I want to stop feeling this way
But who am I, without this pain?

.

Similar to a soliloquy of bruised and forgotten trench letters, the taste of sage and purgatory could be wafted atop dried lips until they were cracking like adamant shards of glass, and the ridges of an ashy chest was painted til the glare was culm.

Below the waistband of his tattered pants which fervently became like a second skin into his abraded flesh, dirt and mud pro-licked a waste which fled down his knee as the beating rain soaked everything he was. Furthermore, the rain would never cease to distinguish this male without congestion, into iron indignity.

Without a doubt, he realized as his eyebrows narrowed together, the northern plains which was left unattended needed shaping into the outskirts of the territory— he was far from done out of task, skimming the dirt beds which piled into compacted soil bedding. He would only grow to loathe the timbered beds by time but would also grow fond of it by time as well.

The wind knew many ages and yet the male's blackened tresses grew lengthier, it helped him ignoring the drawn eyes which were out of his sight. He was only capable of recognizing the months, by the swift change of greenery and the fog which clung around his sweat deathlessly.

Only imagining the sweetening savor of appeal, he'd caught the eye of many females and yet all he knew was delivery; toiling. It hurt to blink many tears away and before he could think again, the task he was preforming was still undone. He was undone. His knees were clattering together like silver spoons until he fell bashfully forward onto his face, mouth agape before being filled with compost and olive verdant.

Picturesque images of his mother invaded his head as light sobs escaped his watering mouth, the bile rising to the back of throat threatening to either spill or suffocate him underneath mounds of malignity and organic waste. The woody scythe clanked beside him as he inhaled through chaos and wedded storms of desolation. The clambering cage which encompassed his heart stored a rather fast thumping beat, wavering inside his mind, collectively crowing out his ability to hear through his ears.

Dead she was only a time ago, he couldn't muster a vow or a single date.

Time had escaped and been submerging him in a sea he was more willingly  enough to drown in, but mortality would never allow it.

The sound of misery spoke so quietly but spitefully did it puncture only wounds made in his skull blinding him of passion, the decency to pursue chasteness, and the tenderness of leniency. Poor eldest son, dearest brother...the noblest of us all, only satisfied by the purge of wittiness and the schemes of strategic faculty, for the standards of living, how had he comprised so soon?

Achilles.

In such healthy design only made for a king, Without treason, Love rules us all without a man alive whom could resist it. Had the chains of hell broken thoroughly, could Alexander see if he would give up, or plunder past the sun that had surely resigned, to be replaced by the faint hearted moon.

Before he knew it, young Alexander had been hoisted upward by the sleeves of his greasy attire with his weight being fully supported by another's bulky arms, without him deciphering the identity of who had rescued him from the heaps of a humus conditioned, hell.

The depictions of his loveliest ghost making truces with his heart over a game of chess stirred his creative power, while all he could think about was how bad mortality coached his heart into a loosing game.

Alexander had been suddenly thrown into a cushioned couch bed almost immediately collapsing into ashes as his muscles whined for retirement. He couldn't fight back the urge to sleep, to abandon this world into a dreamless realm where the past only existed in the faintest of remembrance. How he found his brother smiling wildly with extended canines and elongated talons before he found Achilles bleeding out golden cyst disguised as ichor.

Piety never looked so betraying, while bitterness always looked the more casually dressed in a sheep's wool even when Bitterness displayed the same characteristics  as a wolf, never the holy shepherd who would kneel at a time of madness. Never the sheep, although convincing it was. For it be true, if divinity be dauntless then never let the prince live to die another day.

So god allowed Alexander to do what saints do,

He prayed.

He prayed until his lips were only capable of murmuring the words only his heart could lyricize.

Alexander's stomach heaved visibly up and down justly before unconsciousness would knock him out did he hear the voice of the person who saved him from the wrath of a bartering sun that would surely arise the next morning.

"You'd fallen so easily, if it wasn't for me I doubt you'd get up." Aggressively Alexander sighed, scootering over on the far end of the couch creating distance between himself and the two imposing males. More bile in his stomach flipped upside down becoming unsettling.

"Must you truly be a weak boy? you wouldn't have fallen at all had you been strong." His brother muttered insensitively. Alexander's eyes remained closed shut tightly, even as he shuttered silently.

