She spelled and spilled out the whims and capriciousness of the past, and he bent towards them, echoing over the same armaments, the same flaws, the same defects – always forced to yield to something he had no heart for. When he craved bloodshed, the world heralded peace. When he sought sanctuary and sanctum for his sovereignty, only chaos and bedlam could be found (and he always followed after it; too enticed, too tempted, to unravel the art of virtues and paragons). What she wanted, what she aspired for, couldn’t be achieved in their decadent world; her reserve and rapture for the Moon Goddess could only be truly beckoned within the folds of the Edge (and why anyone would want to pay tribute, beg at her shrine, claw at her barbarity was unknown to him, but he knew of her deeds, her deliberations, her manipulations and murders scored across the land – she was not worth any worship). He answered as the boy drew into silence, simple and matter-of-fact, “Our herd pays reverence to the God of Time and Spark,” despite the fact that neither the Reaper nor the celestial being boasted any great sentiment for one another. Deimos challenged, Deimos mocked, Deimos gave no credence, and Deimos offered no bows; paying heed to the being’s talents, to his care of the land, but the Lord proffered his preference for his kingdom by guarding it with unholy vigilance, with dark, intrepid insistence, with hollowed, haunted pursuits and persecution. How Ming Yue courted the God would be of her own volition; the winter titan wouldn’t fill her head with contortions and distortions of his cold-blooded assignations. Instead, his gaze sought out her exhausted countenance, her tired, haggard state, and opted not to remain in her stead, continuing to clamber for bits of wisdom and reams of indulgence; not when she required strength and salvation in a world that offered little of the latter and much of the former. Blunt, keen, and entirely consumed in the oaths and aspirations of calamity, of acrimony, he bowed deeply once more to the boy and enigmatic femme, leaving them to whatever tidings may spring from ashes, from soot, from dust and decay. “I will not keep you. Explore at your convenience.” Thereafter, he gestured to the wide-open plain, to the searing, scorching wiles of wind and earth, to a land covered in ice and passion, to searing armaments and festering ruin. “Enjoy the Basin.” Then, he too disappeared into the midst of shadow and disaster, another token of the sinister world, one more being pried from the cloak and daggers of devils and fiends.