Their world had been built upon secrets. They’d been honored with a kingdom, a sovereign, and growing below it, seething in the underbelly, in the dungeons, in the groves, had been cunning, disastrous wiles. Covert, furtive cloak and dagger creeds, meticulous machinations, cruel, vicious designs, upheavals and sedition, decadence and subversion – they’d clawed and scraped and chiseled their way through loss, through failures, through conquest and emerged beyond the pale with glaciers and chilling, barbaric winds; reminders of their brutality, of their allegiance to pariahs and power. Only a few recollected, only a few remained, only a few hadn’t been taken away from their rancorous manor, and he wanted to keep them within these dominating, supreme walls, where they could remember the ways things used to be, before alliances, before armistices, before he had a crown on his head, before a Reaper, a General, turned King and the world became all the more stifling. Did they look upon the Edge as he did, with haunting glimmers and poignant reminders of failure? Did they wonder about Psyche’s lost legacy, Mauja’s separation from their threshold, or all the nestled queries lying in between the dust, the runes, the labyrinths? Did she – this brindled mare who resembled so much of her father, whose Basin blood ran, curled, and coiled in the midst of all their triumphant reveries, cherish the days long gone, or the new ones just beginning to spiral? Rhiannon was one of the loyal, one of the strong, one of the confident shapes that had been molded and twisted from the fibers of their prior vocations. Her parents had been pieces of hate and malice, just like the rest of their sharp, acidic lot, fragments of a greater whole. But Crowley strayed, and Elizabeth died, and Rhiannon had become a splintered shard too – one more drifting in and out of their cold, overbearing halls, coming and going, wandering and wayfaring.
 
Did she want to stay this time? Or was she due to saunter once more?
 
His eyes were pressed only to her figure as she spoke, as she delved into the call of the peaks, as she articulated serving the empire she’d always known. The beast’s mind churned with a mass of queries and questions: why did you leave (why do they all leave?), where did you go, did it make you stronger, or did it make you simply flee, back into this dark world? None of them were voiced, none of them were given an opportunity to do anything but fester and ruin. Instead, only his nonchalant features, usually woven in ice, in reticence, in apathetic nuances, chiseled the smallest of smiles along his mouth. “I am glad to see you again.” It was the truth, and it sprung elegantly from his frame as he glanced across the lake, watched a stranger watching them – lifting his brow but saying naught more on the subject. “We are in need of crafters, spies, or soldiers.” His narrowed gaze landed firmly upon her once more, as if daring her to ask about the healing rank (which was shockingly strong and impacting; as if they presumed Basiners would forever need a large quantity of menders).
 
Rhiannon yearned for answers too, and it was oddly refreshing and satisfying to yield to conversing and discourse without having a massive impact riddled along his shoulders. There was nothing about alliances or drawn battle lines. There was naught about woven threads of their next actions, their brooding methods, their whirlwind machinations and the potential for slaughter. The King breathed in a restless breeze and conquered lingering demons, comprising a role of wisdom and sagacity instead of a molten foundation of disaster and destruction. He didn’t plunge into fibers of ruin and plundering and pillaging. He didn’t harpoon the nearest village. He didn’t topple the closest tower. There was no need for chaos, bedlam, and mayhem when reminiscing with a friend. “Only the opening of the Rift.” Deimos allowed the strange word to pass his lips before striking into his low, methodical tones again. “Four new lands have emerged. Each had a battle with a God, ours and theirs. With assistance from the Helovians, the Rift Gods were destroyed.” He almost laughed, nearly chuckled, intending to ruffle her feathers with an indication that she’d missed some range of violence and amusement. But rather than tease and taunt, he left the subject nestled and tied there, awaiting either her further curiosity or naught at all.