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'A unique and mighty name'? Varanduil nearly laughed; nearly sneered- he leashed his reactions in before he could do more than tense his snakelike neck and shift on his narrow legs, but his fathomless eyes glittered with bemusement. How pleased his sire would be to know that that pretentious name he'd thrown on his child's shoulders with such grand expectations had impressed someone, even if the child in question was a disappointment at best. Schooling his tightening expression back into a harmless, languorous smile, Varanduil replied silkily, "Ohh, I suppose I understand the concept well enough- but I can look forward to learning much more from you, can't I..?"

Though his voice dribbled, sickly sweet as nectar, from a placidly-smiling mouth, there was no sarcasm to this; Varanduil was a fool, but he knew well enough when he was outmatched, and the muscle of Cullen's ribs that had shifted against his beating breast moments before had been hard and unyielding.

"Tell me, Varanduil what is it you dream of acquiring?”

The smile fell off his face, for a moment too taken aback by this to try to keep it up. For the first time since meeting those sharp blue eyes, his own dark gaze drifted away, unsure. After a moment, he dropped his muzzle to rest his restless mouth over Cullen's gleaming golden spine, idly scraping careful teeth through the shifting shimmer of his fur as he considered this, ears back and eyes still off in some faraway place.

What did he dream of..?

Of course, he could always cough up some cheap, expected thing. A herd, a family of his own, some pretty thing at his side to woo and nurture- but they weren't what he wanted. He had never dreamt of acquiring anything. He- a wretched thing like him- stole, and scraped, and snapped up the scraps they could wrench off the carcasses of other people's deserved kills. He deserved nothing, and thus had never bothered to dream of what he could be or have.

-Moreover, why would Cullen offer him anything..? He had him, and he couldn't be rid of Varanduil now if he tried to be. It tasted of a trap, as Cullen's hot flesh against his tongue tasted of sea spray and pine resin, but who would bother with a trap now?

Finally, after long moments of running Cullen's heady words into every corner he could think of and tearing into them like a dog falling upon rats, he smoothed the bright fur he'd ruffled with his restless teeth with the flat of his flaring nose and met his golden leader's cool, confident eyes again.

"...I want to be wanted," he husked at last, his voice earnest for the first time- so much so that his dark eyes were wary to have shared what felt like this most vulnerable of secrets. "I want to be wanted like something frivolous; something you don't need but cannot help wanting despite it." 'Something you desire even if it becomes useless to you,' he thought, but this was too honest, and he didn't say it, instead raising his head a little and fitting something like young, foolhardy bravado onto his face, though his lip still curled just a little with self-disgust and his eyes had wandered away from Cullen's ivory face again.

"But I'll take being needed. I imagine I can manage that much," he murmured in a susurrating purr, drizzling idle confidence over his voice to disguise the regret for the tender truths he'd just told. Glancing back from under his pale lashes at his leader, he continued with fawnlike innocence, "What is it you dream of, Cullen..?"