Khloros stared, still unblinking, still unmoving. Though his emotions were dimmed, he was certain that, on closer inspection, hatred lay somewhere among them. Not the strong, hot hatred that needed acting on, but the distant, cold hatred of utter contempt.

There was nothing good about Louie. Nothing good in him. Nothing selfless, or kind, or remotely gentle. The fox was a hoarder, and a whore, selling himself out--selling out anything he could have stood for--for power and for gain.

Perhaps it was because he feared what might happen to him, if he did not. Khloros did not particularly care.

"You know how to strike, with your magic--but not to cleanse with it..?" The question came raspy, with malice in his voice at last. Faint--but there. "I suppose that is... unsurprising."

A long pause, again, the ghostlight eyes staring impassively down. He could crush the fox with but a step. He was tempted to. "You come to me with oily words of how we are the same, masters of sickness. But there is nothing similar in us." The horse tilted his head, a little, but offered no further words.

It seemed to him, then, that the fox had gone; or perhaps it was hallucination. Either way, he turned, and simply left--this was no longer important to him.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD