Albedo spoke in a manner Nigredo couldn't quite grasp.

Yet, he knew. The answer surfaced like bile at the tip of his tongue, but his lips refused to move. Declined to speak. Words were meaningless, empty. For all the elocution his brother held, he himself might have haphazardly known, there existed nothing to describe this. And what had Nigredo entertained before? The gain he once perceived was now (always) a loss. Brothers fought and died and no one--

Not one.

The shattered pieces of his consciousness drifted and settled, and base instincts took their hold. Nigredo's defined fingers curled into balls while the urge to cry surfaced once again. Except there were no tears; he had spent them all on the brother before him.

And in this, the child sent a memory, one in passing and overrun. A murmur to reflect another: {I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits, go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done it.}

Then, the pieces changed, an echo to replace a memory, something violet in the fringes. {I'll tell thee what I'll give thee.} Silence. {I'll give thee a pardon for this murder.}