What a shame, the strange beast courted, and the Reaper couldn’t help but agree.
 
What a shame the DarkEmpress had wasted away outside their walls. What a shame she was dispatched so quickly, so easily without her soldiers, without her compatriots, alone and tarnished, tainted and ruined, a fading legend. What a shame hardly anyone around the Basin remembered, recalled, or had even known her. What a shame that history rarely spilled from their lips, what a shame Deimos, too nonchalant, too fixated, too god damn reticent never went to see her, find her, and bring her back to where she belonged.
 
His glare swept over the horizon for the barest, briefest of moments, along the raw walls and the intertwining limbs of peaks and valleys; because she’d brought them there, heralded them all from the wretched failure and loss (and then, seasons later, endured a loss herself and threw her broken crown at the Engineer’s feet – and he’d absolutely nothing to stop her). He’d been too chilling then, to focused on their bitter defeat to see beyond the measures of success and triumph; because where he’d excelled, she’d faltered and stumbled, and Ulrik had found his niche to toss it back at her – it’d gone so wretchedly wrong.
 
Deimos didn’t see her again until she was dead.
 
None of these sentiments ghosted from his mouth. None of them were transparent or tangible. They merely whispered along his skull as one of the many regrets and rues layered between Machiavellian tendencies, cold-blooded calculations, and ruthless, conniving plots. They layered themselves in between mercy and forgiveness, usually cluttered and forgotten amongst the villainous throngs pulsing and unwinding their way through his motions, his mind, his soul.
 
The stare was riveted back to the other an instant later, just as soulless, just as composed. He listened as the foreigner heralded over what they needed, then utterly barreled, harpooned into Deimos’s abilities.
 
The infidel had the strange urge to laugh. It nearly ricocheted through his throat – because this creature, this cretin, who hadn’t been there in years deigned to find fault with his rule, wanted to hear boastings, yearned to hear pledges of how the Reaper was either a master of his sovereign, of his empire, or if he’d failed just as Psyche eventually had. Oh, he could likely transcribe a whirlwind of strategies and foils that had fallen at his feet, at the defects and blustered and flaws in his design. He could herald a list of moments he’d concocted in feral acrimony, in twisted, sickening triumph.
 
But the Lucifer sculpture was not a cretin to brag – he was a man of action, of deeds and endeavors, of efforts and conduct. He would not stand there wiling away the hours and characterize the very minutia of his throne. He would not launch into tirades, spells, and concoctions of his brilliance (if there was any to be had). He would not spin the season away gesturing of exploits and prowess, bitterness and defeat. The Lord of the mountains would permit this Prometheus to view the world as it was: whether weak and futile, or determined and enduring. His lips carved a calm, indifferent haze, head gesturing towards the eternal mountains, the pernicious summits. “You will have to see for yourself.”
 
If he was to be condemned by someone who hadn’t even existed in their realm, then so be it.
 
And then he offered his counsel. A part of the beast wanted to spurn, to rebuff, the notion entirely. What and how could the infidel preside in such a position when he hadn’t even lived amidst the snow, the ice, in such a time? How could he rise to a formidable position by doing nothing - simply wandering in as the wind blew his sails?
 
Then, there was the other portion of the King who knew his flaws were grand and barbed, who knew where he failed and stumbled along, who knew what it was like to falter at every turn because he lacked something all good leaders held.
 
So he roamed in the middle, stare fixated on the bold character before him. “We are in need of spies, scholars, soldiers, and crafters.” He tilted his head, predacious and raptorial, a glorified weapon in the hands of the mountains. “If you prove successful in these ranks, perhaps you may grant us counsel again.” They all had to demonstrate their capabilities. If he questioned Deimos of his own, then surely, Deimos could question his.