More knives, more rapiers, more blades; he wanted them all, lined and segmented and twisted into their empire’s reign, where the strength, where the persistence, where the unyielding schemes and the brutal power slid and sunk into their enduring veins. Snakes in the garden, snakes in the grass, and beasts in the shadows, in the shade, or out in the sun – relishing each and every rapture, iniquity, and reverie the intoxicating, unholy vines had to offer. But as he stared upon their newest brute, all stone, all impassivity, he couldn’t find a sanction, a section, a sector, of what the stag wanted, craved, or yearned for. Instead, they seemed to be of mirror images – beyond mere appearances – because while their builds, their hues, their horns were not of the same, their features remained in the chiseled factions of nothingness. Not a segment slid past the Reaper’s sculpted physique, and not a single thought seemed to wander along Nox’s infernal wake; and the Lord’s eyes narrowed, almost content, with the notion of another manifested like him. Would secrets slip past the stallion’s lips? Would yearnings and cravings abolish his tidings? Would he pledge loyalty, oaths, assurances, to a realm, and hold them, or eventually let those fester, ruin, become unsettled in the rush of other agonies? His thoughts muddled and contorted into various, sinuous, unwinding distortions, puzzling over the benefit of one more to the Basin’s allegiance who wouldn’t unleash every ounce of what he saw, what he witnessed, what he heard, to the rest of the world – if the beast could be trusted. What did he crave, anyway, amongst their wintry palace, their inhospitable regime, their promise of damnation and destruction? Deimos always knew what he wanted, but what the purpose behind Nox’s stare, behind his constructed reticence, beyond his parallel, carnivore discordance? Did he seek bedlam? Did he bestow havoc? Did he thrust ferocity, resolution, and raptorial compositions through unforgiving disaster? Was he as twisted, as maligned, as brutal as the rest of their shepherds, their lambs, and their wolves? The monster examined, but even his irreverence couldn’t trace over another’s heinous, reticent mask (and for half a moment, he thought to look at Rexanna’s golden face and smile; because he was suddenly, instantly amused at her findings, at her ability to presume this newcomer’s abhorrence and customs would match theirs), and ultimately, he presided in the quarters of his stoic, controlled recherché, and provided the query. “And what do you seek?” Why does one wander to the north, amongst the chilling, statuesque depravity, into a world tested time and time again, into a harsh, resentful, rancorous land? And why, what, do you hide?