Nefarious prose riddled and rankled through the treacherous, deplorable corridors of his movement, unholy, carnivore decadence, sprung from the heels of Mephistophelean severity. Seditious motions were a familiar, plunging cord of resolute, writhing, feral predilections, seething and searing through the outer folds of his malevolence; he embarked, he stoked, he incited, along a callous, heartless path, the brooding, brutal king amongst his people, unfurling from his throne. He couldn’t be subtle within the confines of his tundra, even if he’d tried, incapable of masking raptorial finesse and rapacious greed, for it was an inborn menace, driven and unleashed straight from his core: death and demise, waiting beyond Tartarean gates. Everything else remained an enigma: his thoughts, his feelings, his sentiments and ruminations; wrapped and shrouding his features in the rigid, taut veil of indifference and nonchalance, the invocation of protection he allotted himself since his first year on earth. The Reaper would have continued measuring his hours, blotting the hillsides and glaciers with his aloof presence from sunrise to sunset, composing sinuous, savage, licentious bearings, guarding, smoldering, had the familiar presence of Wynter not been granted. The monster didn’t yield to haphazard calamity as he’d done before in a thickened state of apprehension, the bonded to the ivory griffin had been taken, tortured, and the notion it could happen again, to any of his members, to any of his brethren, made the mordant embrace of his devilish contortions curl. Instead, he lifted his behemoth gaze to the fellow demon, arching one abhorrent brow, saving and bartering away all the ferocious, taciturn blends for another occasion (an intruder, perhaps, waiting in the wings for the oeuvre of Deimos’ prowess, when his sword plunged straight through their heart, when his necromancy granted them absolute iniquity). All he received in return was a cool imploring from the companion, a wave of plumes and feathers, the dusting of invitations, one more summoning towards the borders.

Whether or not this meant he’d been tamed, bought and sold to whomever’s beck and call (a price for a crown, or because his kin knew of his tumultuous curiosity, of his unrelenting intrigue?), he followed in bestial temptation, through the pine and fir trails, amongst the hedges of moss and undergrowth, never ceasing, never pausing, invoking his scrupulous, fierce, imminent procession, indiscernible, detached steps, ruthless harks, scanning the horizon for the sight, the reason, for his presence. Beneath the soulless stare of the sentinels rested Arah and an unfamiliar being – another newcomer, perhaps? – he marched in his diabolical, malignant sway, a piercing, pulsing maelstrom of domination, of supremacy, of ruin and bedlam overwhelming reckless, infidel slaughter, a rough form of a sword flanked and steeled for protection, for vigilance, for violence. Upon his infernal approach, the devilish slate of his eyes were reserved first for the Impersonator, a respective bow in place for her efforts, and swung quickly in swift, kindled recoil and grace, along the stranger. Gilded, reminding him briefly of their Thief, Roland, but unique in his other markings: a withering tree crawling, decrepit, like gnarled fingers of an outstretched bough (the fixture of haunted children’s stories, witchcraft and misery and crones shrieking, harpies in the dead mist), antlers sprouting from his brow, and a strange lantern-light hanging from its edges (his brow arched again, the breaking of his stoic prowess for just a small, minute moment, because he didn’t know what it was for, how to use it, or why a beast would have it – rising speculation and inquiries reeling in his mind, but not coiling past his lips). The sovereign passed another short bob of his skull to the stag, possessing the deep crescendo of his sinister vocals into a potent flare. “I am Deimos, Lord of the Basin.” He tilted his head, curiosity enticed and allured, continuing in the same, singular pattern as many moments before. “Who are you? What do you seek here?”