eh? History is for the dead, remember?”
The elf was standing rigid, every muscle in his body quivering, “You're lying.” He said flatly, though betrayed himself though his tense stature. “Gelrhoan was... I'm not such a simpleton as to believe you could have communed with someone a thousand years dead! I hope you're not patronising me, because I can tell you now I'm not an-”
“Espan, Espan- don't tell me what you are and what you're not. I understand you more intimately than you yourself ever will.”
The elf stood perfectly still, save for the quivering that enlarged to encompass his whole body.
“What's more,” the lined man creaked, “I know very well of your intelligence- you would not be alive if I did not think you were a promising student-” He paused to raise a withered hand to cease the spitting snarl that Espan was emitting. “I have told you already today, that I do not fear ageing or death. Perhaps I choose to take this guise, have you ever thought of that, child?”
“Fantasy” The elf was relaxing again, “ You are amusing in your fantasies, old man. You have amused this prince for quite long enough though. No matter how much power you have, there is only so far a mortal man may go,”
“That's true enough.”
“And there is only so long a man can live before death weds him in eternal matrimony,”
“Correct again.”
“Your time is at an end! You are old beyond your own reckoning, I can see it in your fading bones! You are failing, you have become rash in your decisions! It was a mistake for you to train me in all your dark arts!” Espan concluded with triumphant gusto.

The old man sat back, eyes glittering, mouth twitching with some untold amusement.
“When your bones are chaff in the wind, and your memory an epitaph in some sunken library, rest assured, Prince of the Realms, I will still be walking, talking and suffering the thoughts of some other high minded child-brained prat, who thinks he has an ounce of wisdom.” With that, the old man lifted himself up and stepped the mismatched path up to a half arc doorway.

He hobbled out onto the barren crag scene of pocketed rock and bulbous protrusions. Sulphurous fumes hung gold grey, sickly pouring down rock canyons on the rolling mountain sides.
The young elf doggedly bounded after him, pulling himself into dignity as he strode into the daylight.
“You're mad.” he snapped at his elder.
“What of it?” The old man said, craning his cooked neck and shading his eyes as he looked up the steep slopes. “Nearly time for another awakening” he mentioned in throw away conversation, “give or take a hundred years or so.”

Frustrated, Espan snarled and stalked off down the hill, calling; “You wait! All the world will quake at my name. Those god-forsaken councillors will regret the day they denied me my throne! I will be king! I will be a living legend!!”
“You'll be a dead memory, though.” The old man mused to himself. He cast a glance down the volcanic slopes as Espan fled with the eager step only mortal youth can tread.
He smiled to himself.

He stretched wide his gnarled hands and spoke softly in a wild, incoherent and harsh tongue. Slowly his words became more eloquent, fluid and emotional. His flaked skin smoothed, his crumpled chin defined into a fine point, crooked back straightened, noduled fingers softened into graceful delicacy. The white wisps of bereaved hair flowed into deep, long, startling black hair, cascading down his back to writhe and buckle like storm breakers on the leather backed sea. Thin porcelain nose marked those stunning features, cruel down to those unchanging beetle eyes that spoke of darkness, darkness and fanatic greed, that they might then and there lure in and drain the life of any who dare meet them. He bowed his head, free-flowing mane dancing about his ankles as an eruption of iridescent starling plumage shimmered violet, emerald and raven's shadow thrust from his shoulders. A ruffling myriad of feathers flourished- six immense, towering wings hung in suspended beauty; the spider in all predatorial gossamer pride.
His face twisted into loathing as he regained his balance. The wings eased, a perfect extension of his body, raising their hell damned feathers of unrivalled beauty to the belly of the sky.
He took to the befouled air, fanning its putrid streams with the irregular breath of his wake. He beat his powerful wings, treading the skyline highway with six-fold fluid motion, opening wide his arms to embrace the broiling anger of the volcano.
“Soon brother,” he laughed to the wind in maniac pleasure, “Let us walk hand in hand, destruction as our footprints. You rise and you fall, but I,” his long hair snapped across his face, “I will outlive all: eternity is slave to my whim. When the heroes crumble to insubstantiality, the warlords die in the choral requiem of their own screams and all life chokes in the blood of hypocrisy, here I will alight- survivor amidst the wreckage, with all damnation's charred wasteland spread before my feet; master.”