Deimos was not a creature of repose. He craved condemnation, corruption, destruction, ravaging and pillaging the walls of his enemies, his opponents, with molded munitions lacquered in enmity, acrimony and antipathy, drenched in loathing, embittered by rancorous failures. Twice they’d been thwarted and diminished by this shadowy mare and her cohorts, removed from their homes, and finally, when they could no longer stand the acts of absconding children and mothers, they fell to the same forest. What a thing to seek – peace – when nearly every moment was spent attempting to annihilate the adversaries of the mist, when they plucked and squandered youths, when they snuck amongst the embroidered darkness and sought to snag more, to entice, to captivate and lead them into the abysmal cliff tops, when they melted hypocrisy into dreams of tranquility and serenity. The Reaper didn’t ever entail such ambitions or sow false pretenses into his heretic, irreverent philosophy; he ruined, he wrecked, he yearned for havoc and assailed with the same premise, the same assertions and beliefs. Perhaps these miserable cretins hadn’t realized how far they’d truly fallen, to speak of quiet, solitude, sanctuaries and sanctums, and twist the fabrics of their natures until they were just as distorted, just as chaotic, just as meticulous, rigorous and devoted to their diabolical machinations as the wintery peaks and valleys. They antagonized, irritated and provoked for harmony? They invaded their old home for armistice? For a world without violence? For divinity, truth, absolution and salvation? To show their valor, their honor, their morality and goodness (yet, when the Basin committed similar actions, it was villainy, licentious and depraved, contradictions woven into precarious double-standards)? His indifferent brow conjured no sign of his vexations, his frustrations, how the culmination of all these actions always seemed to settle so nicely upon the shoulders of gentle, world-weary dreamers and the eyes of the draconic femme before him. Instead, the deep gravel of his voice punctured the air once more, smothered the depths of the meadow’s breeze, and tangled with the ferocity, the sanctimony and duplicity of her words. “So you steal children.”

The moments passed in methodical interlude, the newfound Lord casting his first diplomatic stones and waiting for them to sink to the murky bottom of callous, crooning depths. His rapacious instinct urged him to deny their request, to sully their regard, to tarnish and stain the endeavors of their sententious, holier-than-thou resolutions. However, this would not earn their stolen back, and with nothing else to bargain with, for they held none of the Edge’s inhabitants as prisoners, he was left to churn over the aspect of “treaties”. It would be a sacrifice on his cadre, and most, like himself, would be unwilling to even embark on these noble, righteous doldrums; they wanted their dissonance, their brutality, their barbarity, ripping, tearing, scalding and bewitching the bestial shades of their wickedness. With no emissaries, consuls or envoys, he was left to dig into the stitched seams of his satanic opus and prick at a vein until it resembled a bleeding heart. To sacrifice his vile necromancy, his sculpted villainy and machinations, so portions of their family could return to their icy empire. His lips drew into a thin line, impassive, reticent, distant and indistinct, snatching at naught but the wry pinnacles of some otherworldly pawn twisting a knife into his barrel. “I can offer one season.” Until the reign of Tallsun ends. Enough time to rebuild and restore his fractured army, enough time to hone and keen newest recruits, to engage, incite, provoke his compatriots back into the fiendish declarations of mayhem, bedlam and chaos, to dissuade the enemies. He couldn’t bestow eternity, because he would have no intentions of festering in such a lie, for they would arrive, again and again, apocalyptic heathens swallowing the horizon, for an opportunity to lay waste to Mirage and her merry band of staunch, stalwart inhabitants. If the notion wasn’t accepted, another could take its place, with the taste of violence, with the scintillating, ambrosial quality of cruelty and disorder all over again.

@[Mirage]