For someone who wore their heart on their sleeve, watching another being go from indignant rage to cold-blooded violence to placid calmness was jarring. She found herself wondering which persona was his true nature, and not sure any of them sounded pleasant. The other guard had hastily withdrawn as they walked down the dungeon's musty hallway, torchlight flickering weakly off their forms. Despite the dull pain coursing through her body with every step, she only set her jaw and kept pace with him. Suffering was nothing new to her, though enduring it for such a prolonged period of time was. After so long in darkness, even the faint glow of torches was enough to hurt her eyes, and she blinked several times to clear the blur from her vision, glancing up as Dradiro spoke again. The impromptu theology lesson was met with a thoroughly-unimpressed expression, though she felt a stirring of weary anger as he casually mentioned the former patron god of Aetus, Solnyx, whom Dradiro had overthrown near the beginning of his conquest. Her allegiances were more to Fenris and his people than the deity he had served, though that didn't make his subtle gloating any less tolerable.<br/><br/>She had always been told that it wasn't possible to truly "kill" a god, though they could be sapped of their faith until they were weak enough for another being, particularly another god, to attack and tear to bits. Solnyx was little more than particles of aether at the moment, unable to reform as long as Dradiro reigned supreme. "Funny," she mused quietly, sarcasm dripping from her tone, "Solnyx never had to resort to pitching a fit to get worship. I wonder why."<br/><br/>As much as she might have loathed him, it was interesting to finally know the usurper's origins. There were rumors aplenty, she herself had been one of those who believed him simply to be an incredibly powerful vampiric mage. After everything she had witnessed and endured, however, she was starting to fear that that might have been an understatement. A vampire couldn't really kill a god, after all, especially not one who had been venerated for thousands of years as Solnyx had. And though he admitted to being a vampire, it was clear that his true prowess came from his divine heritage. "A pity you didn't stay in your own realm and leave us the hell alone" she huffed, wincing as her broken wing dragged over a bit of rough stone underfoot. She looked down at the weapons he displayed, noting the snakeskin-esque texture of the sheathe, albeit much darker and rougher than any mundane serpent could ever be. The blade inside she had already seen, and she found herself wondering with some apprehension just how big those dragons had been in order to sport teeth that size.<br/><br/>As they finally ascended the dungeon stairs, she squinted at the sudden presence of light streaming in through heavy stained-glass windows. The throne room had been redecorated, she noticed, with ebony and obsidian replacing mahogany and gold. Fenris's gilded throne had been turned back, as if charred, gleaming with a dark opalesence as the bastard god took his place upon it. Her blood boiled at the sight of him lounging there, and as he spoke, she lifted her chin with a scornful glare. "I think if you're trying to impress me by showing off your equipment, it's not working very well. For that matter, why bother letting me live when you know you'll never have my allegiance?" She sounded defiant, but she hadn't forgotten the leverage he had over her now. She could talk big, but all he had to do was threaten her followers to put her back in line, and she hated it.<br/><br/>At his insinuation that she wished to become an angel, she scoffed. Her unbroken wing, tucked clumsily behind her back, ruffled in annoyance, while the limb he had snapped remained limp. In stark contrast to angels like Gabiriel, her plumage was a striking blue-black with a glistening sheen, though weeks of neglect had left her feathers dull and disheveled. "<i>Half</i>-demon," she corrected, cocking a brow. "I may have my mother's infernal blood, but I'm as flesh-and-bone as any human, and that's how I like it. As for why? I never took up the mantle of knighthood to gain Solnyx's favor, I did it to protect the common man. I'd much rather be down here in the dust, fighting and traveling, and<i> living</i>, than sitting up on a cloud strumming a harp." She didn't expect him to understand that, as high-and-mighty as she was. Aryel had always been more in tune with her mortal side, and during her stint as a mercenary she had come to empathize more with the average citizen or traveler than she did any higher power. So what if she was half demon? "Nobody, god or mortal, gets to tell me how to live my life--<i>I</i>choose my own fate." Her tone had taken on a harder edge, almost defensive, as if she had had to make this argument before. "Speaking of angels, what'd you do with that poor bastard whose wings you chopped off?" Perhaps Gabiriel wasn't one of her followers, but she felt a twinge of sympathy for the being all the same, having likely been bound to Dradiro since Solnyx's defeat. If he was still alive, then perhaps it would mean at least one ally in this place.