Cold malevolence seized the chilled, remorseless morning, silenced into the heedless trap of peace and good will, presided over the icy graves and the devilish throng, arched detachment while he burned and boiled underneath, wild, barbaric, and carnivorous. The Reaper stared across the abyss of ice and snow, reigned and ruled over its decadent ramparts, its callous fortifications, its foul, unearthly wake, and yearned for depravity. He was made for annihilation, for revolution, for persecution and disaster, and when that quelled and quieted, he was lost to the throes of idleness and ethereal ruins. What was there to unravel? What was there to maim? What was there to crush and pursue? Listless, lethargic murmurings and heedless wanderings were not his strong suit; carved and molded into a chaotic statue, eager for the finessed forbidding, for the fall of veritable virtue, for the potent puissance lingering in the coils of his feral flesh. A seething maelstrom, a primitive enmity, immersed and coated in the serrated rapiers of his forefathers, of satanic rites and bestial calculations, with nowhere to go and naught to do but wait and bide his time. Was this how they were to be remembered, chiseled in memory and legend? Was this how minstrels would serenade them, the proud and meticulous blades, fighting and fumbling, chased into hostels and chains? The beasts that were vanquished, conquered, over and over again (once in the mist, their home, another through the edges of those same cliffs, or in the spiritless dust of the desert)? They prescribed and meandered for repose, harked and heralded, destined for tranquility and serenity, when all he wanted, all he craved, all he yearned for was the meticulous blessing of supremacy, destruction, and abhorrence slinking between his teeth and over his tongue, devoured, consumed, swallowed. He hungered for his brethren to rise to great, corrupted power, for his family to dance among the diabolical insurrection they’d cruelly carved, for intimidation and mayhem to distort, to contort, to ripple across ages, sages, and hags – break, slash, rip and tear the rhythm of tranquility. And what did the rest of the world hunger for, covet between their inept ears and pacified smiles: destruction of the Basin, resolution to fallen pariahs, to thwart them at every turn? For singsong wiles and unchanging dials, their faces painted for shallow rectitude, marching to mindless beats and innocent crafts? Irked, rigid, savoring the hot grind of meticulous domination and the unholy havoc of supremacy, he wandered over the Steppe’s frigid strokes and piercing caresses, nettled and torn into the archaic canon of his stoic scheming. The demonic Lord, the ferocious King, took to the peaks, the summits, and overlooked the hollowed void; dreamt of damnation in his cold, chilling ruminations, in his iniquitous, hazardous gaze, framed by the constancy of snow, of winter’s blunt embrace, and wondered how to achieve it, how to grant it, how to give everything to his throne, to his empire, to his patriots, with naught in his grasp but the unsung itching of eldritch incantations.

[Open to anyone.]