Overlapping his tongue over his bottom lip, his exhale reverberated, milking the only strength he had left from laboring. "The floor seemed wonderfully solid, It was comforting..." Alexander began while Lionel folded his forelimbs across his torso, "It was comforting to know if I had fallen then I wouldn't fall no further." Lionel tenses before feeding into what his brother says after his eyebrows narrowed into slits, knitting together.

He scanned his eyes over Alexander's figure as it only infuriated him more at the sight of his raw skin tanned by the hours spent in fields, how he'd become slimmed by the age of plowing. "Get up." Lionel spat barley above coherence by the likes of his thought to be inferior. "What?" before an interjection or plee could be made, Lionel was shouting over the ringing noise riveting inside Alexander's perceptive ear. "Did I fucking stutter? I said get up, boy!" Lionel growled, fisting Alexander's shirt, like a rag doll he dragged Alexander on the balls of his feet until they invaded the kitchen, only for Lionel to toss him aside in the nearest chair.

Once everything in his body ceased to fret, Alexander had torn the shirt from his limbs that was already tainted and stretched by his brother, with it now landing on the marbled floor. Alexander hasn't stepped foot into this kitchen since he was a child, since then he'd been forbade from using any of his homely appliances by his Father, King Augustus.

Receiving many waves; ounces of nostalgia wrecked many nerves and accords in his being as the thought of his father crosses his mind despite never addressing him by such familiarity. Alexander was only allowed to call him King Augustus and that was all even while his mother was alive.

Lionel had stationed a silver platter in front of Alexander's position, with neither a smile nor frown almost giving away nothing as he pointed toward the dish. "Eat." Swarming with overzealous, Alexander slides his chair far from underneath the table in efforts to make a run for it, with legs shaking like dangling rain on a needle. Only now had absolute fear adorned his assurance once the sound of approaching feet resonated from the peak of the porcelain white stairs. 

The tendon in Alexander's jaw ticked when he observed the wheat greying pigmentation of his leathered moccasin footwear, trailing his gaze toward his ironed black slacks just before the color of this person's mischievous glinted eyes captured his piercing own. 

Adonis's eyes matched his twin's Lionel, only exceptionally more hazel in hue giving the illusion of them being vibrantly polluted shades of pristine yellow. The solar veins which became prominent on Adonis's neck stiffened under his threatening to be shedded skin— as his facial expression conveyed little to no emotion. "I think you should eat something, brother." Adonis began with his voice full but undemanding. How one could speak so bullish by command without raising an octave higher in pitch was it's own formality. Before his fluttery eyelids could shut again, Lionel was pursuing Alexander's chair further into his legs were hidden underneath the tablecloth once again.

What had I done to deserve such pampering, Alexander thought, becoming all the more skeptical as the pair stared wordlessly at him, as if awaiting his next move. He felt exposed more than vulnerable. The air was tainted, nearly suffocating around him. He knew too well, the twins could not be trusted.

With tears prolonging to spill from grainy irises, "What have you two deviated against me now,"Alexander started with the words pooling from his tongue like the saliva did as the aroma of a meal infiltrated his nose, "What is the meaning behind all this?" It is Lionel whose heavily sighing before taking the seat on Alexander's far right. He's looking bored out of his mind, even as he's lifting the silver head of the dish to reveal a feast fitted for royal blood alone.

Lionel fought back a grin as he heard the rumbling of Alexander's stomach, Adonis twisted onto his side— leaning over the table to fully try to gather the situation at stake. For the peak of the moment, he eyed the meal almost unsure of himself if he wanted to bait Alexander with it instead of himself, but then would the plan be at stake. This is just something that needed to be done.

Something inside of Adonis glistened, igniting an interest in conversing once he noticed Alexander hesitate in diving inside the gaping food that laid before him. In his eyes, Alexander was malnourished, under weight, merely nothing compared to his treated brothers who have built muscles of steel... to which they've achieved threw decent meals and exercise. You see everything they were glorified to be, Alexander Bane lacked and only he himself were to blame. Apart from the way he was raised, Alexander was simply scum on the bottom of their outdated shoes, far to gruesome for the wholesome ones they wear now.

