Malevolent and muted, he stood by the lake amidst the press of morning with naught but seditious annihilation in his heart and tiredness on his breath. Were he more capable, he would have struck carnage along the walls of his castle and presided like a true king, a conquering, sadistic beast with a taste of damnation simmering and searing along his tongue, ravaging and plundering, foolish, heedless, lavishing and relishing in the delight of a felled foe. But his muscles delayed the unholy thoughts, the acrimonious factions, and so he merely stared across the watery void – looking for something that would never be there.
 
He’d tell her, maybe, if he saw her again, how his bones had ached and how his heart felt utterly, irreverently triumphant. He’d been a persecuting, machinating tool of mayhem, and it’d been the only sonnet, the only song, the only drums he’d ever needed to hear. He’d spill the tale across his molten manifestation and she’d frown at him, always avoiding the path of his devastation and ruin, always sidling away from his consignment into oblivion – and perhaps, he would’ve laughed, just because it sounded right, to chuckle after a win, to smirk and snicker at the notion of an enemy falling to pieces, of destroying his opponent all over again.
 
The Reaper closed his eyes and imagined the rain.
 
When he opened them again, she wasn’t there. But a blackened figure was, just as desolate, just as withered as the rest of their distorted flesh. He knew him from meetings and crowds, from the pelt hanging from his mouth; had been the reason he’d mauled, the reason he’d persecuted and delighted in damnation again. But, if he’d been more vigilant, if he’d been more meticulous, the whole ferocious tale might’ve been avoided.
 
He narrowed his stare for a moment, layered it upon the scourge, and watched as he dropped herbs at his feet. The Lord, too much of a warrior and never meant for healing, hadn’t the first clue what to do with the plants – they’d likely wither and decay before he even had a chance to touch them, but he acknowledged the sacrifice with a feral nod, a devil’s distorted immersion. In ample accord, he gingerly lowered his mouth to the ground and laid the enchanted hide at Mortuus Nox’s hooves, glancing at it briefly, before reclaiming his prior position (trying not to wince as he did so). “Yours?” A restless, wicked thought beat at his skull, and he frowned briefly, chiding himself for his failures, for his defects, for the absconding that could’ve been avoided altogether. “My apologies for not protecting you properly.” He hadn’t done enough, and someone else had paid the price. The mere thought caused his jaw to unclench, his aching muscles to pulse a maddening, haunting outcry of havoc; let slip the dogs of war.
 
But a flicker of blue caught his eye, and for a second, he hoped, but she came adorned on seashells, on sand and dunes, and he knew it wasn’t Huyana. A strange, strangled sigh nettled past his lips before he could stop it, and he pretended as it if it hadn’t existed, continuing in his speech as Tiamat approached, “Be wary of the thief, Gull. He is a black and white Pegasus, and enjoys using a dagger…” The winter King then trailed off as the blue femme applied her greetings and her gifts – and lord, he couldn’t understand the weight, the length, the granules of compassion, because he was monstrous and strung by mayhem, because he hadn’t done enough and there was so much still to happen, so much more devastation to bestow, because he had spent his whole life poised for domination and cold, unholy clarity, barbs, knives, being renounced, being forsaken. That another would even bother to apply their mending ministrations to him at all caused his eyes to widen, his features to dissolve into silent contemplation. He didn’t deserve her gentle, singsong strokes, her rectitude, her honor, her concern, or either of their absolutions, sanctity, and refuge.
 
“Thank you,” was all he could proffer beyond his stunned sights, eyeing the chamomile suspiciously, as if it were a drug meant to rob him of his sanity.