Thin lips curled into a malicious grin, long, sharp nails petting over the sanded maple of the table beneath his hands. The sounds in the vision before him were a consonance of beauty, the frantic nature unfolding as a show just for his viewing pleasure brought a tingle down his spine. Ruby-laden eyes smoldered, a tongue passing over his lips as he locked in on the sweated, fighting form so blissfully unaware of his audience, present or no.

Kyle was gasping for air, reaching and clawing in a desperate attempt to escape what his body was putting him through as servants and guards tried to hold him down against his bed. A sobbing scream echoed within the king's conference room around the faraway viewer, followed by the stifled sniffles of the queen and king watching their son from the background as he unknowingly fought the hold on his limbs. They clutched one another, watching on in horror, as they always did, seeing their child battling a demon they had no chance of confronting themselves. He was fighting a war, and he was the only one on the front lines opposing an armada singing its hateful tune, coming for his head and his alone.

Damien was utterly entranced. He'd missed Kyle's last episode, unaware of their existence until it had already gone and passed and he had heard it mentioned in his weary recovery stages. But now, now he got to see it all for himself, soak in the prince's suffering deep into the marrow of his bones. He could feel an aching tingle rushing through his bloodstream, a numbing and piercing, but pleasant sensation. After all, his little prince was going through so much worse than phantom sympathy pains. He couldn't stop the wide, sparkling grin from sliding further along his face as Kyle arched with another screech, his eyes shooting open and enveloped in that toxic green glow.

"DOWN, GET DOWN!" a guard demanded, everyone hitting their knees and trying to keep their grasp secured around him.

Kyle choked on nothingness, body tremoring and balking as he mumbled nonsense between his frantic cries for help. Thick lashes fluttered, barely-seen pupils hiding behind the ghastly veil flittered around his surroundings, small and unseeing. His audience was nothing but shapes, indistinguishable blobs that he could only tell were holding him down, his frenzied mind positive he was under an attack. A violent shatter rang through the room, Damien turning his vision to the side of Kyle's room, following slowly up a trail of broken glass from his mirror, unable to help a barking laugh at vines climbing his walls suddenly filled with spry, vengeful energy. They wiggled and waved, tearing themselves from the cracks of the palace and slithering about, breaking anything in their path and pushing people out of the way to try to get to their beckoner.

"CUT THEM!" Stan's voice rose with urgency. "Christophe, get them out!" he pointed towards Sheila and Gerald watching the chaos. Christophe huffed, nodding and slipping from his position helping with Kyle and cutting stray vines as he passed through the room, trying not to get caught in their grips.

"Come on, Your Majesties, you need to get out of 'ere," he urged, gently gripping under their arms and trying to lead them away.

Sheila's eyes widened with panic, never breaking sight of her son writhing and trying to get to him. Christophe sneered, jerking his head and signaling another guard to assist him in getting them both out. The guard murmured his apologies for the treatment before helping shove her around to break the stare and assisting Christophe in guiding them through the room and out of danger as she yelled her protests, begging for her bubbeleh to snap out of it. She shouted helplessly that he needed his mother, that they were to release her and let her be with him to make sure he was safe.

Damien chuckled, leaning his arms down on the table and tapping a shoe behind him against the floor. This was too delightful. Nothing but Hell on Earth for the poor Drow it seemed, and none of them fraught with more turmoil than the poor prince struggling to get his vines towards him as they were hacked away by his guards.

"Kyle!" Stan shouted, standing and hovering over him, heart clenched at those blank, magical eyes. "Kyle! Stop it!" he gripped his face, shaking him a bit. Kyle snarled, breaking an arm free of a distracted hold and trying to hit up at him, riddled mind perceiving nothing more than a threat. Stan grabbed his wrist before it slammed against his head, eyes welling with horrified tears.

Damien's head swiveled to the side, unwillingly breaking focus on the disaster before him as the conference room door opened with a loud bang. He smirked as Cartman stepped through, kicking the door shut behind him and cocking his brow at the influx of screams filling his ears. "The fuck did you call me for?" he demanded.

The Olath hummed, curling a bony finger for him to follow. Cartman huffed at his arrogance before another cry from Stan caught his attention, body stiffening at the name so desperately pouring through such a broken tone. His feet suddenly found their speed, practically running to stand beside of Damien and peer into the looking glass. Amber eyes sparkled at the sight of Kyle thrashing, of Stan nearly in tears trying to keep him subdued with other members of the palace. Kyle was trying to scratch at Stan's face, caught between wanting help and wanting him away, dismantled psyche unable to distinguish his purpose for holding him so tightly and yelling nothing more than muffled nonsense to his ears. "Holy shit," Cartman laughed breathlessly, fingers finding the edge of the conference table and curling around it with a death grip. "Did you know it got like this?"

