Their enemitic empire was being reshaped, ravenously plucked and quartered, segmented into new distortions, into unfamiliar contortions, and he stood upon the threshold of it, a witness and manipulator of the callous calamity unfolding. Changes arrived in unrelenting waves, shattered old portions, smoldering slivers and splinters, casting them aside for a ravenous regime, for a savage sovereignty, for the weight and wake of malicious intentions – and he wondered amongst the brewing shadows and piercing undulations, how many would be left behind in the upheaval and insurrection. Would they rise with each pressing, daunting failure, brush grime from their knees, polish their swords and shields, honor the gleam and keen of their treachery by a show of menacing ambition, or falter to the ground, choked, strangled, smothered by another cantankerous defeat? Would they give mercenary chase to the concepts of victory again, embittered, rancorous, torn, wolfish and hungry, hankering, craving, yearning and longing for the scintillating conquest of their enemies, just one triumphant moment and memory to consign the humiliation to oblivion, to desolation? The Reaper only knew of his own convictions, of his own sculpted machinations, of his calculated prowess and overwhelming strength, and while he sowed demise, while he languished sedition, while he persevered with pernicious persuasion, he remained unsure of all his other patriots. Wallowing amongst the threads of ignorance, casting specious stones, courting the hollowed corridors of the unknown, the unfamiliar, the vast and abysmal, was not one of his favored occasions, and as he wandered, as he traversed the dominating, dangerous loam, the scent of one Mender broke his reticence.

Deimos had been disappointed with his performance amongst the invasion, like so many others before him. Crumbling, faltering, emptying his efforts into loathsome nothingness, gesturing wildly to the chaos before him as a supreme reign over his tirades, over the goals and motives of their ferocious aspirations, succumbing, yielding, submitting. A friend, a companion, one of the original plagued constituents, surrendering to the brutality of another, was a hard laceration to bear, and even now, muddling over the situation, he couldn’t shake his disbelief, his displeasure. Had something else caused the factors of the good Mender’s collapse? Did he no longer have the same pursuits as his contemptuous constituents, shattered by the loss of his family (Deimos wouldn’t tell him of the bargains he had to make, the treaties he had to snake through his muted tongue to restore them to their rightful home)? Was it another beast altogether, clambering about his back and rendering him into a fool? Mauja’s disappearance? Psyche’s withdrawal? The monster’s own rise to the throne?

He followed the smell, roamed the shades of darkness and demise with his quiet, unholy gait, molded and polished the fine platitudes of licentiousness and heathen contemplations, laid waste to the shackles of divinity and virtue with each menacing step. Upon his approach, the piercing acrimony of his abhorrent gaze captured others tending to the Mender’s appearance; Ulrik, his fellow Lord, Aviya, another layer of offspring, and suddenly, the behemoth thought to retreat, not eager for a public display of thoughts, feelings, sentiments rising into the midst, frustrations coerced from the roughened candor of his grating, harsh lips. Resolution caught him before his steps meandered towards another road, another path, and he materialized into their revolutionary clearing, uttering absolutely nothing, becoming part of the silence, the void, the rush and rhythm of fissures and chasms. He was here to listen, to bestow wisdom if need be, and offer the brief amount of solace he could provide to a loyalist who’d seemingly lost his way. Only the movement of his head, a slight nod of recognition, prestige, given to all three individuals, reticence and recherché claiming his features all over again.