In attempt to comply from rolling his eyes Adonis doesn't sit but he does shift closer towards the table. "Not until now has it dawned onto me the consuming grief you must be experiencing after the loss of our eldest familiar comrade. Even now does our father scapegoat you away from us all." Alexander leans forward into the table with his arms framing his face to keep from falling over due to exhaustion. Adonis's words sounded promising, yet unbelievable. Alexander doesn't recall the last time he'd eaten, but he'd spent many days and nights performing the task his father asked of him without question.

Before Alexander could respond, Lionel presses down on the ridge of his fingers before digging his own hand into Alexander's, peeling them backward to place a fork in them. "This family has experienced a series of losses that severs us as a whole. Thus the only time we have is now to better these wounds made between us, Bane." The words fleeting passed his earlobes as now Alexander engulfs the sight of his platter in.

Decorated in sections of plentiful meat and vegetables, Alexander's mouth became watered by more thickened saliva as he took the sight of what looks to be a stake intaking it in. Overhead he hears his twin brothers make disputable promises of lost nothings and before his mind could protest, Alexander was instantly scarfing all of the greens, cabbage and possible lamb chop down his throat. Greedily like he was starved, like he was a wolf.

Moaning aloud, Alexander kept stuffing his mouth disregarding the smirk which sprouted from Lionel's reddening cheeks, just until he couldn't hold it anymore— Lionel had burst into charades of laughter even falling back to slap his knee out of compulsion. Fits of giggles left his rationality aside as Adonis only watched until Alexander's plate was cleaned, even the bones had been buried inside his belly.

"Wait til father hears that you've eaten before you finished your peasant work," Lionel spattered into a giggle. "He'll be furious with you, you'll never see the inside of this house again." Declaring almost, the remanence of the feast still lingered upon Alexander's lips. Knocking the chair over where it crashes to the floor, Alexander rises to his feet gaining only a little of his strength back after once he ate.

Alexander turns to leave without a pang of guilt when a hand presses down on the crook of his shoulder, momentarily stopping him, almost snarling, his eyes widen at the glare Adonis was giving him. "You aren't fit to be a royal, you'll always be a bastard child." Shoving him back, Alexander sturdies his footing, while standing his ground.

If only he'd known what they were planning on doing, if only he'd saw the signs in wedged between pink meat and salads.

Alexander turns around to exit outside of the back door—only to come face to face with Lionel's illuminating yellow eyes gauging his reaction as he shoves a fork into his gut.

Abruptly doubling over, Alexander's throat seethes at the sight of his brothers daunting him.

"You should've died that night instead of Prince Achilles." Lionel proclaims.

For the first night of a century, it was transparent to Alexander of the reasoning behind Lionel's potent anger. The way Lionel yanks Alexander high, by his black hair only reminded him of a snarling jealousy.

"You should've been murdered, seeing as you were merely a weakling. The runt, a nothing compared to the noble knight." Lionel kicked underneath Alexander's stomach —causing for Alexander to release a painful grunt.

"I beg to differ, brother Achilles was just as damned as the one still living before us now." Adonis mumbles.

Lionel started to claw out Alexander's bloody eyes, with his maturely sized talons. His scissor like piercers—rippled from underneath his bloody fingernails, just timely ahead Alexander shoving past Adonis, stumbling into the door. "You'll leave, yes. Only you'll die out there before nightfall." Adonis chuckled without a care to spare.

Although Adonis sought for Alexander's ichor being spilt, he just wanted the mutt to disappear. Alexander was a living sin, and Adonis lived for his disgrace of a brother to never forget it.

Blood leaps from his mouth as Alexander shields the gash in his chest from Lionel's scabbing. "Wait little Alexander, just before you go we think there's something you should know." Crazed, delusive, repulsed, Lionel sends Alexander a wicked grin.

A grin so wicked, that it could only be glamorously enhanced —by the disdain of the ogling moonlight.

How time was turning faster in its own accordance— by each fleeting second. The next thing Lionel says has Alexander punishingly stuffing, his head underneath powerful tides in the lake that night. The Alpha prince didn't want to breathe anymore, he didn't want to live.

"The brother you praise so much even in death?" Lionel smirks lowly with a honorable hand dismissively falling onto his chest, mimicking the actions of a virtuous knight.

He began to mock the passing of Achilles, who he once intended to be like —before a life well lived, was stolen from him.

"I do hope he was delicious."

..