"Not at all. Such a pleasant surprise," Damien purred, smirking as Kyle was finally brought down firmly onto the bed, watching his wrists being shoved down above his head to be tied down. "Aw, they're taking away some of the fun," he gave a small pout.

"This is fucking amazing," Cartman murmured, head spinning with this new information splayed before him. "He's helpless."

Damien cocked his brow, watching another round of vines speeding towards the guards and tearing a number away from the prince. "Well, wouldn't go that far," he scoffed. "He can't control his power, so it's going to come out in full. He's far more dangerous now than at any other given time."

Cartman frowned, "He doesn't know what's going on though," he gestured to him fighting so ardently against the bindings snapping down and securing over his wrists and waist.

"Exactly," he said thickly. "Everything is scaring him, so everything is something he'll attack. And he's been spending the last nine days being weakened."

Cartman blinked, turning back slowly to the show and feeling his stomach twisting. He could just see little toddling Kyle towering above his felled form, screaming at him for calling him a witch. But with those glowing eyes, the look of total possession flooding over slim features as he wriggled and screamed, anyone would have a hell of a time trying to deny such a term. "So… he's even stronger?"

"Mhm," Damien nodded, tapping a finger against his lips, focusing on the unwitting tears spilling down Kyle's agonized face. "Honestly, I can't imagine what this would be like were he at full capacity. He'd probably destroy the palace in its entirety before someone could even come near stopping him." Though, unaware of the full reach of this phenomenon or not, he couldn't help the excited twisting of his chest. This was far better than he had expected, and it made the future look all the more bright.

The king shuddered, filled with that everlasting hatred all over again. "He's a fucking little monster."

Damien smiled. "But he's my little monster." Cartman gave him a glance, eyes scrunched as he tried to read more into his meaning before Stan's voice broke back through the tension.

"Ky? Kyle, come on!" he begged. "It's Stan! Please! Please stop!"

Kyle's head leaned back, a long howl of pain breaking through a dry throat, knowing the voice from the hidden and cowering confines of his subconscious, but unable to place it with anything safe, unable to comprehend why he couldn't move. He couldn't figure out why his powers didn't seem to be working in the way he wanted them to as his vines were torn to shreds by guards surrounding the bed, poised to protect him from himself. He just wanted everything away from him, he wanted to move, he wanted to breathe.

Healer Gollum made her way through them, lips pursed determinedly with a bowl and rag in her hands. "Stanley, hold his head up, he's too dangerous awake!" she ordered.

Cartman looked over at her and his expression twisted in disgust, "THE FUCK IS ON HER FACE?!" he screeched, Damien ignoring him and watching her with his arms crossed as she kneeled one leg onto the bed and leaned towards the struggling prince.

"Shhh," she coaxed, putting a careful hand on the back of his head and helping Stan hold him steady, bringing the bowl to his lips. "Stanley, get the rag," she demanded, Stan gulping and doing as said, chest wrenching and nodding for her to proceed. He hated this, hated it every time, but it had to be done before Kyle flat-out killed someone or himself. Gollum shoved the bowl between Kyle's lips as they parted for another cry, flooding his mouth with a warm, herbed solution. A good deal spilled from the sides of his lips in his panic before she pulled back and Stan slapped over his mouth with the rag, shoving him backwards onto the bed.

A tear rolled down, dripping off Stan's nose before he shook it off, knowing the risk he was pressing with such a move and pushing the rag against his struggling prince, covering his nose in the process. "Swallow it, Ky," he pleaded, jaw trembling as Kyle screamed and fought his bindings, suffocating and refusing to let whatever was in his mouth follow its expected course. Gollum slowly rubbed up and down his throat, feeling it spasm beneath her touch and increasing her pressure in the slightest with each ascent towards his chin.

"Come on, Your Highness," she whispered, letting out a shaking breath as Kyle finally choked and she felt the warmth flooding its way down his trachea. She nodded and Stan pulled back immediately, both watching him coughing and remnants of her mild poison dribbling down his face. Stan gulped, wiping away the residue as they watched his eyes' lights fading and rising with each breath as he fought for consciousness. A collective sigh of relief left the group as the vines and leaves around them finally began to simmer back down and fall limp onto his floor. Kyle's captive hands unclenched, fingers rolling out lifelessly as he was flooded with a tranquil warmth.

