The atmosphere was suddenly heavy, stifling, smothering, as the reason for the Nightshade’s rage compounded and unraveled: loss, severe and sharp, family snatched and snapped away. Unlike the absconding of his children, flown and taken from the icy reaches of the Basin, Kou was incapable of being returned, dragged down into quietus, forced into demise. Deimos was drawn into silence, immersed in a stoic state, rendering his ruminations into the foiled bits of rage and perplexity: if a soul ever deigned to hurt his kin, his flesh and blood, his beloved, he’d be an unrelenting force, striking, devouring, conquering, slaughtering, obliterating, exterminating until there was nothing left in his path. He’d have dragged the world down into his abysmal quarters, unleashed anarchy, relished chaos, ensured empires, crowns, and sovereigns were left in naught but ashes, rubble, and smoldering embers, drowned the earth in the wake of his disastrous potency, beseeched and bestowed terror, tyranny, absolute horror and abominations, sought out the whirlwinds of calamity and acrimony before his final breath, his last hours. There would be nothing but the unholy arches and airs of devastation, bloodied and scoured, seething and unwinding, a relished sedition, a burning revolution, gallows at every stride, death swinging its corporeal scythe through flesh, marrow, and bone, a triumphant roar bellowed into every ear, a swift, overbearing manifesto of power, of sorrow, of grief and despair. Even a burdensome swallow of indignation drummed in his chest at the thought of Kou, once a doubter of his abilities amongst the Edge turned loyal portion of the Basin, mauled and annihilated. The Reaper’s eyes narrowed for a moment, piecing together what to say and how to feel for his comrade in arms, suddenly and quickly burdened with tragic circumstances and loathsome revenge upon his shoulders. The King’s stare looked directly into the fellow beast’s, ears attempting to drown out the daughter’s shrieking, the fall to her knees, the despair clawing its way through the surroundings, powerful vocals billowing their convictions. “I am sorry for your loss.” For he was; even buried and covered in years and seasons of his noxious nonchalance, of his deplorable detachment, of his feral indifference, he still felt for his brethren, yearned to guard, to preserve, their legacies, their strength, their potency. When one was felled away, torn from their segments and sanctuaries, from their chilling, avaricious gleam for another’s plunged knife, the only thing left to do was ensure justice was twofold. He’d polish his sword, swing his rapier, charge his cutlass into another, for the sake of D’art’s desires, for the maddening rush of ire soaking, consuming, swallowing the lands whole. One more query fell from his mouth, a rattling of chains, a carnivore gleam, a rapacious slide, an ignited maelstrom: retribution and retaliation knocking upon a Reaper’s door. “How can I assist?”