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It was a dangerous game, this. Ettol knew that only too well. Jonah, for all his obnoxious rhetoric, had not been wrong about that.

The Beast of Ardora would almost certainly break loose again, one day. Comfortable as this current arrangement might have been, Ettol couldn’t expect it to last forever. He had to plan for the eventuality of Koh’s release.

But the wolf’s programming was so strong. So deeply ingrained. Ettol hoped that he might be able to overwrite it fully, but even now, in a vessel this powerful, he was not yet strong enough. Maybe he never would be.

Could he eventually amass enough strength to rewrite or otherwise undo the brainwashing of the nameless one? The so-called Void?

Their supposed progenitor?

In eons past, Ettol would have said no. It was hopeless. Their “father” was simply too powerful.

But they’d wounded him, hadn’t they? Lastingly so. All the evidence seemed to point to that explanation.

Ettol’s mind often wandered back to when, exactly, it might have happened. He must not have been present for it, himself. Surely, such an encounter would have been exceptionally vivid in his memory.

So who had done it?

Hada? Or perhaps Avar? Ettol had asked them, of course, but neither had been particularly forthcoming. One might imagine that anyone would be eager to talk about such an accomplishment, but those two were their own brands of exceptional, weren’t they? Hada hated talking period--especially to Ettol. And Avar would probably feel some type of absurd shame.

Out of all of them, Avar revered the nameless one the most as their “father.”

Ettol, though, could never do that. Not genuinely, at least.

He had spent too long bending to the will of others. Making nice. Pretending to be something he wasn’t.

In his heart, he could not allow himself to revere anyone over himself. His kin could only ever be his equals. Less than that, perhaps, but not more.

No. Never that.

For the longest time, he’d thought that all the others shared that view. He’d thought that was why they had such trouble getting along. But gradually, he’d come to realize that, no, they weren’t like him in that regard.

His mindset was, in so many ways, actually quite singular. They were not all some cherished communion of like-minded souls, as he’d once believed.

But that was fine. They were his kin. They were entitled to their flaws. Just as he was entitled to his.