His eyes drooped, finally losing their glow entirely and looking to lock gazes with Stan. Stan gulped at the cluelessness ringing through jade irises before they were encased under thick lashes, Kyle's head falling back as Gollum's serum spread throughout his veins and numbed his exhausted body into sleep at last.

The healer sighed, rubbing at her temple and watching the quieted prince as they set him down, looking at the damage around the room and shaking her head. "He keeps getting stronger," she murmured as guards around them unsteadily got to their feet once again. "At this rate, in a few years we won't be able to stop him unless we put him into a coma."

Stan took a deep breath, sitting down and putting his hand over Kyle's forehead, wiping a tear from the prince's lashes. "The first is always the worst," he reminded her. "The rest he should be able to hear me."

She nodded slowly, watching the rasping breaths wracking through Kyle's narrow chest. "I hope so."

Cartman shuddered at the complete tonal shift, unable to look away from the unconscious royal. "What the fuck just happened?" he demanded.

"She gave him a poison," Damien shrugged, pushing his hair back out of his face and remaining focused on his little prince. "He'll be unconscious for a while. Should give his body time to acclimate to what it's going through and even it out. Right now, it's nothing but pure chaos, probably eating him from the inside out."

He rolled his eyes, "Then why doesn't he just fucking die? Why don't they just kill him if he's so fucking dangerous?"

Damien scoffed, "Yes. The Broflovskis are going to murder their son, Fatboy. Seems plausible. Besides. The powers wouldn't let them do that even if it was considered."

Cartman finally looked over at him, blinking in befuddlement. "Whaddya mean they won't let them?"

"His powers are controlling him when he's like this. And they want to protect the vessel harboring them, no matter who gets in the way," he smacked his lips, smirking at Kyle subtly flinching, the power trying so desperately to fight off the poison and get him back awake and rebelling against his confinement.

The king took a deep, worried breath at the notion, looking between both elves before focusing back on Damien. "All right. I'm sick of this… ambiguous bullshit you've been pulling over me. I want to know why you're so interested in Kahl. Especially if you're saying he can't be killed."

Damien gave him another jeer, not granting him the respect of eye contact as he continued to watch the small twitches of his prize. "Who on Earth said I wanted to kill him?" he questioned. "That'd ruin my plans. I need him alive. I need those powers of his alive."

"Why?!" he bellowed, finally getting the elf's attention slowly drawn towards him. He repressed a shiver at those cold irises and the small smirk quirking on the edge of his lips.

Damien let the question echo out around them before giving a small chuckle. "Do you know the story of the Ssussun?"

"The what?"

He rolled his eyes, "The light elves. Those not of my kind," he drawled, pointing firmly at Kyle's limp body. He turned his attention back to him, feeling Cartman watching and waiting for further elaboration as he propped his chin in his palm. "Fascinating, honestly. They have the magic of life. The world was said to be created entirely by one powerful Ssussun, filling it with light. Then an Olath spawned from the shadow of a sacred tree and established the night. But even then, their powers were not equal. The Ssussun always held just a shred more power than the Olath."

Cartman's brow furrowed. "That you saying that Kahl is stronger than you?"

He smirked, "Yes. But, only him to my knowledge. Not the others of his kind. They practice their magics, sure, but none of them strive to master all they can do. Even little prince never did any such thing. He was born with this power, but he may never be able to control it. He won't know how to use it against me properly without losing his handle."

"Why risk getting yourself killed over this?"

He snorted, "I have my reason and my methods. Extortion is a powerful thing, you of all people should know considering Kenneth," he cocked his brow. "I need a Ssussun for what I want to do."

"Why?" he repeated, tired of this game already.

"Something you can't understand. You're getting what I promised you, Fatboy. That should satisfy your curiosity more than enough."

Cartman leaned against the table, narrowing his eyes dangerously at the man beside him looking far too nonchalant. "You know, I put a lot on the line for you. I have a spy over in Larnion for your mission. If they catch him, I'm going to be on the cusp of war with those demons."

"You think so lowly of elves," he smirked, standing up straight and cracking his neck, looking at Kyle again before finally locking eyes with the king below him. "The Drow are not so easily coaxed into war. They want little to do with such a mess, know that their people vehemently oppose it, no matter how much they despise your filthy race."

"Oh, I'm the filthy one?" he snarled. "Rich coming from a fucking creature who lives in the woods."

