His social deficiencies reared their isolated shards again, for no sooner had he given her a blunt, succinct response, did the silver mare wrinkle her muzzle in distaste, in dissatisfaction. The reticent beast was unaware of where he’d made some crucial error, and only that he had, like so many times before, been bested by some unseen, unknown gallantry he’d never acquired the taste for. If the Mender had been looking for someone to wax poetical with, to serenade, to diatribe on endless quagmires and unrelenting pursuits, she would have faired better with anyone else within the Basin. The monster had been too equipped with other potencies to even think about drowning himself in iniquities of conversation and sweet nothings; his powers drummed through warfare, through calculations, through machinations. She’d receive no florid designs from him, no capricious simpers and smiles, no charming attributes and sunshine radiance – he provided the icy caverns, the glacial walls, the massive stones with other dominations and supremacies: death, demise, quick, swift, protection, an impassive, detached fortress who would stop at nothing to protect those within his empire. If this wasn’t enough for her, perhaps Tangere could search for another rock to discourse with, one who gleamed and gave her everything she wished to hear. She said nothing more, asked nothing more, and so he twisted his cranium away, the Reaper demoted into shells and shackles, into silence and disregard, because he couldn’t fathom, couldn’t relate, couldn’t posture anything other than danger and quiet. It was his weakness, his failing, why asps and snakes slithered into serpentine avenues and why he never wandered down their same paths. The Lord’s flaw always seemed to collide, callously, heathenously, around his trenchant designs, and no matter what he muttered, what he crooned, what he murmured, the message was always misconstrued. Perhaps this was what he was missing all along, but he could never scratch the surface of. Lucifer’s sword had been buried and burrowed too deep into hollowed halls, had marched away from groups and gatherings, had locked himself into rasping, grating parlors ever since he’d discovered the magic, the pernicious, puissant invocations, but never asked for any understanding. He stole, he coveted, he massacred, he existed.

Had another not come upon them, the King may have left altogether, drifted further and further into the outcrops until all they saw was a barren landscape and a hint of demise, too far gone in his attempts, in his faults, to do anything but escape. The other cretin roaming into their sights was an unknown femme, and curiosity, intrigue, delved too quickly for him to do anything but conform to a rigid stare, a bestial examination, a barbaric scrutiny. She was all barbs and thorns, but her features told a similar story to his own: blank, indifferent, nonchalant, as if everything were a disinterested fold, and every quandary, every note, remained centered and inward. Like a mirror, like a reflection of his own apathetic face, he drew his puncturing gaze back to her fathoms, tilted his head a mere fraction, and noted she’d be someone he could relate to. She was hidden. She was concealed. She was furtive. She held more to her abilities, she held fast to her designs, and the specious interludes ensured she wouldn’t cross into deep factions or attempt to submerge into his forlorn endeavors. It was nearly a comfort to know she wouldn’t be prying, wouldn’t be scalding, wouldn’t be amassing a series of queries he couldn’t respond to. Ice could relate to the chilling ire of his expanse. So when her question meandered through the cavern, he murmured only the blunt truth of his taut, coiled, curled core. “Irritation.” Presuming that response would also be misunderstood, he only added a minor notation, cementing it with a curt, rapt candor. “With myself.” Then, the inquisitions unfolded again, prosperous and brewing, a cauldron of possibilities touching and gliding over Machiavellian means, for he knew naught of this mare’s existence until now. “Who are you?”


[@[Brisé] @[Tangere]