The moment passed by without wretched, unwinding strain or a belligerent atmosphere – the kind he’d come to expect lately – so his skull twisted a little to the left, a little to the right, arched an all encompassing perusal and study of the femme. He didn’t know of her strength or capabilities; most of them where roughened diamonds, he’d decided, either too gruff to see past the insouciant veneers and roughened escapades, or too meticulously hidden, all cloaks and daggers. The fact that she survived amongst their brooding winter, their scowling winds, their chilling, haunting eaves and secrets meant she’d likely last the years to come, spinning away at her threads, crafting Ariadne’s silk. She didn’t narrow her eyes at him, she didn’t spew vitriol or menace, she didn’t highlight the fatal flaws, the levels of weaknesses, or try to scale his impenetrable walls. The mare merely adhered to the summons, like a curious subject, waiting for the weight of his stare and the embodiment of his treachery (what did all the tales say of him now – the wretched, detached, immoral man, the demonic, barbaric Lord who said little?), the fall of his executioner’s ax, the descent of his iniquitous scythe?

The Reaper proffered none of those things today, simply remaining as chiseled, as sculpted, as fine as the devil’s pathways, always one step closer to his nefarious, immoral statues. He stood amidst the towering arches of mountains and valleys, a piece of the warped fabric and tapestries, a restless, devouring cretin who would have swallowed and consumed the world, given half the chance to snatch, to ensnare, to ravage. Instead of the clawing, rasping, dangerous raptures and reveries he usually punctured, harpooned, and lavished upon the scenery, the beast remained placid, composed, etched by Mephistophelean hands and quandaries, puzzling over the nature of where to begin and end. A gift, he wanted to grant to her – an offering, a providence, a place and pedestal for her to waltz upon, but words had never come easy to him (not like the battlefield, with its violent, villainous upheaval, with its swords, scabbards, rapiers, and cutlasses, with its war-torn blight and pestilence, bones bleached by the sun, bodies consumed by avaricious, mercenary tendencies). Compliments had never flowed effortlessly from his mouth. Bestowals were normally given in forms of tokens taken and absconded by someone who’d deserved all the wounds and lacerations they’d received. A man of war had a most difficult time securing the ability of discourse. But he tried, regardless, because no one could say he didn’t always put forth effort into alleviating his defects, nodding his head towards the crème-based girl in an obliging of respect, then raising his gaze, pinpointing and decisive, piercing and layered with too many unspeakable things. “Johnny will need assistance in the coming days,” the King’s jaws parted on a curt, keen, blunt edge, always poised for battle instead of dialogue. “Would you be willing to become our second Weaver?”

He wondered, just briefly, if she’d say no, and he’d be forced to ponder just how wickedly he managed to fail time and time again.