He shrugged, "It's where we thrive. Olath thrive in darkness, Ssussun thrive in light. Humans thrive nowhere. You just take up whatever space you happen to find, settling down and calling yourselves one with the land when you know nothing of the ground you plod your bulbous feet upon. The world is more than money and crowns, but a human can never understand that." He gestured back towards his vision, Cartman's infuriated gaze following his pointing to Stan staring brokenheartedly at his suffering prince. "Even little prince's lovesick guard dog can never understand. He thinks he knows little prince better than anyone, but he's wrong. He can never know him as well as I do, because we share what mortals cannot."

"A despicable lineage?" he sneered.

"True power," he corrected with a smug grin. "You have the power of your title, sure. But little prince and I could bring the world to its knees with more than just claiming to be a leader with fancy names that mean nothing in the grand scheme, but with force."

Cartman rolled his eyes, "Kahl is a fucking prince, keep in mind, so he has that advantage. And besides, that's what my army is for."

"Yes, but he doesn't consider his crown to be his only asset like some royals I know. And an army doesn't stand a chance when the earth itself is set to destroy it," he hissed, eyes sparking with thrill. "You can slay all the humans and elves you want, but in the end, the earth will always be what feasts on your rotting corpse. Those who can control that, control the universe."

The king straightened, tone dropping dangerously, "That a threat?"

"You'd know if it was a threat," he scoffed. "Remember, you're nothing more than a shortcut in my plans. If I didn't find Kenneth's progress to be so… enthralling, I would have snapped your neck long ago and just gone for it on my own."

Cartman scowled, fighting off the frightened palpitations of his heart. He knew Damien could do it, knew that any of these magical demons could murder him without a second thought. Maybe feast on his fresh corpse to gain more power, or perhaps that was merely one of the rumors that had been circling since his youth. It was hard to tell anymore. His mother never told him stories of vengeful elves, but never proclaimed them to be of a loving, kind nature either. All she had told him was 'making an effort is what counts, Poopsykins'. However, she'd never truly specified what said effort was supposed to be towards. Knowing her character and how generously she held her reign, it was more than likely a hint at pursuing a friendship, but Cartman had grown around his guards more than herself. He'd listened to elders telling stories of the War, how they'd watched their brethren dragged off and away by the wretched pointed-ear bastards. They'd made the Earth itself split and dragged men into a chasm of death before sealing it back and standing atop the land, laughing as they could hear the muffled, asphyxiating cries below their feet.

He'd be damned if he'd let that come to fruition yet again.

And yet, he could still not read Damien's motives. He claimed to not care about the fate of the humans or the elves, just knew what he wanted and was going for it with vigor. There only seemed to be one fate he so much as gave a second glance. And it was a glance Eric could not quite understand, how it burned lowly like candlelight on its last legs, how it spoke with intensity like a deadly gale. It screamed of ownership, of secrecy, of giving every last speck of energy he had until he had that life force held under his palm, tied down like he was already in a land so far away. But it seemed Damien didn't want to keep what little they had seen under control, he wanted it released.

Cartman gulped, rolling his shoulders back and taking a long breath, "So, Kinny is still doing what needs done?"

"More than I would've imagined he could pull off. He's quite the charmer," he smirked. "But he's not important, at least not right now, not with little prince so out of his element. Once he recovers, he'll probably still be tired and weak, and Kenneth can do even more to get inside his mind."

He cocked his brow, "Why not go for Kahl now or when the sickness stops? Seems like that'd be easier for all of us."

"Because I don't have the information I need yet," he scoffed. "And besides, watching them play their game is fun in of itself. Makes him more vulnerable," Damien chuckled. "The more it's prolonged, the more hurt he gets, the less control he has, and the easier it is for me to get what I need from him."

Cartman nodded slowly, looking back at the vision and clicking his tongue. Made sense, he supposed. Even without knowing the specifics, that just seemed to be sound logic for any variation of war, whether it be against an entire country or just one frail elf. "Just hope you know what you're doing," he grumbled.

Damien smirked, leaning back down on the table and watching Kyle panting and flinching as cooled rags were pressed around his neck and face, looking utterly destroyed already and ripe for the taking. He'd needed to see this, to make sure that his target held the power that was foretold. Everything about his scheme weighed on just how much Kyle's body could withstand, and his tiny glimpse into the untapped potential more than told him all he needed to know. "So little faith in me, Your Majesty," he drawled, feeling that glare back on Cartman's face for the disrespect, stomach twisting with excitement at a twitch of Kyle's fingers. "Everything is going precisely as it should."