The Reaper was easily led by hate. It incensed him in clear, precise moments and unwound him into a vicious, vehement haze. It spiraled and concocted and conducted his movements with an appalling simplicity; as if he’d been carved by wrath, sculpted by malice, traced and sketched and drawn by contempt. It haunted his thoughts until they drummed with Machiavellian schemes, until they hummed and crooned and contorted ferocious entanglements and snares. It weighed on his shoulders and spiraled through his muscles, sinew, veins, poignant and haunting, indignant and controlling, rushing, plunging, and annihilating the few sentiments of peace and virtue he had to proffer. Gaucho’s words were enough to spark the abhorrent, abominable rationale within his skull, and his eyes brewed with it, the toxic, venomous, poisonous indulgence of a man, of a beast, of a devil bent and swayed by immorality and iniquity, by fury and vexation. His ears pricked, his stare watched, as the Pegasus informed him of all the layers and lacquer behind the history of this Gull - who’d been more than just a fiend intending to cut apart one of his own, who’d been more than a nuisance fluttering and flying above the grounds, taking and absconding and grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t like their kind, the brutal, sadistic swords and horns, the descendants of Cinnoru, he didn’t give in, he didn’t care about challenges or words…
 
Which meant violence, ruin, and punishment would be the answer.
 
The notion almost made him smile.
 
“Thank you for the information,” he breathed, barbaric and twisted, as if the Wildfire had given him all the ammunition he required. “He will be dealt with.” If the beast wasn’t part of the Throat, wasn’t enamored or caught in the Edge’s tethers, the greater chance of him being an Outcast, free for the taking, for the bludgeoning, for the mauling, was increased. Their dungeons, once rebuilt, would be a perfect place for a flying fool, shackled and tethered and behind dark, icy walls, where he could rot away, feathers plucked off one by one. Maybe even the tent could be used, where no one would be able to hear the sounds of his screams.
 
His thoughts required shifting, away from domination and upheaval, since Gaucho had likely come with a purpose beyond informing the Reaper of inept fools cutting their way to eventual disaster. They’d met before to offer and bestow the reformed notions of alliance, without the Forsaken and her methods, and the Wildfire had remained silent on the issue. The present appeared to be the turning point, slithering either this way or that – and the shadowed King, with his reticent airs and his nonchalant exterior, still managed to hope his efforts weren’t about to be spurned or declined. He still had a herd to protect and guard. The words coiled past his throat and out into the cold air, eyes centered squarely upon the other great brute; titans gathered before rapacious motions and sinister designs. “Have you reached a decision on the proposed armistice?”