Behemoth potency wrapped and lacquered in callousness, in silence, in unsung hymns of demonic contortions, flanked and regarded the eerie slinking of the sunset, the Cheshire bloom of another evening’s genesis. He drenched himself in the vestiges of the Orangemoon, coated in darkness, in death, in decadence, carving one nuance after another, one puncturing, piercing motion through the veil, the shroud, of unfortunate souls. Smoldering, rancorous, embittered by so many instances, by so many moments, he merely moved as a quaking, treacherous scythe, a blade fixated on naught but the fledgling night and the promise of desecration (because that was what he knew, that was what he could cherish: the persecution, the wrath, the contempt never left him). Too predacious, too ravenous, too consumed by other notions, other ventures, other altering decisions, he hadn’t noticed the disappearing acts his members had played until it was too late.
 
And he was always too late.
 
Vexed, irked, and irritated by the course of previous days, he hid his face behind steel and disregard, nonchalance and recherché, finding no end to the debacles, the scales of charades, the flights of foolishness, and vigilant madness. Iniquitous and annihilating, licentious and brooding, he simply brewed amidst his kingdom, presiding away from his throne, trailing through barbarous, savage, sinister pathways, misaligned and wicked, unholy and persistent. Allured and beguiled by the subtle trail of another’s scent, by the wrinkling of time and the strange, uncoiling taste of far, far, far distant memories, he traversed the vast, icy plain and simmered beneath the wake of falling snow, narrowing his gaze to stare at the glowing horizon. Only as he proceeded closer and closer, ignited under the beckoning sunset, arrayed by a sinful twist of sinuous, chilling oeuvre, did he note who wandered into their borders all over again – and as she cried out into the fuming twilight, he thought of chaos and wrath, of skulls and extermination, oddly grateful that at least one suddenly yearned to join them once more. At least someone wanted to trace the snow and bludgeon the weak. At least someone still believed in them. Didn’t they deserve it? Didn’t they claim it? Weren’t they, somehow, someway, still powerful, consuming, and devouring?
 
He breathed, he loosened, he lost the taut, rigid contortions of his flesh and sinew, and nodded towards the mare as he stood before her, yards away, another mysterious entity brought into enmity and fatality. He wanted to ask her many, many things, where she’d gone, what she’d done, why she’d drifted away (and perhaps then he could know, understand, and comprehend why others had done the same, fleeing the glacial slate and the dreams of power), but instead, because he faltered and stumbled in the same way he always had, he merely nodded, and stained the paragon whims, the virtuous flakes, with the press of his mouth and the deep coil of his tongue. "Waprevah.” The Reaper, the King, the northern Lord, only said one more phrase, and leaving the rest to the void. "You have returned?”